Dysfunctional Gamer Behaviour

[Impeesa]

But I appreciate the independent confirmation -- and the fact that someone is capable of guessing from this very limited conversation who I was. I actually find it rather creepy.

I love making someone's day just a little bit more surreal. And it's probably not as impressive as it sounds... epic loremaster has nothing on Disciple of Google.

Anyway, of course, social moronhood is a highly localized phenomenon, largely dependent on audience. As many can attest, my capacity to do things in one sphere does not necessarily translate into others.

Hehe... isn't that the topic at hand? Talinthas just made an excellent example of that. It's funny how that works - I think it has a lot to do with things I mentioned before, i.e. confidence and knowing your audience. If you don't know how to talk to a given person, can't pick up on the clues as you go, don't have any confidence in your ability to do either of those, and/or don't know you have such problems to begin with, you are much more likely to come across as annoying or offensive.

I spend far too much time thinking about these things... hm... I wonder how much extra work it is to add a psychology minor to a phsyics/comp sci degree...

--Impeesa--

 

[Rel]

Rel> Actually, I don't consider myself physically attractive at all. At least, not when compared to contemporary ideals of beauty. I am in no way, shape, or form the dainty little waif idealized these days, nor do I represent what some would call an Amazon. If I had to state something about myself that I'm proud of, my body wouldn't be one of them. At least, not my physique. I could say more about my eyes, hands, and lips, though.

I may be starting to stray from the topic at hand (or maybe not) but let me just say this about that:

I don't think that precise body shape has as much to do with attractiveness as some people think it does (note Umbran's post above). I've met a lot of women who looked fine but nothing outstanding, but whom, as I got to know them better, became very attractive to me on the basis of their personality and attitude.

I've likewise met plenty of women who were superficially attractive but I could never think of them as attractive because of a crappy personality.

I'll also go out of my way to mention that the "waiflike ideal" that is supposedly popular these days is not really attractive to me at all (which is not to say that it can't be overcome by the aforementioned good personality). Maralyn Monroe is about as thin a woman as I'd ever care to get involved with. My wife is more voluptuous than what Maxim is trying to convince me I should be attracted to and I'm crazy about her.

The only firm stricture that I put on physical beauty (in terms of body shape) is that it shouldn't interfere with the sort of lifestyle that I want to lead with the person in question. I like to hike and canoe and do other outdoor physical activities. If my wife was too heavy to participate in those sorts of things, it would be a problem. (I'll just go on the record as saying that this isn't even close to being a problem. My wife is going to the gym three times a week and I'm trying to convince her not to lose too much weight.)

Getting back a bit closer to the original topic, this relates to the "Gamer Social Disfunction" in the sense that one component of social ineptitude is the feeling that you can't be found attractive or acceptable. Confident people are ALWAYS more attractive so the sooner that folks lose the idea that they are unworthy of or unlikely to receive the admiration of others, the better off they'll be.

When I was in High School, I was pretty close to as smart, funny and creative as I am now. What I wasn't was confident. Somewhere along the way, I stopped being a wallflower and started "putting myself out there" a lot more. This resulted in me making an ass of myself any number of times. But it also meant that people could see that I was willing to take that risk. So what if I fell on my face once in a while. It was far better than sitting in a corner, hoping somebody would drag me out of my shell.

Now that all sounds pretty cut and dried, but looking back, I still don't know exactly how or when this change in my attitude took place. But at some point, I clearly asked myself this question: "I'm smart, funny and creative. Why wouldn't somebody like to be around me?"

 

[fusangite]

Rel says

Getting back a bit closer to the original topic, this relates to the "Gamer Social Disfunction" in the sense that one component of social ineptitude is the feeling that you can't be found attractive or acceptable. Confident people are ALWAYS more attractive so the sooner that folks lose the idea that they are unworthy of or unlikely to receive the admiration of others, the better off they'll be....

Now that all sounds pretty cut and dried, but looking back, I still don't know exactly how or when this change in my attitude took place. But at some point, I clearly asked myself this question: "I'm smart, funny and creative. Why wouldn't somebody like to be around me?"

I have to endorse how you have expressed things here. Being told "be confident" is worse than useless. It is a magical process that is difficult to explain; some people find therapy helps, for others it is about practice; for others the problem is never solved.

Perhaps there is no dysfunctional gamer behaviour; perhaps the same behaviours are just differently received based on the confidence level of the person exhibiting them.

 

[Doc_Souark]

I just want to say this since I haven't read most of the threads, I recently started getting togather a gameing group for a campaign post 3.5 release. One of the people that'll be playing is a Policewoman that I have just recently been dateing( Sandy wanted to know more about my hobby). A guy that I've never played with but was directed to me as a potential player heard this and said "Dude this'll screw up the nights game ! I always toot one when I play".

First of all I don't do drugs and I sure as hell don't let them in my house. So I told the "Dude" to go game some where else. I guess thats DGH.

 

[jdavis]

Perhaps there is no dysfunctional gamer behaviour; perhaps the same behaviours are just differently received based on the confidence level of the person exhibiting them.

Oh there is dysfunctional gamer behavior out there, My little stories about guys carrying D&D books to the mall in case they meet somebody who wants to game (in the middle of the mall) and the one about the guy rolling to see if he should leave a tip at Denny's are true. But those are a very very small (but visible) portion of the gaming community as a whole. There is a difference between being shy and legally changing your name to Optimus Prime, those people do exist out there.

 

[Rel]

I have to endorse how you have expressed things here. Being told "be confident" is worse than useless. It is a magical process that is difficult to explain; some people find therapy helps, for others it is about practice; for others the problem is never solved.

You are absolutely correct about this. You can't just tell somebody to "be confident" when they aren't. The best advice I can give on that score is just to be observant about the results of your social interactions. Like I said in a previous post, the worst that will happen is you make a bad impression.

So go talk to ten people and make ten bad impressions. Observe that even with ten worst case scenarios in a row, the world didn't end. It won't end if you make ten more. Once you realize that the consequences of failure in any give social contact are fairly close to zero, the fear should start to fall away.

And the fact of the matter is that you simply aren't going to make ten bad impressions in a row unless you really are an absolute jerk deep down. Even most jerks come off as cool one in ten times. So long as you are at least making the slightest attempt at civility and some sense of manners, the worst most people will be able to say about you is that you seemed nervous.

There's an Alison Krause song out called "The Lucky One". One line in it goes something like "The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing."

Play the game. Playing is sometimes fun even when you lose. The ante is low and the jackpot is huge.

Trust me. I just tucked my two year old daughter into bed ten minutes ago and I'm going up to kiss my wife right...now.