Am I trying to change him too much?

Hello all,

I've never been the sort to talk about my personal life, so I feel a little awkward doing so; but it seems easier to ask people anonymously than to talk to friends, so I'll do my best to explain. The people here seem quite kind, and I hope they are also patient.

My partner and I have been going out for nearly five years. He is 31, I am 23. We always knew that our interests were somewhat different: I like classical music, literature and cooking, he likes modern music, video games and having a drink. Despite this, we enjoy our common ground, such as lying down to watch a favourite TV series or discussing politics.

One thing, however, has been upsetting me more and more recently: he spends a lot of time playing online video games. Not that this was never an issue to me; in the earlier years when we were dating and I was attending university, I'd sometimes come over to visit, and he would be too "busy" to pick me up because he was absorbed in some game or another. I always hoped that as time went on, he would become more interested in me and less interested in the games, but this has not happened?-in fact, the last couple of days he has spent about 70% of his time playing a game, for literally hours at a time.

What really brought this issue back to the fore was when he started using "Teamspeak" to talk to other players. I can be in the room with him and he will be talking to them, largely ignoring me. I say largely, because he doesn't completely forget about me; maybe once an hour, he'll remember about me and come and cuddle me for a few minutes before going back to his game.

Ultimately, I feel silly. Very, very silly. Because in the end, it's just a stupid game, and I feel like an idiot for being so concerned about something so inconsequential. But then, when he plays it, I feel like I have become inconsequential; often, when I try to talk to him, he'll ignore me, and if I persist he might say that he's not interested. Sometimes he will snap at me if I am particularly vociferous in soliciting his attention, which I suppose is not unreasonable.

The other thing I wish I could change, and which links in with his gaming a little, is that he does not like to acknowledge that we are partners. Sometimes, he will take this to extremes; when a woman at work was interested in him, he did everything he could to communicate his disinterest without actually saying that he already had a partner. In particular, when I once took part in playing an online game with him, he wouldn't tell anyone that we were an item, and was angry with me when I nearly did so. In my mind it's one thing to be afraid of prejudice from people he knows, but quite another to fear the reactions of entirely anonymous gaming buddies.

Am I overly-possessive? Do I expect more change than I have any right to? Is it presumptuous of me to expect him to devote less time to his games? Could I be asking too much from him? I don't know, but I would really appreciate some honest external perspective. As it is, I feel conflicted: concerned and petty, hopeless and foolish, upset that he seems so divorced from me yet idiotic for worrying about something which I should perhaps learn to tolerate.