RAWR!
I keep finding that gamers over and over again get the same reputation in the way of 'finding love'. Gamers can't get a girlfriend/boyfriend. Gamers don't get laid. Blah Blah.
I think this is basically due to two things. Firstly, a lot of gamers game to escape the 'real world', and to get away from people or things in their lives. Some people don't just play because it is fun, but because it is a distraction from that which they don't want to think about.
Because of this, a lot of the same gamers, tend to be reclusive. People like to say, "All the good ones are taken," about finding Mr./Ms. right. All the good ones aren't taken; just, a lot of us are gamers and don't get out much.
Many gamers would rather be gaming than at a pub or in a club with loud music and sweat smells and jostling humans everywhere. It isn't that they don't want to be in a relationship, it is just, that the kind of person they would want to be in relationship with they most likely wouldn't meet at places like that.
It makes it harder to find someone in the first place, since the person you are looking for, as a Geek, is another Geek, who, just like yourself, doesn't get out much.
The second issue, and I see this a lot, is gamers get with someone, and that someone, rather than accepting EVERYTHING about the gamer, including their gaming, instead, thinks, "I can change them" and thus huge issues occur. Most gamers game everyday. A lot are like me and play 4 hours min a day. You try to take that away, and it is like trying to take eating away, or art from an artist, music from a musician. It doesn't work. The gamer becomes sullen and depressed and anxious. The relationship fails. A lot of people who are gamers will only date another gamer due to this. I see a lot of gamer with gamer relationships work, but it isn't really that most of them game together. It is the respect for the gaming.
I do know some people who have relationships that work very well that have a gamer and someone who is not a gamer together, but the person who doesn't game respects that the gamer needs to game just as much as the gamer respects the other person's hobby. For instance, a friend of mine has 6 kids with her husband, and they seem to have a happy marriage. She games min 2 hours a day, and he watches Star Trek while she is gaming. She thinks Star Trek is fine, but would rather game. He thinks there isn't anything wrong with gaming, but would much rather watch Star Trek. They do other things together, and as a family, but they dedicate time to each other's hobbies, and do their own thing for a couple hours and feel refreshed. Chasing your partner around all day (not to mention kids) can be mentally draining for anyone. This is their mutual escape time. Neither tries to deny the other doing what they enjoy.
I have met people who found out I was a gamer and automatically dropped the whole dating thing just because of that. I have met people who thought it wasn't a big deal at first and then changed their minds later, having secretly been hoping I would change. I have met those who were gamers and discovered that all we had in common really was gaming. I have turned a girlfriend into a gamer before just by her playing with me cuz I liked it and she wanted to try. Shrug. It all comes back to the same thing in the end.
Just let people be themselves and you be yourself and the relationship will work if they do the same.
