nongamer reactions to your hobby

No house is complete without the tub of dead hookers. It's a must on most MLS standards.

3 Bed
2 Bath
1 Tub

That's like the cycle of life right there. Start out gaming in the basement. Grow up, move out, then eventually buy your own home. Return to gaming in the basement.

I am very envious of the basements that a couple of my fellow gamers have. Wall-to-wall carpeting, quality overhead lighting, decent heating and central air, and nice bookcases filled with gaming stuff.

I'm still a renter, but I should be able to get a decent house two years from now if all goes well. I think that housing prices will be even lower then, and my own finances will be in good shape, assuming that the company that I work for survives 2010. Our 2009 looks decent, at least for the next several months, but our client base has fallen on hard times in recent years.

I pretty much just don't tell. Recently, I have had a conundrum of a friend at work who is in to video games and comics. He told me that he still gets White Dwarf each month but hasn't played in years or bought any minis. He still enjoys reading it. Tough one. In my previous work, I only told a couple of colleagues when I had no choice having by necessity brought an approximately 3 foot by 3 foot by 2 foot package into the office.

Tip - Make sure you have your house keys with you when you go to collect your bulk order from the post office.

People dig it. really. I dont push them to play with me EVER. They dont push me into their hobbies so that seems just fair. Well i live/hang with a bunch of punks that generally dislike Television and Computergaming so they dig it when im playing all these games with other friends even when they wouldnt join for some Twilight Imperium. Sometimes though all my non-gamer-friends get together and play something like Tichu or partygames and werewolves. They seem to enjoy that.

ANyways, i play games, my friends dig it, its part of who i am. No biggie. its not like a fucking sexual disease or anything. Also it doesnt make you geeky, doesnt make you fat and sweating after walking up the stairs. Enjoying boardgames does not define me.

kindof.

also, you people seem to be a bunch of fckng hippies about this. You avoid telling people about it? that shit is just lame! I thought y'all was wearing that AT badge loud and proud.

I have a hard time figuring what and why things are nerdy these days. Maybe I'm blinded because I'm a big nerd myself. Or am I a geek? That's another distinction I don't get.

It used to be easy to spot nerdiness. I remember walking into a new game store in town and wandering to the back where several men were huddled around a big table. They were playing a historical miniatures game. (So far, we are okay - the sort of intellectual activity I could see college history professors liking). But - three of them were wearing "Starfleet Academy" uniforms. (Nerd alert! Nerd alert!) Fashion tip: Do NOT stuff yourself into tight leotard Trekkie clothing if you are pudgy.

Carrying your calculator around used to be stereotypical nerd, but nowadays all the cool people whip out their iPhones and Blackberries for everything. Computer nerds? It's cool to be attached to a computer half the day chatting up people on MySpace.

All the cool, hip movies are based on comic books but it's nerdy to be caught actually reading one.

D&D or any RPG = Nerd. Make a Xbox360 game out of it = cool

If anything, I would think boardgames would just be considered quaint and old-fashioned.

Great point, Susan. Nerd went mainstream at least a decade ago, when comic book and science-fiction movies were major box office draws, and lots of people were finally getting on the internet. Meanwhile, it seemed like there was a major sports scandal every other month, and both rap and rock music were failing.

Susan, I have the exact same problem. Good post. It used to be I knew that all my hobbies were for the most part nerdy. But now that some have crossed over (videogames, for one) I'm left in limbo. What am I allowed to talk about without getting strange looks? What is fair game? It's all so confusing.

seriously, you all sound like a bunch of teenagers.

People around me know about my hobbies as I know about their hobbies, do I brag about the size of my collection no, that's what my cock's for.

Growing up I've always dug what I dug regardless of the cool/nerd factor.

Of course I've had the odd LARP question thrown my way but whatever, I make a joke of it and move on.

That "I won't be cool anymore, if other people know about X" sounds like insecure, elitist bullshit.

I saw that thread before I saw this thread, should have just said my piece here.

Games are for kids, they will never be mainstream for adults. I get the same reaction as Skeletor -- "What the fuck is all this shit?" -- so my games in a closet and I am socially aware enough to know when someone is going to want to play them.

My family: Loves games. My mom plays most games still and my 87 year old grandmother will still get in on some Dark Shadows. My cousins/brother/wife are a couple of steps below actually posting on a website, but they all like them.

Non-work friends: Most like games, but we also do a wide array of other shit.

Work friends: Don't talk about games.

I get a lot of the nostalgia sense SusanR alludes to from my compatriots. "MAN, that's neat--I used to play... blah blah blah" type reactions when they see my shelf-o-games. Just hearing about it? At work? Less cool, by and large. Somehow seeing them makes them real to people and allows them to connect a little, I guess. I found out my rabbi was really into PanzerBlitz. Go figure.

This reaction is similar to my reaction when my friend shows me his totally painstakingly restored 1970 Mustang Mach 1.

SusanR wrote:
"Have you actually played all of these?"
I also get "have you read all these books".
"After reading the profiles on the "Regulars" I noticed that a lot of you are practically still in diapers. Guess I need to go hang out in the Old Folks corner with SouthernMan."
Old Folks wear diapers too!

EDIT- Okay, 'spose I'd better mention non-gamer reactions: I don't give a damn what they think, because I don't judge their hobbies.

timeLESS wrote:

also, you people seem to be a bunch of fckng hippies about this. You avoid telling people about it? that shit is just lame! I thought y'all was wearing that AT badge loud and proud.

The fact that we know enough about board games to subset ourselves in the gaming community is just even more reason for ridicule to the non-gamer. I tried explaining the whole Ameritrash/Euro/Wargaming/RPG/Everyotherfuckingthing to my wife and she gave me a look that was part pity and part "I'm gonna call the men in the white coats now". (insert appropriate emoticon here)

SusanR wrote:

I have a hard time figuring what and why things are nerdy these days. Maybe I'm blinded because I'm a big nerd myself. Or am I a geek? That's another distinction I don't get.

I don't think there is a universally accepted definition, however, within the I.T. firm where I work, nerd and geek are definitely not considered to be the same thing.

Nerd is very much a derogatory term applied to the large-brained but socially inept among us while Geek is a mild and friendly term used to describe a fan of anything not considered mainstream.