Every few years, my girlfriend has the odd habit of booting up her old computer and getting obsessed with The Simulations for a few weeks. Of course, by the time this phase of her hyper-fixation comes around again, E-Ay Games has released a bunch of new DLC packs and she manages to convince me that buying a handful of them for $60 is a great deal to make our dream house as amazing as possible – never mind the fact that she will be designing a new dream house in a couple more years, ad infinitum.
What I wasn’t expecting this time was that playing The Simulations would make her become obsessed with the idea of being a real architect. She wants to go back to uni and study, even though architecture students find themselves so busy that they have to sleep under their desks. I said, “Aren’t there enough architects close to Melbourne already?”, but she wasn’t having any of it. Sometimes it’s really hard being her girlfriend.
I want to be supportive of her dreams – I really do. But there’s part of me that just can’t shake the feeling that this will be another filmmaking, ancient history or psychology degree. I’m sure she would be great at offering expert residential architectural services, but is she really going to go through with it? All because she felt inspired by our latest dream house built in The Simulations? I hope she realises that real architecture is nothing like a video game with way too much DLC.
Ultimately, though, I have to trust her. If this is what she wants for her future – for our future – who am I to stand in her way? I’ll try my best to make sure she has really thought this through and raise my concerns, but ultimately it is her decision. If she gives it a go and decides it’s another thing that isn’t for her, I will be here to offer all the support I can. That’s all I can do, really.