I play hard majority of the time, i do normal runs on games im not all that excited to play usually :P

I start out with normal mode.

I often reduce it to easy though because I get frustrated on normal and games are supposed to be fun. It all depends on the game though.

I mostly play my games on hardest difficulty available. I rarely choose normal and never go the easy route. Though, I did regret choosing infernal difficulty for Resident Evil Revelations for my first run through. I did not make it to the end, I had to restart on normal and then do Newgame+ on Infernal.

But that's a rare occasion, most games are not that difficult to beat nowadays. There is no challenge unless you play on the hardest difficulty. I chose hard because most of the time extreme difficulty isn't available until you've beaten the game.

Always play on hardest available. Ever since legendary in Halo taunted me to do so by calling it "suicide".

My friends call it Asshole Mode , eg hardest most cheating AI mode possible.

I play the default setting on a game or series I'm not familiar with; hardest settings otherwise.

Depends on the game.
But, 99% of the time its Normal.

Always on the hardest settings available. I feel like a punk if I wus out and choose the easier difficulties

I gave up on doing normal first at least seven years ago because in most cases normal is easy for me. Especially in shooters which counting first and third types is the most common type of game I play. Playing coop is a joke for difficulty because usually the hardest starting difficulty level is hard. Damn shame. Also I want the hard achievement or trophy first run through. Nintendo only gamers do not have this fun insentive to play above normal.

I would say this is a typical response for a woman.