Gaming Pride / Gaming Shame

[garyh]

Today as I was setting up a Facebook profile, I struggled with this very issue. When I figured out that no one but my invited friends and family will see that stuff I decided I didn't have much to worry about.

As a public school employee, I do have a low-grade worry in the back of my head during the school year that some parent is going to flip out over the fact that their kid's librarian likes D&D.

True, because surely a Google search for "Eric Noah" won't pull up anything D&D related.

 

[jmucchiello]

Irrelevant. It's not my sense of self that I'm trying to preserve: it's other people's perceptions of me. I don't advertise gaming because it's not how I want to be identified in other people's minds.

Hope that explains it.

No, it doesn't. But I guess my next question is "what happens if someone identifies you as 'a gamer'?" You see you skirted my question. You say "D&D is what I do, not what I am." But now you say "It's THEIR perception I'm preventing." So which is it? ARE you a gamer in hiding? Or, Is DOING gaming something you hide? IOW, are you saying that you move from DO to ARE when other people perceive you as being 'a gamer'? Because I thought the difference would be something internal.

(My head hurts.)

 

[Nifft]

No, it doesn't. But I guess my next question is "what happens if someone identifies you as 'a gamer'?" You see you skirted my question. You say "D&D is what I do, not what I am."

The fact that I play D&D is not relevant to most of my social interactions, unlike many other facts about myself which are almost always relevant (such as my intellectual brilliance, devilish good looks, and saint-like humility).

But now you say "It's THEIR perception I'm preventing." So which is it? ARE you a gamer in hiding?

Yes; see my first post.

Or, Is DOING gaming something you hide?

Yes; see my first post.

IOW, are you saying that you move from DO to ARE when other people perceive you as being 'a gamer'? Because I thought the difference would be something internal.

The difference is internal in so far as my choice to not advertise my gaming / myself as a gamer is "internal"; it's external in so far as what prompts my decision is consideration of what is appropriate for any given context.

But I think you're over-thinking things. I'll break it down in chunks that show my train of thought more clearly:

- Something you are: you cannot help but express. It is evident, or assumed; you bring it with you into every context.

- Something you do: is a specific context in which you participate, but which you can leave behind. It is not a part of you.

Cheers, -- N

 

[hanasays]

Hmm... something I am versus something I do... I don't really think of it in those terms at all.
I think that perhaps some of the other posters are right - you are overthinking things a bit.
As for people who aren't potential friends, it's not like the fact that you play D&D will become a critical topic for discussion in a business meeting. And honestly, why hide what you do? It's not like playing Dungeons & Dragons is illegal or evil. I don't worry about peoples' impression of me in regards to gaming - if they ask about it, I say that yes, I enjoy it. If they're going to get their undies in a bunch over it, and the fact that I play D&D causes them to lose sleep at night - well, crap, if that's the biggest problem they've got, I'm honestly happy for them. And maybe a little weirded out.

Personally: I won't stuff the fact that I play tabletop games down peoples' throats, but it's also pretty difficult to hide the fact that I have some pretty nerdy pastimes. If people are going to avoid me or write me off because I happen to pretend to be a half-orc barbarian every Tuesday, they're not people I want to hang out with anyway.

And to tell you the truth, most people couldn't care less anyway.

 

[jmucchiello]

But I think you're over-thinking things. I'll break it down in chunks that show my train of thought more clearly:

- Something you are: you cannot help but express. It is evident, or assumed; you bring it with you into every context.

- Something you do: is a specific context in which you participate, but which you can leave behind. It is not a part of you.

No, the difference is I don't leave parts of myself behind. I am (in no particular order) a father, a husband, a gamer, a musician, a writer, a programming guru, and everything else. These things are all a part of me and they can be seen in every context. I might suppress one or more or them at times but even then, I'm sure an observant person would still see evidence of these things in my manner, my expression and my appearance.

I still find it hard to believe someone on these boards can leave it behind. I get the odd shake of the head when I announce avoiding temptation by saying I made my Will save. ("I thought you wanted that piece of cake." "I made my save.") Doesn't everyone?

 

[Aus_Snow]

I still find it hard to believe someone on these boards can leave it behind.

Nonetheless, it happens.

Some [feel that they*] have to, some [feel that they*] want to, and for others it's a happy coincidence (i.e., it's both.)

OK, 'we'.

 

[blargney the second]

I get the odd shake of the head when I announce avoiding temptation by saying I made my Will save. ("I thought you wanted that piece of cake." "I made my save.")

In 4th edition, cake attacks you!
-blarg

 

[jmucchiello]

In 4th edition, cake attacks you!

In my case, this has always been true. "I swear. It just jumped down my throat."

 

[Set]

I grew up in a town so religious that there was a law on the books saying that black people couldn't own property within the city limits (old-school Mormon influence, they've since lightened up on that, but our town never caught up), and I regularly heard tripe like 'it's the mark of Cain' and 'they can't help being born like that' and 'I'm gonna go cut me some n*ggers.' We had more churches than restaurants, and a 'megachurch' with it's own 'school' (that graduated kids who couldn't read and went on to a life of stealing stuff, holding up 7-11s, home invasions and welfare checks to support their own half-dozen illiterate, but surprisingly fecund, little bible-thumpers).

And yet, it never occured to me to hide my interest in D&D. I'd already been picked on for a decade because of the comic-book thing, so I was pretty comfortably ensconced in social outcast land. In fact, if I thought it would have kept them further away from me (and not gotten me drowned in a bathtub in an exorcism-gone-horribly-wrong), I would have marched down the halls goose-stepping and shouting Hail Satan.

Moving to new england (as soon as I was old enough to get out of that bible-belt speaking-in-tongues 'slain-in-the-spirit' snake-handling freakshow), I got randomly assigned to room with someone in college, and digging through my suitcase pushed aside a Monster Manual, and my random roommate said, 'Oh, you play D&D. Awesome. The guys at the Medieval Society are having a game tonight, wanna go?'

I realized then that I'd come home.

If anyone doesn't like that I play D&D (or read comic books, or watch cartoons with the kids), they can go screw. I never needed their uninformed judgemental opinions when I was a kid, I don't need 'em now that I'm a grown-up.

 

[Adrift]

Vin Diesel has his favorite DnD character tatoo'd across his stomach.

With commitment like that from a badass like him, there is no way I'm ashamed of playing DnD. I don't go around greeting everyone with 'I play DnD' as my introduction, but I'll talk about how I gamed with buds over the weekend.