Are you in the RPG closet?

[Herschel]

Never hid it, never cared enough to. I'm a musician, jock, nerd...you name it. That's just how I roll.

 

[Sunseeker]

I don't think I have, and I don't really care to, but it's not a matter of being "in the closet" about it. If we turn the comparison to what it comes from, what relevance is your employer knowing you are homosexual to your job? You're not supposed to hit on people at work anyway, and nobody is supposed to be hitting on you. They're not going to have a ticker-tape parade for you, so honestly, who cares if they know.

I don't.

 

[beldar1215]

I'm out and proud. No need to hide that I'm a gamer geek!

Beldar

 

[Subtlepanic]

At my last job, on more than one occasion one of my friends phoned for me at reception, putting on a deep rumbling voice, and saying to receptionist that he was "Cthulhu" calling from "...the bank". That ended up "outing" me. This guy works for a city law firm now; maybe I should return the favour.

 

[Ed_Laprade]

Considering that my last job was at a science fiction bookstore with a large selection of gaming material, nope, I'm not in the closet about it. But then, I wasn't before that either. I've always been known to be the geeky sci-fi nerd, even before D&D came out. (I actually got the nick-name Martian around 1st or 2nd grade, nearly 20 years before D&D existed.)

 

[darjr]

Not in the closet here either. I do try and share my hobbies with my coworkers, cycling, weight lifting, and others. No takers at work for RPG's yet.

I'm pretty involved in the local RPG community and around here it is a small world.

 

[sev]

Sometimes I forget what a privilege it is for me to have always lived in or near a big city and to have worked for a dot-com. I've never had to be closeted about my interest in RPGs. Even as a kid, the worst response I got was that people thought I was a little weird...but they already thought that.

That said, now that I spend most of my time with other parents-of-small-children, the topic mostly doesn't come up. Except for with the handful of parents who want to talk about how to shoehorn game-time into a life with small children in it.

I was reading a D&D book in the "observation area" for my daughter's circus class a few months ago, though, and the parents of the other two kids in her class were *fascinated* by the idea that I was preparing for playing a role-playing game. They'd heard of D&D but had never played, and they made a point of asking me the next week how "that game thingy of yours" went. I felt like an anthropological expedition for them. Very different from the reaction I got from non-players in the rest of my life, who usually ask if I think they should learn how to play.

 

[invokethehojo]

I'm a dispatcher for a concrete company in the midwest, so I work with a bunch of rednecks basically. They chew tobacco, they all have a second job working on cars or excavating and they are all against having a black president. Naturally I never mention my hobby, I make it sound like I spend my friday nights playing poker with old highschool buddies.

My cover had never been endanger until recently. A friend of mine ran a comic shop until a few months ago and while it was open we played there. We played table top but there were also magic tournaments there on different days. I was the guy who organized all the table top events, and a few times I noticed my friend talking with one of the magic guys, and I got the impression he was the leader of the organizer of the magic players. He and I knew of each other but never really talked.

A few weeks ago I went out into the shop to ask about a broken down truck and to my horror that guy was talking with my shop foreman. He had a auto parts store shirt on. I instantly shot him a weird look, and once he noticed me he did the same. I talked to the shop foreman for a few moments, and during that time it was palpable that both of us were worried the other would say something stupid and out the other.

I walked away and we never acknowledge each other besides that look. It made me feel like my friends comic shop was some kind of speakeasy or something.

 

[dicechild]

I'm a dispatcher for a concrete company in the midwest, so I work with a bunch of rednecks basically. They chew tobacco, they all have a second job working on cars or excavating and they are all against having a black president. Naturally I never mention my hobby, I make it sound like I spend my friday nights playing poker with old highschool buddies.

My cover had never been endanger until recently. A friend of mine ran a comic shop until a few months ago and while it was open we played there. We played table top but there were also magic tournaments there on different days. I was the guy who organized all the table top events, and a few times I noticed my friend talking with one of the magic guys, and I got the impression he was the leader of the organizer of the magic players. He and I knew of each other but never really talked.

A few weeks ago I went out into the shop to ask about a broken down truck and to my horror that guy was talking with my shop foreman. He had a auto parts store shirt on. I instantly shot him a weird look, and once he noticed me he did the same. I talked to the shop foreman for a few moments, and during that time it was palpable that both of us were worried the other would say something stupid and out the other.

I walked away and we never acknowledge each other besides that look. It made me feel like my friends comic shop was some kind of speakeasy or something.

I know the feeling. Here in Idaho, I am in a similar boat, and I only tell my family and close friends. I may be getting more public here in the next year though as I will be joining and/or starting a game group that will require more active involvement.
I also know that there are several other engineers that are in a similar boat here in Idaho, but they tend to be really quiet about it in the open.
I am of the opinion that I would like to be more active now in the community and more public about it because my friends should not judge me for what I do in my own life.

 

[Mr. Wilson]

My Warcraft hat kinda outs me, I think.