So, what do couples who don’t game (or, especially if only one of them does) do?  Every now and then when we don’t have anything super exciting to do together we end up staring blankly at one another going “uh, ok, what do normal people do?”.   Obviously people do all the things people do like watch movies and uh… watch TV… and…hm.  But these are really passive activities.  You can, of course have a pretty stimulating chat after the fact about a movie and to some degree with the better class of TV (post-The Wire reflection sessions come to mind).  But that’s not really alllllllll that gripping.  So what do other people out there do to have stimulating, interactive, dynamic conversations/activities with their beloved?  Or, do most people not expect this level of interaction from their partner?  Is this what work and hobbies and friends and all that provides and their hunny is just a nice squashy warm thing in bed who sometimes does fun stuff with you?  We are perplexed.   Although, I will say that back in the day I was observing the three ring circus that was my then-boyfriend’s family.  His brother had gotten caught cheating by his wife (bro was a total slimeball and wifey was a bit of a ditz, but I digress) and instead of having really rigorous counseling or, you know, divorcing, what did they do? They had another kid.  At the time I didn’t even begin to understand the logic there.  Now, while I WHOLEHEARTEDLY DISAGREE with the solution to their problem, I can kinda understand how, in the face of wanting to feel more connected to your spouse, wanting to have a sense of a shared project, a bigger purpose, something to be a team together on, a kid kinda fits the bill.  Especially if you’re too disconnected and emotionally immature enough to not be able to sit down and talk about what’s going on, which sadly I don’t imagine the couple in my little vignette were able to do.

So what do people do, asides from, you know, play games and have kids.  Oh, and fight and then have make up sex, because that totally adds drama and interaction too.  All we’ve been able to come up with as a regular thing is we (especially when we were still in MN where things are open past 7pm) would go out for a coffee and would do a crossword or three. We’ve gotten adequate at the NYT crossword puzzle and we are well enough matched in terms of vocabulary and random trivia that they are pretty fun to do jointly.