Guilty Pleasures and Double Standards

My husband and I have started a light-hearted and loving banter about our guilty pleasures. He loves fantasy baseball and football in their seasons and he also loves the X-Box sports games that allow the player to manage the team. He loves the alternate reality aspect of the game, not just the actual game playing. I've never really understood this until recently.

One of my Facebook friends, who will remain nameless, gave me a harmless apple tree, which brought with it an invitation to play "Farm Town." Though I love keeping up with distant friends and families and I am definitely an active picture poster, (you would be too if you had my little boy posing for you!) I've never gotten into any games on Facebook, usually quietly ignoring the invitations I am sent. But now, thanks to my aforementioned nameless friend, my calm Facebook world has changed.

I started out cautiously, without a plan, plowing a field here, throwing a tree there, animals roaming aimlessly all over my land...my farm was a mess. Then, I learned that you can earn farm currency by working at other farms. I figured I'd give it a try. I traveled to the marketplace to find work as a farm hand which allowed me to visit various farms as their proprieters hired me. I saw one level 24 farm (as I remained on level three) and I was hooked. While at once thinking, "Wow, this person spends way too much time on here," I confess I also thought, "Wow, maybe someday my farm will look like this!" The love affair was solidified.

The current obsession stands. I'm trying to earn more coins to expand my farm and eagerly await the coming in of each harvest. I even tried to persuade my husband to reply to a book club offer which would have earned me over 30,000 farm coins...at that point the banter began. (Hey, it was a cook book club, he should have been all over that, right?)

He thinks my new obsession with this game is ridiculous while I believe it to be equal to his love of fantasy sports. He said, "It's not even close to the same thing!" Presumably because the opportunity for him to manage a baseball team exists only in virtual reality while we actually do have our own garden. I can get out there and plant tomatoes any time I want. I see the difference, but the success of my virtual garden which is plowed, planted and harvested in just days, inspires me to work even harder in my real garden. What does fantasy baseball inspire him to do?

This is our fun-loving disagreement and we're having fun laughing at each other. If we can't laugh at ourselves then how boring would life be? It's all in good fun and that's how we roll.

Anyway, Farm Town could just be a phase I am going through, and I'm quite sure that there are more productive uses of my time, but right now I am having a blast watching my perfect little cartoon farm take shape. My sunflowers will be ready to harvest tonight...