One of my coworkers was moderating a panel at PAX last weekend called How to get your girlfriend into gaming.  Kotaku’s summary is as follows:

1) Give your girl a game that’s tailored to her interests; don’t force her to play a game just because you like it.
2) Play co-op, not competitive. Some girls are unnerved by 13-year-old trash-talkers.
3) Don’t force her to identify herself as a gamer; it’s enough that she’s playing a game.
4) Spend as much time doing what she wants to do in her life as you expect her to spend time gaming with you (basic rule of relationships).
5) Don’t act like an asshole while you’re gaming – it makes games into the enemy.
6) Don’t belittle her choices of game; maybe she likes Barbie’s Horse Adventure.
7) Let her backseat game you and don’t argue with what she tells you to do; if she tells you to make Master Chief jump to his death, just do it – it’ll be fun for her and get her one step closer to trying it herself. (That’s my own personal rule.)

This list has some good points to it, but at the end of the day, if your girlfriend/wife/whatever isn’t into games to begin with, then she probably doesn’t know what kind of games suit her interests.  You have a limited number of chances to introduce her to things as well, because every time you introduce her to a game she doesn’t like, it makes it harder to do it the next time.  Let’s talk about three games you should start with to narrow the spectrum of games she’ll be interested in.

Castle Crashers

This is an excellent game to start with, because the controls are extremely straightforward, and the two of you are playing together to fight a common enemy.  If she falls in battle, you can essentially resuscutate her for free, so she isn’t dead all the time, watching you play the game.  The game is also pretty lighthearted, and gets her used to a controller without being too obtuse about it.  If this goes over well, you can start introducing her to games with a little more complex control schemes until she has the controller down solid.

Carcassonne

On the other hand, maybe your girl more strategic.  This is the title I got my girlfriend into games with, and she kicks my ass at it every time now.  Games like Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, Lost Cities, and Settlers of Catan avoid a sophisticated control scheme or twitch reflexes.  What they provide is a sophisticated strategic gameplay, and more importantly, a social one.  While she might be competing with you in these games, she won’t feel like you’re winning because you can handle a controller better than she can.  If she digs these games, try introducing her to strategically more complex games like Heroes of Might and Magic or Civilization 4.  If you’re going to go down that road, I would strongly advise playing a hotseat game, and walking her through everything you do, and explaining what things mean, what one might do in one situation or another.  Never tell her what she should be doing, part of gaming is exploring the possibility space like you once did.  Just be her guide, and hopefully she’ll be marching her armies into your capital in no time.

Spore

If the above two don’t work, Spore should be your litmus test.  The game is easy and intuitive to understand, and has great fun appeal.  Will Wright’s previous game, The Sims, was one of the greatest selling titles of all time with women, in part because of its social aspects.  You can pretty much set her loose with this one, and heal some of the damage you did when she hated the first two games.

Now if you’ve done all that, and she’s still not interested, I think we can safely say you’re SOL.  Just take into consideration that not every relationship needs to be fused with all interests. Kahlil Gibran said it best:

Stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.