Video Games + Girlfriend = You Just Dont Know

Yo! My name is Keno. I am a competitive gamer in the Street Fighter 4 scene and with that comes a lot of time spent practicing. I can easily play at the arcade for 8+ hours with no break. I am that dedicated to doing what I do. Normally I am attending tournaments at AI (Arcade Infinity). Those tournaments usually run 9 hours. The arcade is loud, full of guys, and foul language. On the other hand it also has some of the most interesting people you will ever meet. This is my life style. Seems awesome so far, now I bring my lovely girlfriend Teresa into the picture. She works roughly 4-5 days a week and wants nothing more than to come home and spend some time with me or go out for a night of adventure. On her few days off I usually have Street Fighter 4 related activities. You see us at arcades together quite often and we are all smiles. There is the other side that YOU JUST DONT KNOW! Now I shall rewind this story to the beginning. Im gonna start off and say this now, I love my girlfriend so much. I appreciate all the support you show me everyday. I LOVE YOU BABE! You are sitting right next to me playing that damn sims game at 5:33 in the morning just like a game nerd! Okay moving on! My girlfriend and I have been dating for over a year now. I had a job and she went to school Monday through Friday. At the beginning of the relationship we would see eachother once a week roughly because of my working schedule typically gave me one weekedn day off every two weeks so seeing eachother wasnt common. We started talking in the month of May. So as time goes by we love eachother and never had a single dispute. Always smiles and on the same page. Then comes the month of November! I was a computer technician employed by the awesome company CIRCUIT CITY that is now shut down! YYEEAAAHHHHH! Early in the month of november everyone was told that Circuit City was going to close 257 stores I believe. My store was one of them. So I worked through the liquidation process and our last day was December 23, 2008. After that time I filed for unemployment and I still am on it, siiiickkk. With this new found wealth and free time I could visit my girlfriend more. She still had school through the weekdays and didnt return home until 5pm. On Fridays and Saturdays would be our days to hang out. Fridays 5PM-10PM, Saturdays 11AM-10PM. Thats A LOT of time to spend together. We loved every moment we had together. We rarely went out. Enjoying each others company was enough to keep us happy. So things go well and in the month of February everything begins to change. Up until this time my girlfriend was aware of what I do for a hobby and she knows I am pretty good at it. I would explain to her what its like but I would always tell her its not the same unless you experience it. At first towards the later part of 08 I was becomming a better player. In 09 thats when my talent really went up to another level. So now I am pretty well known and performs well in tournaments and I tell my girlfriend to go with me to the arcade to see what its like. I take her to Video94. An awesome arcade that I played at exclusively. She went and pretty much was said "this is it?" She sits on a bucket in the back corner and watches for an hour. She says she never wants to do it again. Nobody talked to her and I am in my own little world. She had a taste of the life and didnt like it, as I expected. I felt everyone deserves to experience it once. So February gets towards the end and thats when my girlfriend moves in with me. This right here is the biggest factor in this relationship in my opinion. From here on things begin to change! Oh by the way if you have read this far you are awesome ^_^. So my girlfriend moves in and everything is fine so far. We are getting use to each others habits and its fine. My girlfriend decides to come and watch a tournament that I am entering. The tournament is the AI Season 2 Warm Up Tournament. She goes and this tournament lasted roughly 8 hours. She had never experienced anything like this. She didnt understand the game too much and didnt know what was going on. All she knew was what character I was and understood some of the hype. I am proud to WIN the first tournament my girlfriend watched me play. It was Gootecks and I in the finals. I was in the winners bracket the whole tournament! So after the tournament she congradulates me and we proceed to go to Banana Bay. So now my girlfriend is intrigued by what I do. She then accompanies me to more tournaments. A month more we begin to have some problems, BAD PROBLEMS. We have had arguments that threatened our relationship. A good two handfull of arguments that was a hair away from causing a break up. The topic of the argument ... Street Fighter! At this time my girlfriend isnt attending school and is working. She worked 5 days a week at this time. Now that she stays with me I need to remember that she needs attention and not just ignore her. At the same time there are some things that I do that are appart of my daily routine. I usually play video games for hours and go to the arcade till 4AM in the morning. Those things I had to cut down on because its the right thing to do. My typical mind state is if I dont want to go somewhere im not going. If I am tired then I am going to sleep. I usually would stay home and play games and that leaves my girlfriend with no activites. She isnt fond of the game to the point she will play it so we begin to bump heads. She wants to go out and do things or to talk. I want to practice so I can continue climbing the ranks in my SF4 scene. She doesnt want to spend her 2 days off going with me to tournaments. There are arguments about me feeling she is tying to change me and control me. There were some of her feeling that I choose a video game over my girlfriend and am inconsiderate. This goes on for another month until we both say that this is what were going to do and thats that. My girlfriends decides that the only way to save this relationship is for her to get into Street Fighter. She feels that it will help her understand and be able to participate and not be a spectator. I begin teaching her things and she realizes that it is WAY harder than she thought. She found respect for what I do and was proud of my skills. As time goes on she became a good player and is still learning. She shows some amazing talent that some seasoned players dont even have. We dont argue that much about it anymore. For the most part we go to the arcade willingly and happily and have a great time. All of my friends in the community like her and she feels they are awesome. From time to time we do have little arguments about Street Fighter but the understanding is better now. She knows that I go to AI tournaments no matter what. Thats my thing. If there is extra tournaments I will see and determine from there. I admit I do need to take her out more than just stay in the house. I am turning her into me. A game playing maniac. But hey thats not so bad is it? We have many Street Fighter related jokes. My girlfriend calls ChunLi's Spinning Bird Kick the Upside Down Slut Kick LOL! Currently we are stronger than ever and are one of the cutest couples id like to say. Things were not too easy and definately were hard at times. Understanding and the will to show interest is what has us together today. And now were IN-DE-STRUCT-ABLE!! .... no ones gonna stop us now. In-de-struct-able .. gonna keep em comin. In-de-struct-able ... the LAST MAN STANDIIIIING lol!