Video games are the "worst" hobby for men looking to date, coach says.
A viral take claims your future wife “just isn’t playing Call of Duty.” One small problem: about half of all gamers are women. Here’s what the coach actually said, and the kernel of real advice buried under the clickbait.
A dating coach went viral this week for telling single men their favorite hobby is killing their love lives. The hobby? Video games.
Before every gamer reading this throws their controller, let’s look at what she actually said, because the real story is more reasonable than the headline, and also a little sillier.
What the coach actually said
Here’s the claim, straight from the source.
Dating coach Blaine Anderson, who has about 673,000 Instagram followers, ranked hobbies for single men by how attractive they are to women. Video games landed in her “F-tier,” the worst rating.
“Sorry, but your future wife just isn’t playing Call of Duty,” she wrote. She put Netflix binging and sports gambling down in the basement too, with golf getting a slightly-less-bad “D” grade. “Golf is a better hobby for married men than single men,” she explained.
So this isn’t a study or a scientific finding. It’s one dating coach’s opinion, posted to Instagram. Worth keeping in mind before anyone panics.
The small problem with her logic
Here’s where it falls apart a little, and a local news station actually caught it.
When KTLA looked into the claim, they pointed out a fact that sinks the “your wife isn’t playing Call of Duty” line: industry estimates say about half of all gamers are women.
Half. So the idea that gaming is some woman-repelling hobby runs straight into the reality that a huge chunk of gamers are, in fact, women. Your future wife might be the one inviting you to play Call of Duty. The premise that games and dating don’t mix is built on a stereotype that’s roughly a decade out of date.
Plenty of Anderson’s own followers pushed back too. As one put it, men liking games is basically the equivalent of women liking makeup and shopping, an outlet, a way to unwind. Nobody’s telling women to give up their hobbies to land a man.
But here’s the kernel of truth
Now, in fairness, she’s not entirely wrong, and it’s worth understanding the real point under the clickbait.
The hobbies Anderson actually recommends are telling. She suggests running, racket sports like tennis, and volunteering at animal shelters or food banks. Notice what those have in common: they’re active and social.
You leave the house, you move your body, you’re around other people.
That’s the genuinely useful advice, and it has nothing to do with hating games. The issue was never “games are evil.”
It’s that if your only hobby is something solitary you do alone on the couch, whether that’s gaming, Netflix, or doom-scrolling, you’re not putting yourself in many places to meet people. You can’t match with someone at a run club you never go to.
So the honest version of her advice isn’t “quit gaming.”
It’s “don’t let a couch hobby be your whole life, and build in something that gets you out among people.” That’s reasonable, and it applies to any solitary hobby, not just gaming.
The real takeaway for gamers?
You don’t have to give up video games to find a partner. That framing is clickbait, and the “half of gamers are women” stat blows a hole in it. Gaming is a normal, mainstream hobby that millions of couples literally share.
What’s actually true is gentler: balance matters. If gaming is one of several things you do, including a few that get you out of the house and around people, you’re fine. If it’s the only thing you do, twelve hours a day, alone, that’s not really a gaming problem, it’s a balance problem, and it’d be just as true if you swapped games for any other solo activity.
So no, you don’t have to choose between your console and a date. You just have to occasionally leave the house too. Anderson’s “F-tier” rating makes for a great viral headline, but the millions of gamers in happy relationships tell a different story.
Game on. Just maybe touch some grass now and then, too.
Want More Clownfish TV?
This article was brought to you in part by The Reefers of more.clownfishtv.com. Free subscribers get articles like this one in their inbox. Paid subscribers get the full Clownfish TV podcast feed, livestreams, and members-only episodes that never hit YouTube.
D/REZZED is part of Clownfish TV. For more news, views, and rants on gaming, tech, and pop culture, watch @ClownfishTV on YouTube and find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and iHeart.
Article compiled and edited by Derek Gibbs (entertainment editor) and the Clownfish TV newsroom.
Hat Tips:
Men’s Journal (June 25, 2026), which originally reported the story, verified for Blaine Anderson’s “F-tier” video-games ranking, the “future wife isn’t playing Call of Duty” quote, the Netflix/gambling/golf rankings, and her 673,000 follower count
KTLA (June 25, 2026), David Lazarus reporting, verified for the fact-check noting roughly half of gamers are women and the recommended active/social hobbies (running, racket sports, volunteering)