Isolated for being a gamer?

[insektmute]

This has been bothering me a bit lately, so I'm curious, how many of you find yourselves having to defend your passion for video games, or keep it to yourself because it bothers people?

It's sometimes to the point where I feel like I have to pretend it's not something I'm passionate about. My roommate recently told me that I need to "calm down about that video game stuff" when I mentioned I was thinking about grabbing my SNES and Genesis that have been stuck at my Mom's house.

Since I'm also single, and have been for longer than I'd care to admit, I'm constantly torn between wanting to date a female gamer for once, or someone like my ex, who sort of (but barely) tolerated it. Not that I have any luck even without gaming coming up, but the video game thing does seem to have become more of an issue the further into my 30's I get.

I'm not the type to suppress myself for other people, but constantly running into crap like this really wears thin after a couple decades or so. Anyone else? How have you reacted to it?

[kimimi]

Sort of. Kinda. Not really.

As a woman I've always experienced that general "You're weird" attitude from other women (and girls, when I was younger) and felt like I've had to prove myself to be accepted as a "real" gamer by men. But then again I've met a lot of people, especially (but not exclusively) online, who are happy to simply talk to me like I'm a regular human being with a passion for games, and as for life at home my husband bought me Super Famicom games for Valentine's Day and encouraged me to buy that PGM2 so there's no conflict there, and I wouldn't have married him if there was.

I "deal with it" by not associating myself with anyone who's not interested in accepting me for who I am - I love games and I'm not going to apologise for it! It's a hobby like any other, there's no reason for any sensible person to isolate you over it.

[soera]

Ive always dealt with it with my family. None of them have seen my game room (most of them are in another state anyhow) but neither has any of my wife's family. They would just consider it a waste of time/money. When I was much younger, my parents always told me games were worthless and that I should spend my time on other stuff. I just didnt care what all they said.

[brettybluevein]

I think the key is knowing when to say when. If you're walking around all day making video game noises as you jump stuff on the sidewalk....well, you've let the video game thing take over. I myself have a very well balanced life of work, social interactions, and gaming. Now, what's my ultimate passion?? Of course it's gaming, but I isolate that to when I'm doing that, and don't let it interfere with with the other parts. Of course I've talked to people at work about gaming from time to time, and of course girls I've dated have found out about my collection, but that isn't something I come right out with...."Hi it's nice to meet you, we should hang out sometime...by the way do you like Nintendo because I've got all of them!" I think the more consumed with gaming you are, you might artificially 'feel' isolated, but I think if you have a dynamic where you can adjust from doing thing A, to turning that off and doing thing B, and not let the 2 influence each other, you'll be well off.


I definitely don't like how your roommate told you you need to "chill out with the video games." You probably don't tell him to chill out with doing XXXX, he/she should respect your hobby and decisions.

My 2 cents. Probably only worth 1 cent.

[scott]

I sometimes get the whole "You don't need any more games" stuff from my folks When I started dating my girlfriend, the folks said "oh, now you won't have time or money to waste on games". When I started looking into my house deal, one of the things that came up was how I wouldn't be able to afford a ton of games. So, I don't think they're really supportive of the hobby, other than being the ones that started me on it in the first place.

At one point, I didn't mention any of my hobbies to a lot of people because I thought that it would make people think I was strange. But the older I get, the more I don't care what people think. It used to be, if someone asked me what my hobbies were, I'd just mention artwork stuff and bass guitar. But now if someone asks, I say what I do, and not worry about it. If they are into gaming, I'll even mention VGCollect to people and rattle off some stats off the top of my head about it. If not, I'll make conversation about other things and let the gaming stuff slide.

And gaming did seem to turn off a lot of chicks when I was growing up / dating. Hell, when I first met my girlfriend, I didn't mention anything about gaming, mmo addiction, Magic cards, mini painting or anything "hyper nerdy". I was even super unsure about bringing her over to my place, just for the fact that I have it all out on display (You've all seen my living room, it's overwhelming to some people). But she actually thinks a lot of it it pretty cool, even though she's not a gamer at all. I've had her encourage me to pick up things I was looking at and cheers when I add something new to the Castlevania shrine. So, I guess I got lucky.

I still don't lead with "I'm a gamer, deal with it". But I'm with Kimimi and say don't let people dictate what you are into and if they don't like you for who you are, they aren't worth it. Of course I'm not going to let anyone tell me I can't play games.

[insektmute]

Sort of. Kinda. Not really.

As a woman I've always experienced that general "You're weird" attitude from other women (and girls, when I was younger) and felt like I've had to prove myself to be accepted as a "real" gamer by men. But then again I've met a lot of people, especially (but not exclusively) online, who are happy to simply talk to me like I'm a regular human being with a passion for games, and as for life at home my husband bought me Super Famicom games for Valentine's Day and encouraged me to buy that PGM2 so there's no conflict there, and I wouldn't have married him if there was.

I "deal with it" by not associating myself with anyone who's not interested in accepting me for who I am - I love games and I'm not going to apologise for it! It's a hobby like any other, there's no reason for any sensible person to isolate you over it.

This is more or less where I stand on it. I'm not particularly interested in correcting ignorance, but the attitude gets frustrating at times. The gender difference is interesting, though. The most hardcore gamer I know is a woman, but she occasionally runs into the "fake" thing, or in the reverse, which is guys assuming that her being a geek gives them an opening to get in her pants.

For me, the attitude seems to be that if you're a guy older than a certain age, you're obviously an irresponsible manboy. Granted, some guys are the type who just sit around, pounding back Mt. Dew, smoking weed, and playing video games, but I've always considered that reflective of those individuals, not gamers as a whole.

My ex and I were together for a loooong time, despite her negative view of video games, but I think I'm gonna hold out for a girl who encourages me to buy a PGM2... or at least a Neo-Geo MVS :p

[insektmute]

I sometimes get the whole "You don't need any more games" stuff from my folks When I started dating my girlfriend, the folks said "oh, now you won't have time or money to waste on games". When I started looking into my house deal, one of the things that came up was how I wouldn't be able to afford a ton of games. So, I don't think they're really supportive of the hobby, other than being the ones that started me on it in the first place.

Seriously, every time I talk to my Mom on the phone and video games come up, even if it's just "what are you up to this week?" kind of conversation, I hear that line. I think it's probably been seared into my brain since about 1985, and I barely owned a handful at that age :p

[mkarasch]

It's all part of the long standing social idea that it is uncool to care about things.  You could apply it to any hobby.  There are people who are just TOO into sports, or TOO into books, or whatever.  I think passion is something that should be celebrated, not chastised.  Phooey.  Makes me angry just thinking about it.

[kingrat101]

Yes unfortunately my dad doesn't understand it at all and has made it known that he doesn't like it and that I'm "wasting my money." I finally had a talk with him and told him you know at least Im not into drugs or alcohol like a lot of people my age, don't get my wrong I like to drink every now and then but its not a big deal to me. I used to hide it at work until a guy recently told me he just got a snes and he was super excited but doesn't know what games to get so that's what started my feeling of hey I can talk about this and these guys are cool with it. Our boss was even like "how do you own a Neo Geo!? That's amazing!" So yeah, I was also recently talking to this girl there that's pretty attractive and she was talking about Portal, one of my favorite games, so that's cool. Its weird I can voice it at work but not so much at home

[htimreimer]

Yes unfortunately my dad doesn't understand it at all and has made it known that he doesn't like it and that I'm "wasting my money."

that's how my family is with my collection but for the most part they just ignore it and hope that it a just a phase i'm going through

[libernullmal]

Not really but then again I don't think about games 24/7.. as for the people I just meet I talk about what interests them or what I call general knowledge talk which is pretty easy since you just type yahoo and the news page is right in front click on things you think would be interesting for others an you always have things to talk about.  Now for people that I'm close to and I know they are game collectors as well I will talk about it to them for hours like the going price, where I found the best deals, where I'm stuck at the current game I'm playing, where can I find this and what not. So I don't feel any isolation really. My girlfriend doesn't mind my overly large collection but she is amazed at my collection. Though I'm quite amazed at her own collection of Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. If I talked about a video game to my mom she would listen but it wouldn't be a real listen more of a tune out about it. As far as my dad.. well when he was alive he played some games with me Zelda, Metroid, and later in life I gave him my ps1 as I had just gotten the ps2 and got him a fishing game which he enjoyed. Overall he wasn't much of a collector of that sort of thing, more of he was a collector of baseball cards as he once told me "When I was a kid I use to have alot of cards and everything... Even babe ruth and some others.. Those were destroyed in a fire though." Before he died he handed me a box with baseball cards and things he collected which was mostly Nolan Ryan unopened packs and misc cards...

[insektmute]

I tend to give family a pass on this sort of thing, mainly because that's just family in general - it's their job to tell you what they think you should be doing, and it's your job to roll your eyes. My Mom STILL tells me to be careful when I go out to a bar or show, and I moved out over 15 years ago.

Your parents will basically always see you as a little kid who needs to wear a helmet and be wrapped in reflective tape at all times, unless you grew up in the 80's. Helmets were like unicorns back then.

[ffxik]

Can't say that I am or that I do.  My wife plays games but she isn't into it nearly as hard as I am, and we've been married almost 9 years.  I'm pretty loud n' proud about my hobby.  My mom and dad don't support it.  My wife's mom on the other hand supports it to an extent. 

[tpugmire]

Interesting topic. I can't really say that I've ever been isolated or treated differently because of gaming. My close friends who play games will sometimes give me some good-natured flak about playing old games, but that's about it. I don't even know if anyone at my work knows about my gaming, since I'm only actually at my workplace for about an hour a day. The rest of the time, I'm on the road by myself. Some of my friends are actually more impressed that I can fix electronics, rather than about my collection. I get stuff brought over fairly regularly to see if I can fix it. My wife doesn't really object to me buying anything, as long as I don't go overboard. (But I'm too cheap to let that happen anyway.)

[jcalder8]

I will freely admit to having a massive collection, I hope that one day it will lead to some nice scores, but I am much more than just collecting video games. I just started a new job so I met 25 people at once and I told the group that I collect video games and most were impressed with how many I have but I rarely talk about it.

When I started dating again after breaking up with my ex I listed it as an interest in my profile but it was just a bullet point. Video games might take up 95% of my free money but I don't smoke, drink or do drugs. I don't need to have the latest fashions or a brand new car so when I would tell a woman about it I present it as a positive not a negative.

I also like to be alone for the most part so maybe I would feel isolated if I didn't enjoy just being left alone for the most part.