Are gamers chronic loners

What is your current and past relationship status?

  • Married

    Votes: 130 53.1%
  • Divorced

    Votes: 4 1.6%
  • In a relationship (but not married)

    Votes: 49 20.0%
  • Currently Single, never married (but have had an S.O.)

    Votes: 47 19.2%
  • Never married, currently single, never had an S.O.

    Votes: 15 6.1%


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Of the seven people in my current game, three of us are married, and another three are in committed long-term relationships. Only one is outright single.
 



In my group:

• One married
• One divorced
• One single
• Two couples

Whatever stereotypes of "gamers as loners" you may have been exposed to, my own experiences have been quite to the contrary. In my experience, many gamers are moderate-to-extremely social people and enjoy being in large groups, have several friends, engage in sexual congress with their preferred gender on a regular basis, and largely understand how to make friends. The big difference is in interests--my gamer friends hang out at the cafe downtown and drink mochas/martinis and whatnot, we just discuss gaming instead of the local sports teams.

However, these sorts of people are not representative of every gamer, but the really irritating/obnoxious people tend to stick out in our memories more prominently.

I will concede that many gamers do fall prey to the Five Geek Social Fallacies from time to time, especially GSF 2. I've been having big problems with passive/aggressive players over the past year or so.

Such people have distorted or inaccurate ideas about how social dynamics work, but they are fundamentally sociable. They just aren't very good at it.
 

My current group:

Me (the DM): Single (have had SO's in the past but prefer meaningless physical relationships for the most part)

Player 1 (Seance): Single (has had SO's in the past).
Player 2 (Firetongue or whichever alt he's on now): In a committed long-term relationship; not married.
Player 3 (Crazy Artist Chick): In a committed long-term relationship but a somewhat open one; has been married (and then divorced) in the past.
Player 4 (Takes Forever to Act Guy): In a long-term relationship with Player 3; not sure how committed HE is.
Player 5 (Golden Boy): Single AFAIK; has been in LTRs before but never married.
Player 6 (Dude Always Plays Fighter Types): Married, no kids. Only marriage; has lasted years at this point and seems very strong.
Player 7 (New Guy; 17 years old): Son of the best friend of Firetongue's girlfriend; cool dude, AFAIK he never leaves the house except to come game with us or work; AFAIK no LTRs, too young to count against him especially given his emotional retreat after the death of his dad a few years back.
 

Email group: 7 players.
5 married
1 not sure (was married, got divorced, might have remarried)
1 unmarried

Live group I DM: 5 players
5 married (1 is remarried)

Live group I'm a player in: 5 players + DM
4 married
1 not sure (but I think he's married)
1 unmarried (my wife thinks he's gay and just quiet about whatever relationship he does have; I disagree but I might be wrong!)
 

Recently rejoined the ranks of the single, but I'm always an optimist. ;)

Usually in one relationship or another. Never married.

Of my group, I'm currently the only single one. The other five are in stable long-term relationships (ie, they all live with their otters), while two of my players are actually engaged to one another.
 

I'm in two groups right now:
In the older (30-45) group, 3 of us are married, one is soon to be and the other isn't.
In the younger (18-20), 2 are married (to each other) and 3 are not.
 

Of the seven in my gaming group:

  • 3 are married (with two of those, including me, on Wife 2.0)
  • 3 are single and have never been married
  • 1 is divorced - but has been single for 20 years.


Age range on all of the above is 42-52 yrs old.

Does the sterotype fit? Based on my group? Somewhat, yes.
 

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