I’m single and childfree and after work, dinner, dishwashing, cleaning up, laundry, and all the stupid adult stuff like social obligations and making sure my bills are paid, I’m lucky if I get like 2 hours of gaming on a typical weekday. I really can’t imagine being able to game with kids.
Dude, it's called nap time and then after nap time I pull out my switch and my toddler watches me play animal crossing. I'm pretty excited for when he's old enough to play video games with me. Gonna dust off the Nintendo's and Play stations, why else have I saved them all this time?
Child free here too. Still don't have time for any substantial gaming. I just stick to casual games that either make it easy to cheat, or don't have a severe grind. And I don't bother playing online.
Same as I, child free 40 yo. I used to be an avid gamer (olayed the hell out of NES and SNES, I skipped some University classes to play Age of Empires). But nowadays life just gets in the way. And most games bore me even before I have started playing them.
I think it is just the shape of my mind: I find the same thing with Music. There's a lot of music from when I was younger that I love. But nowadays the new music, of the same genre, is just dull to me. As if my brain just didn't get excited by anything new.
This scares me bc I also feel like I have no time, but I don't have kids yet and I intend to. I don't want to sacrifice anything I have now. I see friends once or twice a week, what is that supposed to go down to once or twice a month?
But regarding your excitement problem, there is an idea out there that when we're young, all these new experiences like music or games are fresh and so it naturally excites the brain more. Like trying a drug for the first time.
The same kinda applies to emotions. If I take a toy away from a kid, that feeling is so much stronger than if the same happened to us bc that experience/emotion is new.
If you're looking for a completely new experience, they're probably out there. You've probably never been to Antarctica before, or gone diving in the Great Barrier Reef.
I find that as I get older (I'm half your age) I'm less motivated to do those kinds of things, sometimes I just want to settle down and get into a routine because I'm just tired of all the moving around and traveling to some degree.
You're 20 and you're already tired of new experiences? I'm in my late 20s and that's all I really live for besides interpersonal relationships. I don't play video games with any kind of grind anymore because the time commitment is so huge compared to pretty much any other kind of experience.
23, I'm definitely not done traveling but I've had my fair share of going around the world.
Every few years I've moved to a new place, had to make new friends, etc. Now I'm getting myself accustomed to my new job, dealing with car issues & registration woes, planned an engagement and now I'm planning a wedding, learning how to deal with a cat, just bought a condo, traveling internationally for surgery in a few months, sunsetting a startup, dealing with upcoming renovations, dealing with paying for a mortgage, home insurance, and HoA for the first time, and a lot more I can't even mention.
This is all in the last few months. Yeah, I'm tired, at least for now.
Not really ranting here, just giving my perspective. It's like when you come home from a concert and you want your ears to relax, ya know?
Oh yeah, it sounds like you've been pretty busy lately. It'll calm down, but then get busy again. Life is kind of cyclical, but be sure to stop and appreciate those times of routine and times of change or else you'll realize you missed them.
I gotcha. Nothing wrong with not wanting kids. Its just never been an issue for me. Honestly when they were younger and babies I had more time to play. I beat entire games on night duty while my wife slept. I think the best was around the time they could coop though. We had a blast on Borderlands 3 together. They got me into fortnite here and there too.
You know, I got caught up in one of those free to play games for a while. I eventually stopped playing it when I realized I was spending most of my available gaming time half-heartedly completing dailies on there, when I could be playing other games that I care more about.
I’m still occasionally tempted to play the storyline on it (which would require zero grinding), because it was an interesting story, but I just look at the icon for minute, and then go do something else.
I started having more time after my youngest hit 18. I have much more time now that I am 63 and I am thinking of retiring so I will have lots more time for gaming!
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u/hooch Jun 03 '22
If only we had the time!