The Woman's Opinion

[Atari 5200]

I was thinking, and I was wondering what women thought of you or your collection when you told them about it or showed it off to them. I thought it would be interesting to see what they thought of the huge room dedicated only to gaming. Either good or bad...post here!

[segaman]

When I showed my friend Heather my game room, she asked if she could trade lives with me.

[Pantechnicon]

Ladies' reactions to my Room of Doom (http://videogamecollectors.com/gallery/The_Pantechnicon) have ranged from confused, but polite, indifference all the way to "Omg this is soooo cool!". Contrary to expectations I've never had a negative reaction to it from women.

Being married myself, most of the women who see my collection are married or otherwise in a relationship so the context to which they approach the thing is somewhat more reserved. It mostly boils down to wives and/or mothers being amused at how their husbands and kids come a `runnin in to the Room of Doom and then never want to leave whenever it's time to leave.

Also, younger women (i.e. - under 30) appreciate my collection more than older women, but I think this is just a generational thing.

When I think about it; if you are trying to use your collection as a means of impressing a girl towards a romantic there's absolutely nothing wrong with this provided you stick to a couple of suggestions:

1) Make it clean & well-organized - I shouldn't have to explain why. This will show at least that you have the capacity to care that something in your house looks presentable and orderly.

2) Make it personal - Show her a couple of items that have some sentimentality attached to them e.g. - Hold up a copy of SMB3 and talk about how you used to play it with your mom during the summer. That'll go a lot further than trying to wow her with your straight-from-Ebay sealed copy of Panzer Dragoon Saga.

[Jumpman Jr.]

Contrary to expectations I've never had a negative reaction to it from women.

Same with me.
Every girl I show usually gives me the "Oh my god, I can't beleive this! How many games do you own?!" When I tell them that I have every "Original Nintendo" game ever made, they usually say something like "How many are there? Like 100?"
But yeah, I couldn't really imagine anybody (even a girl) thinking that my collection isn't cool. It might be geeky, but they always realize that its my thing.

[Kevincal]

It probably all depends...If it's a women who you get along with well/ a new girlfriend, SURE she'll act like its great and all....BUT, if it's an old wife or an old girlfriend and the relationship is getting sour, she'll be telling everyone what a loser you are with all of your kids games etc etc... ;)

[gum_drops]

It probably all depends...If it's a women who you get along with well/ a new girlfriend, SURE she'll act like its great and all....BUT, if it's an old wife or an old girlfriend and the relationship is getting sour, she'll be telling everyone what a loser you are with all of your kids games etc etc... ;)


I partly agree here. People will tend to keep their opions reserved when you are right there in front of them even if they think its odd or geeky.

[Wavelflack]

I don't remember ever having a negative reaction from a woman. I tend to think that obsessive things like collections only accentuate or amplify a person's geek/loser tendencies, rather than establishing them.
You just have to make sure there is nothing to amplify...





I was going to stop there, because it sounded like a fine, arrogant place to stop. However, I'll continue a bit.

The biggest key to not turning people off (not just chicks, but even your friends) with your personal manias is to let the other person determine how to digest and enjoy these things. If you drag them downstairs and start telling them how cool this is and how rare that is (etc.), you deserve to have your phone collecting dust.

Anyway, I've found that the least abrasive way to interact with ANYONE that shows an interest in my game collection is to be a bit absentminded. For instance:

(girl)--"Wow! You have so many games! Do you have Mario?"

1. [electronics store geek reply]--"Of course. It doesn't matter what you mean by 'Mario', I've got it. Even for the CDi, if you know what that is."

2. [absentminded me]--"Yeah, I think so. Let's look."

[retroman]

Most guys who see my room. Jaws hit the floor...its like a gaming palace. My wife on the other hand thinks i need to grow up...Im only 28..what the hell.

[The_Kodiak65]

my girlfriend loves the amount of games.....when i first told her i had an arcade, she jumped me.... :D

[exit]

The usual reaction I get from girls is "HOLYSHIT IS THAT A NINTENDO?!", which results in them playing Mario 3.

[ubersaurus]

Reactions have varied from "I want to play some of this stuff now!" to "it's probably not a good idea to stack consoles like that..."

[Damaramu]

The wifey loves it. Kickbacks you know? She's an RPG geek. Heh...she's out in the living room playing Shadow Hearts: Covenant as I type this.

Her only gripe is that I'm in a constant state of "organizing" my collection and it's all over the bedroom. But she loves the games....should've seen her face when I surprised her with a copy of Kid Icarus.

[qbertandernie]

i get a lot of 'how many of these games have you played?'

to which i have to reply 'not quite 5%'.

most people - male or female - dont get invited into the game room, simply because i dont have it to show off. i really have this stuff because it makes me happy, and i expect most people to not understand it. my now ex-girlfriend likes to show it off, because she thinks its awesome. if she is around when people come over she usually makes me take them into the room, regardless of how well i know them. even those people seem excited to see that many games, and often try to find their favorites from when they were kids - be it atari, nes, snes or genesis. ive only had a few people seem genuinely not interested, and those were usually girlfriends of friends that were sent to the room by my exgirlfriend.

i try not to be friends with people who would frown on my interests anyway, so the majority of people who go into the game room, regardless of gender, arent commonly the type of people to look down on anyone.

[tom]

When I was happily married, my wife purchased games for us (Our VCS love was mutual).
She finished River Raid (up to the exclamation marks), finished Mario Bros with me in 2-player mode, played H.E.R.O., Kangaroo, Enduro, all the good stuff.

She purchased a huge amount of Pokemon stuff when I started a Pokemon collection.
Basically she was cool.

Now after I'm divorced, I only pick up girls for the weekend (just to shag), and as I posted in the other link, they usually go: Wow, amazing games collection, can I play?

[Borman]

I dont have many things up here in college, but the girls that come over to hang out love the game stuff I have here, even if its mostly modern stuff. These girls are awesome though so :P

[icbrkr]

My wife wakes me up on Saturday mornings and says "we need to go game hunting.. now!". Then we drive a few hundred miles looking for stuff in the collection. She frequently buys me homebrews for christmas and all sorts of other, hard-to-get geeky things whenever she comes across em. She's got her own Wii, DS, DS Lite, Gamecube. I caught her playing Saint's Row on the 360 the other day.

She's going for a complete NES collection.

So what does she think of the whole thing? I'm thinking she likes it.

[Captain Wrong]

Well, my fiancee bought me my Missle Command cabinet, so I guess that says something. LOL

[cyberfluxor]

First glance they're always amazed at the games I own (although not as large as some on here) and want to just play something. They get the feeling they're in the room of a geek obviously from all the computers, electronics, games, movies and all sorts of other things. Some of my friends girlfriends like to hang-out at my place because there's generally more things to do and it's free! I plan later down the road when I have my own place to have a dedicated gaming room, another for music and have a DJ rig setup, and a small theater room. I know how hard it is to do this due to money, limited space and other factors but I don't plan to make them grand halls or anything really fancy plus I have a few friends that are real good at constuction and wouldn't mind helping out, so it'll be a little add-on project down the road (especially since I don't even have my own place yet!).

[All Things Sega]

The wife loves games but even she says I go overboard sometimes. People generally are amazed. The younger they are, the more impressed and less likely they are to leave the room LOL Funny part is I don't go bragging about my room or showing it off. I use it to play games and take a break away from the world. The wife is the first one to show the room to people and I just act innocent. Hard to act that way when she tells them theres over 7000 games. So when they ask to see or play a certain game, I always say to help me look for it since its in alphabetical order but don't remember if I have it or not. Good way to not come across as some lunatic and also break the ice for newbies. Women in general never had a negative thing to say about the room but noticed they loved playing the old school games they grew up playing. That's the first thing they go for, never fails. You never outgrow them I've noticed.

[kaedesdisciple]

I was toying around with the idea of selling my collection off, and my fiancee effectively told me "Don't you dare!" She appreciates how much work I've put into it and she refuses to see me sell it. Of course she loves playing with some of it, too :)

[Kevincal]

My wife wakes me up on Saturday mornings and says "we need to go game hunting.. now!". Then we drive a few hundred miles looking for stuff in the collection. She frequently buys me homebrews for christmas and all sorts of other, hard-to-get geeky things whenever she comes across em. She's got her own Wii, DS, DS Lite, Gamecube. I caught her playing Saint's Row on the 360 the other day.

She's going for a complete NES collection.

So what does she think of the whole thing? I'm thinking she likes it.

Does she have a sister? lol :D

[mailman187666]

Female friend from highschool years after highschool: "Wow, this is pretty impressive, I used to love to play xxxxxx and xxxxxxx."

ex GF who was trying to get back with me: "I used to love _________ do you have that one.", "I like the vids too."

hot older girl (I'm 24) I was trying to get with: "show me some of them.", "Thats cool that you have something you are interested in and passionate about."

friend's girlfriend who I think is bi-polar and is snotty at times: "yeah mailman, I was gonna say your room is starting to get pretty bad."

my girlfriend, "wow you have a lot." (but obviously she doesn't care that much since she helps me look for them at flea markets and I don't force her to watch me play them.) I did ask her if I collected Star Wars action figures if she'd still be my GF and she said "hell no, the vids aren't that bad cuz you don't force me to watch them/play them all the time."

any other girls that have come into my room I've either not pointed anything out to them and they just didn't say anything. Other times if its someone i don't know well, I show them and kinda say something along the lines of "yeah I'm kinda of a game collector nerd, but I can't help it cuz it's something I've always been interested in." and they kinda just say something like, "hey you've got your games like I've got my *insert collection/hobby here."

all in all, I still occasionally have cute girls flirt with me and have a really attractive girlfriend so I'm not to worried about what they think of the collection. I find girls that are more down to earth are more interested in the fact that you have an innocent hobby rather than being a drunken asshole.

[katchoo]

/me thinks about the first time I saw PapaStu's collection....

O_O

"ZOMG - that's a lot of games in a little room....plus it's kinda dusty in here. Oh wait, those are double stacked?? (uhhhh....)"

:D

Did it make me run in the other direction? Nope. Did it make me wish for some floor to ceiling shelving units - you betcha. As long as they have a spot to be put away in (i.e. not the living room floor), it's all good! In fact, I prefer having a whole room of doom, so that it can all be kept together. :)

[Haoie]

The only girl who's seen my collection is my sis [the collection isn't really visible], and she doesn't care much for it.

Unsurprisingly.

[Zadoc]

I was thinking, and I was wondering what women thought of you or your collection when you told them about it or showed it off to them. I thought it would be interesting to see what they thought of the huge room dedicated only to gaming. Either good or bad...post here!


I don't show it off to my girl friends. :)

[FAN8228]

I keep my collection hidden, and the only girl that has ever seen it doesn't mind it at all. But then again, it's really not that big of a collection, I just recently got into it when this nerdy guy I work with recommended FF XII to me. LOL

[Red Hedgehog]

I haven't gotten any huge responses either way when women see my collection. Often they'll ask if I have a favorite game of theirs from their youth or how many games I have, but that's about it.

[PapaStu]

O_O

I only get that look now when you look at the piles of games next to my desk (1 pile), or under my desk (4 piles), or on the desk(1 pile) and those in the living room (2 piles). Or when I mention that I just bought some additional games that will go to make sed piles just a tad bit larger. I can't wait however to see that *drool* look when you come home to find a AES 4slot sitting somewhere.

Other friends that happen to be women that have seen/know about my collection/addiction/money vaccum tend not to mind. They just know that if theres something that they want to play or know about that I'll either have it, have played it or know where to get it, or have already picked it up for them.

[cessnaace]

My wife on the other hand thinks i need to grow up...Im only 28..what the hell.


Hey,

My wife thinks that I need to grow up too, and I'm...48! Hell!

LOL!


Mark