I also think gaming now a days just feels different and not in a childhood wonder sort of way but a walking into an obscure bookstore kind of way. Social media makes learning about a video game way too easy. Spoilers are hard to avoid and the more people talk about a game the less novel it feels. I didn’t spend much time on forums as a kid so most games i learned about was via word of mouth or from demo disks. I’ll never forget my first play through of Halo 1 on the OG xbox. Played it coop with my bro. Was completely scared shitless when the flood was introduced. No one told me there were zombies in my shoot man game. Like no one talked about it. Good times.
tbh in the world we live in i think we all need a bit of therapy. But relying on your partner exclusively for that is a bad idea in the long run. They can offer their support but at the end of the day they can’t fix you and they definitely don’t have the skills to guide you.