Why Gaming With the Person You're Dating Can Benefit Your New Relationship
It can also be a good way to get to know someone.
If you are dating during the current pandemic situation, it can be pretty difficult to come up with things to do with the person you're dating, where social distancing means that a lot of events have been canceled and a lot of places you may normally think of going on a date may not be open, or may not really have a good atmosphere at the moment where everybody is kept apart and has to wear masks. While this makes going out and doing things together with someone you're getting to know more difficult, it does mean that doing things like having online dates where you do something like play a game or explore a virtual world together have become a lot more normal.
Gaming with someone you're dating is not only a fun way to hang out together during the pandemic, but it can also be a good way to get to know someone. Getting into doing fun, playful stuff together at the start of a relationship is definitely a good habit to take into your ongoing relationship, too.
Here, we look at why gaming with the person you're dating is good for you, whether it's now in 2020 where a lot of the usual options are off the table, or just in the general course of a relationship:
Photo by Soumil Kumar , Top image: JESHOOTS.com
The Couple That Plays Together, Stays Together
It is an age old saying, and probably didn't originally refer to Fortnite or Overwatch, but it has long been known that doing fun, recreational stuff together with someone makes your bonds stronger, and keeps you feeling warm towards them. It can be easy in a relationship to end up being bogged down by the stresses and demands of things like work, family and finances, and to lose sight of the importance of just enjoying spending time together and having fun.
When you regularly play something together that takes you out of the mundane things going on in your lives and allows you to focus on just enjoying something together, you remain a stronger unit. This can apply to sports and other types of games too, but online gaming gives you a way to start your new relationship off with this positive way of spending time together already at the forefront, with no real pressure or need for a lot of organization.
Creating Memories
One of the best things about gaming is that it inherently lends itself to unique things happening, and even if you took a thousand people who had all played the same game, they would all have different stories. Having shared memories and stories with someone is a good way to feel connected to each other quickly, leading to being able to have inside jokes and things to reminisce about later. When you're out having coffee or dinner, it's not really guaranteed that anything surprising or funny will happen that will help to break the ice and give you that shared memory to reference, but in a game world designed to be full of secrets and where you're doing strange things anyway, you can be sure you'll get some stories out of your date.
Photo by Lucie Liz
Excitement
It is another tried and tested theory that people are more attracted to others when they are doing something with them that feels exciting, transferring the attribution of why they feel a spike in adrenaline to the presence of that person, rather than the situation. This is why things like high landmarks and theme park rides that give people a little thrill are popular choices for dates. If you and your date are both into the game you are playing, then you can get a similar feeling of excitement during gameplay when the stakes feel artificially high. Fighting a boss together in a game or taking on a dangerous quest as a pair in an MMO can definitely give you those intense feelings of excitement and interest without having to go anywhere.
Shared Interests
Gaming is a really popular thing these days, and no longer has the stigma it perhaps used to of being for kids or for not being very appealing to women. These days, gaming is as big of an industry as any other form of entertainment media, and so it is easy to find a genre of games you enjoy and franchises you can become a big fan of, whatever type of thing you generally enjoy. Because gaming really is an interest rather than just a way of passing the time, it makes for something you and your new partner can be into together, and having a hobby you both like definitely makes you more compatible. If you are already really into gaming and view it as an essential that the people you date are too, then you can even try Gamer Dating, a dating app specifically for people from the gaming community. There you can find other people with a passion for gaming who will certainly be likely to enjoy the idea of some gaming dates!
Photo by cottonbro
Whether you're just trying out introducing online gaming into your social life during the pandemic, or you already loved gaming before all of this, it is definitely a good way to spend time when you are dating, and one that can help bring you closer together as well as be a lot of fun.
Connect with Facebook