"Rock Band saved our marriage"

It's a scenario that will be familiar to many Eurogamer readers. Normal videogames are small enough to conceal in a jacket, but when you arrive home with a new console or peripheral, let alone a box the size of Rock Band's instrument pack, there's no escaping the interrogation.

The pursed lips as you tell her what price it was, the eye-rolling when you explain what it's for, the strong implication that your brain failed to make the leap past puberty when the rest of you did - it's on these foundations that gamers build their relationships (except when they find other gamers and live happily ever after, of course).

Take hope, then, in the salutary tale that appeared on Salon this week - wherein a "gaming widow" at the end of her tether with her Xbox 360 obsessed husband is introduced to the joys of Rock Band, finds her calling as a virtual drummer, rediscovers her youth and then goes off to have sex. (With her husband, before you ask.)

It's a nice little story, even if by the end of the first page you're a bit worried that the writer is about to start boiling bunny rabbits - but why are we linking it here, you may ask?

We're linking it here as a public service, friends. We know there are some of you eyeing the likes of Rock Band jealously, but certain that it'll never pass muster with your partner. Perhaps a little bit of judicious lunchtime reading is in order for them?

Pass it on. You never know, come Friday evening your better half could also be your bandmate.