Are you a Man-Child? Take the quiz!!!

the*mad*gamer wrote:

What do you mean WHEN YOU SAY A "MUGS DEAL"???

I thought you were married with kids. I seem to remember when talking to you on the podcast you said something about leaving the games to the kids? Maybe I am mistaken.

If you ever come to the USA you could have any woman you want with your accent and "don't give a shit" attitude, it would be like fishing with dynamite!

Nah, must be mixing me up with someone else. I'm married-phobic.

Almost every married guy I know looks miserable. I'm sure if I met that 'one-in-a-million' that I really connected with I'd change my tune, but I have NOOOOOOO interest in getting married just for the sake of it. It's not something I'm striving towards. If I wanted my balls broken by a woman I would have just stayed living with my folks.

Some people seem to really need the 'companionship' that marrage brings (which is why I think so many people get married for the wrong reasons and end up spliting) but I like my freedom and being able to do my own thing. She'd have to be pretty outstanding to make me be willing to give that up. Some would consider me selfish I guess.

I've actually thought about moving the the US (something I couldn't do if I had a family) if you're economy didn't go ass up.

Jack Hooligan wrote:

Well you failed as I'm not quite sure why I'm meant to care about being admonished by someone I will never meet in real life. Also not quite sure why the fuck I have to be 'there' or whatever 'there' is, I pretty much have everything except the wife and kids and frankly they look like a mugs deal to me, but hey if not requiring a woman to look after me somehow makes me not quite there well maybe I'll just take a different path.

Right, right.
You sure seemed to take off over something you "don't" care about.

Another nice spin with the bit on a woman to take care of me. That's what I've been talking about. Good job.

Wearing loin cloths...good, good.

wii controllers...comedy gold.

Nice post filled with irreverent points. I can see why you're prolific on gamer sites.
*Snort* *chuckle* "look how he dissects and belittles each comment." *tee hee*

Whatever. You got it going on, dude. I'm just a two bit working stiff trying to get everyone to conform to my miserable existence.


"Okay, Chief, take 'em away. I'm gonna go home and sleep with my wife!"

Thanks mate, I aim to please.

Skeletor -- did you catch my MOTU question earlier? How extensive is your collection? Are you missing anything? If so, I might have it be willing to send it to you.

This quibbling about man-child is a little ridiculous. Skeletor and Uba are right about this one. A bunch of hair splitting, I mean we are have an argument about man-children on a fairly exclusive gaming sight named after a fairly obscure game from the mid-80s because most of us weren't completely fulfilled in the hobby with the more popular gaming site that is named after "social" pariahs at the teenager level. Either we are all man-children or Skeletor and Uba are right and it is when the hobby becomes socially retarding that problems begin to set in.

Uba is right. Most women look at men as man-children if they over-indulge in things that aren't related to family, including: drinking, poker games, power tools, hunting, softball teams, kids' little league, golf, sports, music, bands, cartoons, etc.

Space Ghost wrote:

Skeletor -- did you catch my MOTU question earlier? How extensive is your collection? Are you missing anything? If so, I might have it be willing to send it to you.

Sorry must have missed it.
From memory it was in the order of 95% complete. For the classic line it was only the really hard to get shit I was missing, laser light he-man and skeletor, the 2 giants that were only released in Italy, the Eternia playset (I was collecting the vehicles and playsets as well, I have no idea why as they currently are all just dumped in a box at the back of the garage collecting mold, if I had my time again I would have just stuck to the figures.) Everything I was missing was in the order of $150+ in value which is why I never got it.

For the 'new adventures of he-man' line (the 90s reboot with he-man in space) I'm pretty sure I ended up getting the entire line.

Didn't own any She-ra's (except the remade gencon exclusive she-ra)

The the 2002 reboot I also got almost everything, only thing I can remember missing is the talking skeletor (Battle sound skeletor or something.) I'm not sure why I never got him, this was all before I even adopted the online name "Mr Skeletor". Kind of feels sacrilegious now that I don't have him, I should hunt him down.

This was all ages ago, I actually got back into boardgames through he-man -> I was running out of non ridiculously priced stuff to collect for the line so I started collecting the old MB boardgames that used the MOTU licence. From there I started ebaying old boardgame names, and when I tried heroquest I discovered heroscape. Went to a store to check it out and ended up walking out with Doom, which looked like a cross between space crusade and Siege of the citadel, 2 games I loved as a kid. From there I moved back into boardgames and the MOTU collecting came to an end.

I may start it up again when these get released though:
www.mattycollector.com/store/matty/Displ.../categoryID.12422000

44. I'm clean.

It'd have been a lot lower were it not for this question:

14) Have you ever done any sort of statistical analysis of games?

a) No 0 points
b) Yes 20 points

The weighting on this makes me think that Steve has some sort of "issues" when it comes to Statistics. He obviously doesn't think my AT badge ratings lists are of any interest.

So come on Steve, what was it? Maths teacher at school made you cry? Or is to something deeper, darker and more Freudian?

ubarose wrote:

Death and Taxis wrote:

While you might find Man-Children in any hobby, it's not the label people will slap on fans of sports, guns, films, home-renovation, whatever.

Maybe other men won't, but women will. I hear my friends vent about their man's childish, irresponsible behavior regarding power tools, golf, fishing, sports, and all the other accepted manly hobbies. I woman expects a little bit of child in a man. It makes them good fathers and good companions. They don't expect to have to pee in a bucket for 6 months because he decides to remodel the bathroom and then loses interest when football season starts.

This reminds me of the phrase "The only difference between a man and a boy is the cost of his toys."

On the flip side, there are woman-childs who display irresponsible behavior regarding shopping (for things they don't need or want but was a great deal!), excessive collecting (dolls, plates, music boxes, figurines, spoons, etc.) and being a busybodied gossip. Even then, it is not to the level of the man-child discussed here because they don't live with their parents and have reasonably good hygiene. (There are exceptions, just much more rare.)

I also agree with Mr. Skeletor on the difference between a serious hobbiest and a man-child. A serious hobbiest recognizes that not everyone gives more than a passing interest in their hobby and gives short, generic descriptions and can quickly change the topic of conversation if their guest has no more interest. A man-child sees a passing interest as an oppertunity to evangalize The Way, believing that if everyone just knew just how great their hobby is, everyone would be part of it.

21) Should calling someone "Gallagher" on a message board be a bannable offense?
a) Yes - 64 points
b) No - 0 points

On the flip side, there are woman-childs who display irresponsible behavior regarding shopping (for things they don't need or want but was a great deal!), excessive collecting (dolls, plates, music boxes, figurines, spoons, etc.) and being a busybodied gossip. Even then, it is not to the level of the man-child discussed here because they don't live with their parents and have reasonably good hygiene. (There are exceptions, just much more rare.)

That's absolutely true...it seems like anime attracts a lot of woman-children.

It seems like man-children and woman-children do pair up a lot. The other day one of those terrible home makeover shows was on and the couple on it was DEFINITELY a gamer couple. RPGs mostly and MMORPGs, I would imagine. Their house was fucking disgusting. Cat shit everywhere. Roof falling in at some places. Mold growing in the refrigerator and beyond. Boxes and boxes of "nerd" junk everywhere. They were both grotesquely obese and had that look of dirtiness. And here they were on this show crying about how they didn't have time or money to have a nice place to live and they wanted this show to help them.

HOWEVER, they had plenty of time and money for their hobbies. Amateur ghost hunting, photography, scrapbooking, and gaming among them. Oh, they had all the time and money in the world for that stuff. It looked like they couldn't be bothered to buy toilet paper to wipe their asses with but they had all this "ghost hunting" equipment.

So sure, these people had "passions"...but they were also disgusting and lazy.

All this talk about having passions makes me wonder...at what point are passions misplaced? I'm passionate about art, music, film, and yes games. I'm also passionate about animal welfare, the environment, social justice, and progressive change. But I'm also passionate about my life and my family above everything else. It seems that a lot of people's passions are tied up in pop culture iconography and mass-produced products rather than what they create with their own lives and in their own worlds. And I think that's really, really sad.


Some people seem to really need the 'companionship' that marrage brings (which is why I think so many people get married for the wrong reasons and end up spliting) but I like my freedom and being able to do my own thing. She'd have to be pretty outstanding to make me be willing to give that up. Some would consider me selfish I guess.

Aww...ain't that cute...Frank's never been in love! Maybe we should run some kind of Mr. Skeletor romance reality show here at F:AT.

The weighting on this makes me think that Steve has some sort of "issues" when it comes to Statistics. He obviously doesn't think my AT badge ratings lists are of any interest.

So come on Steve, what was it? Maths teacher at school made you cry? Or is to something deeper, darker and more Freudian?

No issues Matt but the idea of doing a statistical analysis on games is nuts! I would give a pass to someone who for example worked for Hasbro and was doing an analysis of sales figures as their job but a hobbyist should be satisfied with playing games.

I think your point on it being "Freudian" applies to the guys doing the statistical analysis.

I think in their minds they try to climb higher than the "pedestrian" hobbyist that just plays games. It is a "Delusions of Grandeur" type thing that sets in as they try to set themselves apart from a newbie.

The great thing about this hobby is that it is open to everyone and everyone is on the same footing once they are in the door!

If you can play a game and enjoy it you are just as much of a game "Titan" as the "Schloessenator" himself! The fact that the "Schloessennator" has written over 2000 session reports has no bearing on his status in the hobby. He is no higher than I am, or anyone else for that matter.

In hobbies like Coin Collecting we admire the Old Timer with gems in his collection and his experienced eye that can tell a valuable coin from junk.

But in gaming we are not talking about collecting, in fact most of us despise collecting and collectible aspects in gaming.

If you enjoy playing games you are on the same footing as the most senior member of the Gathering of Friends.

No experienced eye is necessary to guide a newbie to a good game. Most people know what is fun to them and they can figure it out in short order without the help of a "tastemaker".

Aww...ain't that cute...Frank's never been in love! Maybe we should run some kind of Mr. Skeletor romance reality show here at F:AT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmUlKPthrag&feature=related

Now in the case of a session report. Any of the session reports I wrote were in terms of the story of the game. For example, I wrote a session report dealing with a game of 2nd Fleet I had. I wrote in the form of some commander overlooking the action. Does that count for the negative points?

As for the man-child thing, as others have said you could take this list and change the questions for another hobby. I would probably have a higher man-child score when it comes to my military action figures but I don't talk about them ad-infintum with people. I'll bring them into work on occasion and show them off but I wont bore people to tears over them. Nor will I got apopletic when someone says, "Oh, a GI Joe". But I don't have my apartment strewn with action figure boxes because I'm too much of a neat freak to let things slide too far.

Oh yeah, I don't think the man-child thing is exclusive to board gaming at all...there's man-children in all kinds of hobbies. As has been stated here- there's football man-children, power tool man-children, golf man-children...it's just the board gaming ones are easy targets and are easier to make cry.

I remember many,many years ago on Donahue (!!!) there was a psychiatrist on talking about some pop-psych diagnosis he had come up with. He was calling it "Peter Pan Syndrome". Maybe that's a better term than man-child.

Michael Barnes wrote:

That's absolutely true...it seems like anime attracts a lot of woman-children.

It seems like man-children and woman-children do pair up a lot.

All this talk about having passions makes me wonder...at what point are passions misplaced? I'm passionate about art, music, film, and yes games. I'm also passionate about animal welfare, the environment, social justice, and progressive change. But I'm also passionate about my life and my family above everything else. It seems that a lot of people's passions are tied up in pop culture iconography and mass-produced products rather than what they create with their own lives and in their own worlds. And I think that's really, really sad.

I have to admit, my girlfriend is a major anime fan. She is very insistent that she is a normal person, but she does watch an average of 20 hours of anime a week, thanks to Netflix. Sometimes I will watch with her, because anime is just as a valid a form of media as any other, though still subject to Sturgeon's Law. So it's possible that we are an example of a man-child/woman-child couple.

Or maybe not. I've had a respectable career in accounting so far, and have also accomplished things with my various hobbies. I won some minor awards for my poetry when I was younger. I designed a boardgame that got published by White Wolf two years ago. I'm currently teaching myself about graphic design and GimpShop as I work on another project that might get published or might just be a professional-grade fan expansion to my favorite CCG.

And my girlfriend has ambitious plans, too. She wants to go to law school and save the environment. And she has pondered the possibility of running for public office some day. So she loaded up on english lit and poli-sci classes to support her double major, got elected to student senate and also became president of a student environmental group. Her plans got delayed by major medical and financial hassles three years ago, but she hasn't given up.

So I'd like to think that our passions are worthwhile, because we both work hard to transform passion into action into results. But it's an ongoing struggle, to balance the demands of everyday life with ambition and also with the simple pleasures of consumer goods.

I remember many,many years ago on Donahue (!!!) there was a psychiatrist on talking about some pop-psych diagnosis he had come up with. He was calling it "Peter Pan Syndrome". Maybe that's a better term than man-child.

I do think that's a better term here. The other activities that usually go along with our hobby (as mentioned toys, cartoons, etc) are more directly related to extending our childhood. Regardless of what you want to call it.

Since we're using a lot of sports fan analogies, someone who follows a team, invites friends and neighbors over for the game, maybe hangs a flag out front on game day, has a jersey, maybe catches a game or two live, and possibly a fantasy team probably has a healthy passion for it. I can hang with him.

Another person that meets all of the above, *plus* has display cases full of memorabilia, a large number of jerseys, season tickets, only takes pictures with his colors on, is part of multiple fantasy leagues that he checks all day at work, probably has an unhealthy passion. I'll avoid this guy.

Whether y'all want to call them 'passionate', 'serious hobbiest', 'man-children', 'nutters' or what not I'll leave up to you.

I think the key here is the same key that's been mentioned several times....moderation. Don't let whatever hobby consume your life. I actually can walk into a board game store or action figure store (How many US WWII Paratroopers does one need?) or even music store and walk out without buying something.