Game 4 A Date?

A dating website came to my attention recently that is purpose built for video gamers. Not being single or into internet dating I decided to let this piece of ‘news’ slide. However in this Jeremy Kyle Bear Baiting society we live in I saw it fitting to give it a go (and by give it a go I mean force my girlfriend to make a profile and let mayhem ensue).

The site has been created by Future Publishing who run the intellectually profound Edge magazine…so already something is up. They say “Are you looking for a dating site that connects you with people just as passionate about games as you in your area? Online dating doesn’t need to be such a hassle; we’ve gone and made it all really, really easy. Game 4 A Date is a dating site designed just for you, helping you to find that someone special who shares a zeal for games.”

Nevertheless I felt this was a social ‘experiment’ worth sticking to for a number of reasons. Firstly, would anyone on the site actually want to talk about video games? Would the presence of a video game playing female insight mass-feral orgies? And why video games? Solely targeting video gamers makes large assumptions that those whole like to kick back and play Halo are sexless nerds who crave this sort of thing. Maybe that’s the point however, I just hope not.

It was better to use my girlfriend as bear bait because I know all too well how males react when a female (gasp) is found to play video games. Spend an hour on Xbox Live and as soon as girl/woman enters the game you’re playing, within 5 minutes she’ll be bombarded with downright dirty and socially defunct propositions…and that’s just because she’s female! These people don’t care about age, sexuality or appearance. So in that vain the aim of this experiment is not to slate online dating or video game players but to prove a point that if you combine a woman with video games all hell is likely to break loose.

So here is a little snippet of Laura’s profile:                                                                    

“I’m currently studying a degree in Illustration and Animation (I love Manga and graphic novels). I live in Manchester, and I love it. I’m sweet, kind and caring, but at the same time a little on the wild side. I’m very spontaneous and I don’t like playing by the rules. I’m looking for a man to break the rules with me and show me their wild side. My favourite games include WoW, GH3, Rock Band (1&2) and Fable II.”

So we’re ticking the boxes here. Girl- check, manga-check, wild side- check, video games-check. Within an hour Laura had been winked at and messaged (this was without a profile picture). At the end of the week she had received some unsual and downright grammatically incorrect private messages, like these:

“breakin the rule is fun to at imes check utube typ in the naughtyboys at the boardwalk and again at the free trade hall i was the drummer in the band an if you like the wild side an like to play grownup games then get in touch yea ill show you how to have some real fun?an break a few rules to? email me at -blam!- dont forget mail”

The only editing I did was to remove his email. This man is 37 and according to his profile he’s married and has 2 kids. I am still shivering. So after not replying he sent another message:

“im no feak i swear just tell me to naffoff if ive offended you aproching you ?with the age difference i mean only age means nowt to me just block an barr me if you dont like me but ide rather you told me first im a bigboy now n can take rejection well lol”

This has to be a hoax right? Manchester Uni’s student magazine must be running a rival feature…right?

So out of 13 private messages only 1 mentioned video games. The rest were a mix of ‘Hi how are you’ and ‘I’d like to play you’ ‘I’d rock….your…band’ sort of thing.

In conclusion Game-4-a-Date is just another dating site designed for god knows who. So if you really want to find your video game playing soul mate, either look elsewhere, or you can check it out for yourself.

Joshua ‘JD’ Douglas-Walton