# No-No:s for adult men **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 26, 2011, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093 "2011-03-26T22:13:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/21 "2011-03-27T01:37:04Z")
I actually don’t think your list is horrible, but why\* is \*the “no video games” thing on it? Is watching TV or movies also banned? What about board games? ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/22 "2011-03-27T01:48:56Z")
Experiment with fashion. Ok, you can get away with it if you’re uber confident or whatever, but for average joe acting average…he’ll get ridiculed…even if he looks really good. ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/23 "2011-03-27T01:59:15Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > How do all of the married adult men that you know view it? > > Best wishes, My husband and I play video games… together. We’re 32. My dad plays them and he’s 56. ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/24 "2011-03-27T02:10:32Z")
Eat ice cream in public. Betray any interest in history that is not political or military. Speak in asides or one-liners. Act affectionate towards cats. Wear two-tone shoes when not playing golf. I speak from experience here. I do all these things. ---
**Author:** ![Drain\_Bead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e47774/32.png) [@Drain\_Bead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drain_Bead)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/25 "2011-03-27T02:26:48Z")
Jorts. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/848f3c/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_Dunlop)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/26 "2011-03-27T02:27:03Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > This shows you to be pretty out of touch with what men do. You might as well have put ‘masturbate’ in your no-no list. It depends on the type of men you run with. I’m 27 and I don’t think a single man I’m friends with plays video games or has regularly in at least 10 years. We don’t look down on men who do play video games though, like **scamartistry** does. It never comes up. Occasionally women have said they love that i don’t play video games, but I can`t recall ever discussing video games with my men friends in any context since I was about 14. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/27 "2011-03-27T02:30:06Z")
> [@scamartistry](#): > > -Respond to chain letters on email This is something no intelligent person should do, period. > [@](#): > > -Follow a soap-opera Unless it’s called _The Sopranos_ or _The Wire_. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/28 "2011-03-27T02:35:09Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > It depends on the type of men you run with. What type? I remember some of the students in my classes at bar school having animated discussions about Call of Duty. ---
**Author:** ![Rigamarole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/77aa72/32.png) [@Rigamarole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rigamarole)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/29 "2011-03-27T02:45:18Z")
I’ll join the choir saying that most adult males play video games. However, there definitely is (or should be) a notable decrease in _how often_ a man plays video games from adolescence to adulthood. When I was a kid, I pretty much played them all day because I had nothing else to do. Now I have all these pesky “responsibilities” that take up my time and I can’t play nearly as often as I used to. But I still play. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/30 "2011-03-27T02:52:19Z")
I’m going to say men don’t use the term ‘no-no’, that’s what I’m going to say. And also that stereotypes are such a time-saver. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/31 "2011-03-27T03:01:01Z")
> [@Rigamarole](#): > > I’ll join the choir saying that most adult males play video games. However, there definitely is (or should be) a notable decrease in _how often_ a man plays video games from adolescence to adulthood. When I was a kid, I pretty much played them all day because I had nothing else to do. Now I have all these pesky “responsibilities” that take up my time and I can’t play nearly as often as I used to. But I still play. I’ll also chime in with the fact that if you’re still shouting homophobic obscenities like a 14-year-old douchebag by the time you’re in college (or at least out of high school), you need to step back for a while and grow up. Because I’m feeling verbose on the subject, I’ll emphasize what I’m sure a lot of posters here are thinking and at least one has already touched on: The men who are 18-35 now are going to be gaming, in some form or another, throughout their working lives and on into retirement, much like how the people who were 18-35 in the 1920s never gave up their radios, and the people who were 18-35 in the 1950s never gave up their television sets. I have hopes the coming generation of gamers is going to be more gender-balanced as a result of the withering away of television; for all I know, the _current_ generation is more gender-balanced than I suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/32 "2011-03-27T03:04:43Z")
I saw a similar list recently that was pretty accurate except for one huge miss like the video games one in this list. The one on that list was something like ‘no man over 30 should listen to Pink Floyd’. WTH, that is practically old people’s music at this point and not bad by any means. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people under 30 had never heard of them. It makes me think that the people that write these lists are just targeting some perceived faults about specific people in their life that they don’t like. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/33 "2011-03-27T03:23:13Z")
Drink from straws. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/34 "2011-03-27T03:29:25Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > It depends on the type of men you run with. I’m 27 and I don’t think a single man I’m friends with plays video games or has regularly in at least 10 years. Either your male friends are lying to you or you’re not paying attention, I suspect. Certainly, it’s possible you’ve got the only group of Twentysomething Male friends in the English-speaking world who don’t play video games, but I suspect what they’re actually saying is “I’m not a gamer”, which is a totally different kettle of fish to “Not playing videogames”. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/35 "2011-03-27T03:31:36Z")
> [@BlackKnight](#): > > No, it’s true. I was playing video games while LOL’ing and my penis fell off. Fortunately, according to the various chain emails I’ve received, there’s a fix for that! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/36 "2011-03-27T03:33:13Z")
> [@Fuzzy\_Dunlop](#): > > It depends on the type of men you run with. I’m 27 and I don’t think a single man I’m friends with plays video games or has regularly in at least 10 years. Sorry for the hijack, but I’m really interested. What do you do with your free time, **Fuzzy Dunlop**? Do you have kids or some all consuming hobby? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/37 "2011-03-27T03:42:11Z")
Quoth C. S. Lewis: > [@](#): > > When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up. ---
**Author:** ![Jake\_Jones](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Jake\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jake_Jones)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/38 "2011-03-27T03:56:42Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > I’m going to say men don’t use the term ‘no-no’, that’s what I’m going to say. Hah! Nice. Also, how does one produce a typo that requires a shift key when the correct keystroke did not? No-No:s, indeed. Also, adult men without children should absolutely not buy themselves toys like remote control helicopters. Anyway, the charge time sucks. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/39 "2011-03-27T04:31:35Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > Sorry for the hijack, but I’m really interested. What do you do with your free time, **Fuzzy Dunlop**? Do you have kids or some all consuming hobby? I’m not him, but I can say that I never, ever played videogames, not when I was a teenager, not when I was in my twenties, never. Even though many of my friends did. I think it was because I’ve always had really slow reflexes, and really bad hand-eye coordination. So I sucked at all video games without exception. None of them were any fun for me at all. What did I do for fun? I read, I did crossword puzzles, I listened to music. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2011, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093/40 "2011-03-27T04:41:04Z")
The biggest demographic for video games is adult males with the average age about 35. In other words, it is like saying that real adult men don’t watch sports on TV. A world like that might make some happy but it isn’t the one we live in. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-no-s-for-adult-men/576093.md?page=3)