What do men want? Video games

Women, here is why you should give up on guys: You will never make us happier than video games.

I say this based on a study I conducted, which I call "Being a Young American Male, Age 8-35."My basic premise is that if you randomly pick any guy and ask him to talk about his girlfriend, he'll say five nice things, two of which will inevitably be "she's hot" and "she'll talk to me."

On the other hand, ask him about his favorite video game, and you will get an oral dissertation spoken with the kind of intelligence, passion and depth of knowledge usually reserved for deconstructing James Joyce's "Ulysses."

I have a friend who can talk about the video game war series Call of Duty the way a Pentagon analyst would talk about actually mounting a large-scale invasion of a major industrial city. He's not some pale, creepy shut-in either. He's just a regular guy who once happened to spend seven consecutive hours defeating Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare apparently without ever feeling a biological urge to eat or go to the bathroom.

I relate this story not to discourage you, ladies, but to speak truth to power. I've struggled with video game addiction myself. My freshman year of college, I bought a game called Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, and it more or less wrecked my life.

I spent that entire year traversing the anarchic, violent world of GTA, where most of the tasks you must accomplish involve transporting drugs, murdering people and copulating with prostitutes to recharge your health.

It got to the point where I couldn't close my eyes at night without seeing the Vice City grid in my head. I daydreamed of chain-sawing to death pixelated figures that conformed to all the worst ethnic stereotypes. I couldn't go on a date without reminding myself that at the end of the night, I couldn't run my companion over with a stolen car and take my money back. (If you haven't played the game, it is important to note that I am not a sociopath -- this action is vital to your success in GTA).

So I quit. Cold turkey.

For four years I didn't touch a video game controller. I went on to have a highly successful academic career and a relationship with a woman based on affection and mutual understanding. It was nice while it lasted.

This month I fell off the wagon. What game was it, you ask? That's the worst part: My renewed addiction is the result of my roommate's 18 year-old GameBoy and a tart little mistress called Tetris.

Tetris is the single most addictive game in the known world. When I was a kid and owned my own GameBoy, my dad picked it up one day to see what all the fuss was about and basically didn't put it down for a year. He all but quit his job over getting that little rocket ship to launch once you get over 100 lines.

Now I'm back in the game, though, and Tetris has its grip on me. The worst part about Tetris is that you can't beat it. The little blocks just keep coming faster and faster and there is no logical conclusion except to play again.

I begin each game thinking, "All right, Tetris, this time I've got you. There's no way you can send those little L's and squares down faster than I can arrange them into a geometrically satisfying order."

So I'm sorry, women of Chicago, but count another one of us out of the running as a future boyfriend or husband.

Unless, of course, you have an Xbox 360 and plan on buying Grand Theft Auto IV when it debuts in April. Then maybe we can talk.