I (sort of) like video games.

So, last night, my co-workers and I somehow got upon the subject of video games. How three girls in their early twenties (all non-gamers, not that being a girl gamer is a bad thing--in fact, I'm jealous) came upon the subject of video games while stocking items coated in more glitter than a stripper's ass is beyond me, but as is the case with many of the interesting conversations we have at work, it arose (more than likely) out of sheer boredom.

My manager said that she and her boyfriend had just gotten the new Mortal Kombat game for their PS3. She expressed her utter delight at finally beating her boyfriend at a video game that he took very seriously.

"I don't know how I'm so good at it," she said. "All I do is press buttons."

And there it was. The inevitable fall-back technique, one I have employed for years at friends' houses when the guys wanted to play Super Smash Brothers: Button-Mashing. We agreed that none of us have room in our brains for simple commands like X X O SQUARE L1 L2 X O O O SQUARE SQUARE every time you want to do a combo move and kill the shit out of someone.

I do enjoy video games. I really do. I grew up with brothers and we had a Super Nintendo system when we were kids, before Playstation even existed. My boyfriend and I recently bought an old-school copy of Gauntlet: Dark Legacy for the PS2. We are pretty good at it, actually, aside from a minor snafu in which ONE OF US wasn't very clear with his, um, INSTRUCTIONS--but, overall, we play nicely together. We make a good team.

Aside from that, here's my secret: Most of the time, I have absolutely no fucking clue what I am doing. I just press a bunch of buttons and hope that something super awesome like a Level Up! or a You Just Won a Billion Mana! pops up. I charge ahead, fearlessly, brazenly running, jumping, punching, kicking, and slashing my way to a high score. To the untrained eye, it appears that I know exactly what I am doing and that each move I make is carefully calculated and deliberate, that I am pressing buttons with a purpose.

And that is the beauty of being a Master Button-Masher. You're so good at not knowing what you're doing that you're actually better than everyone else.