(Using my old inactive account because my boyfriend knows my other one)
So I (19F) have a boyfriend (23M) who I've been dating for a few months now and it’s been going great. We get along really well, have similar interest, and overall things feel pretty healthy and stable.
Here’s the issue: I like to play visual novels that by some peoples standards can be considered problematic (for example YKMET, Courtin' Cowboys, and TPOF) but I try to not play them in front of him because even though I enjoy them, I know he does not enjoy games that are overly gory.
To be clear, I don’t play them because I want that kind of relationship in real life. I play them because I find it interesting to go through all the different routes to see what happens.
Anyways, I had my laptop open one time while I was going through an unfortunately disturbing route and he saw enough of it to ask questions. At first it was just curiosity, but once I explained and he looked it up himself, his reaction changed pretty quickly.
He told me he didn’t like that I was playing games with such disturbing themes, especially ones that mix that with romance. He said it made him uncomfortable that I was willingly engaging with content like that, even if it’s fictional. I tried to explain that the game isn't inherently a romance game, its considered a horror, and for me it’s more about the storytelling and seeing how different choices affect the outcome, not because I enjoy the darker aspects in a real-life sense.
He kind of got stuck on the idea that “you must like it on some level if you’re choosing to play it,” which I guess is fair, but people watch horror movies, read dark books, or play intense games all the time without it meaning anything deeper about their real-life desires.
What really made things worse is that he ended up talking about it with some of his friends in a group chat. I didn’t even know at first, but then he mentioned that they “agreed with him” and thought it was weird and a red flag. And that made me feel really uncomfortable and a bit embarrassed, because I never agreed to have something like this shared with other people.
I told him that bringing his friends into it crossed a line for me, but he said he just wanted outside opinions because he didn’t know if he was overreacting. He doesn’t seem to understand why that bothers me so much.
Now he’s asking me to stop playing them entirely. He says it’s a boundary for him and that it makes him see me differently knowing I’m into that kind of content. That part honestly bothered me, because it feels like he’s judging my character over something fictional that I keep separate from real life.
I told him I understand why it’s not his thing, and I’ve already been respectful by not playing them around him, but I don’t feel like it’s fair to ask me to give them up completely.