Seven Years, a Controller, and No Ring
“Dear Holly, my boyfriend refuses to propose. We’ve been together seven years. I’m 30, no kids, and he’s still playing video games. He has a good job but spends all his free time with his controller and his buddies. Am I wasting my life away?”
Oh, sweetheart. You’re not writing to me—you’re writing to yourself. You already know the answer, but you just need someone else to say it out loud so you can stop pretending the Xbox is a personality trait.
Seven years is a long time to “see how things go.” That’s longer than most pets live, two presidential terms, and approximately a million Saturday nights of you waiting for him to put down the controller and pick up a clue. If he wanted to marry you, he would’ve proposed by now—probably sometime between “Call of Duty 4” and “Call of Duty 27.”
Look, I’m not anti-gamer. My own husband went through a “let’s build an empire” phase during lockdown that involved medieval armor, digital crops, and a suspicious number of late-night raids. But he still made dinner, talked about real life, and remembered that I existed outside of his fantasy village. The problem isn’t the games—it’s that your boyfriend’s playing one with your future.
You’ve hit 30, which is prime “What am I doing with my life?” hour. It’s not about an expiration date—it’s about direction. You don’t sound mad that he’s not proposing. You sound heartbroken that he’s not growing. That’s the real wound. You’re out here thinking about marriage, family, next steps—he’s out here collecting virtual trophies and probably bragging about “his stats.”
And yes, you could wait another year. You could have another round of “maybe after his next promotion” or “maybe after he beats this level.” But that’s just you postponing your own happiness, holding your breath for a man who’s perfectly comfortable where he is.
Ask him—calmly, without the mascara tears—what he wants long-term. Not in a “nagging girlfriend” way, but in a “grown woman who knows what she deserves” way. If his answer sounds like, “I don’t know,” then congratulations, you’ve just found your answer.
Love shouldn’t feel like a waiting room. You can’t move forward if he’s still stuck pressing “pause.” Let him play his games, darling. But you don’t have to keep playing his.