G&G: Gamers and Girlfriends.

[resscane]

A long time gaming buddy of mine nicknamed Axl lives and plays on Miami Beach, where he works as a tatoo artist/bartender. He always has the hottest mdel looking girls hanging about. Which isnt such a stratech if you've ever been to miami beach. Anyway, i sought of live vicariously through his wild life, as I am now married with 2 children and dont have the time/oppurtunity/inclination to hang out on south beach. He tells me he's chasing this amazing girl and he thinks hes gonna get lucky w/ her.

A week later at our gaming session, he starts telling the story of her staying over at his apartment that week. He got up early and when he returned to his bedroom, she had fished out his 3e core books and was looking at dwarves in the players handbook. She asked him what the books were for, and he tells her in a very hungover tone, "those are my room-mates. I don't know what they are."

Its funny because he had always called me out for bieng a closet d&d player. If my group was in public and began talking about the game, which they did all the time just to screw w/ me, I walked in the other direction as fast as possible. And now hes telling us that he, the bastion of in your face "screw everyone, I do what I like and dont care what others think, punk rock, mohawk wearing, harley driving, tatoo covered freak" has sold out for a hot looking chick.

It was a sad day.

 

[Timeboxer]

This reminds me of how my then-girlfriend didn't believe me when I said that the Dragonlance novels she so loved when she was younger were, in fact, based upon a Dungeons and Dragons campaign setting.

On the other hand, it did get her primed for the whole gaming thing, so. I didn't really feel the need to be all hiding it from her, though -- she thought it was cool.

By the way, my group is about, um... 2/3ths female. Plus me, the GM, so.

 

[the Jester]

I never make excuses. I'm proud to game, and I recruit new gamers... well, at the moment my game is over-full, but I recruit them a lot!

 

[Desdichado]

I never make excuses. I'm proud to game, and I recruit new gamers... well, at the moment my game is over-full, but I recruit them a lot!

I wonder if it's kinda a generational thing. Very few gamers my age (early to mid-30s) who've gamed since they were young are very far out of the gaming closet, so to speak. For the most part, I've found younger gamers don't see what the big deal is, for whatever reason.

 

[Flyspeck23]

I wonder if it's kinda a generational thing. Very few gamers my age (early to mid-30s) who've gamed since they were young are very far out of the gaming closet, so to speak. For the most part, I've found younger gamers don't see what the big deal is, for whatever reason.

Wonder no more

I guess being 30+ puts things into a certain perspective... or at least one doesn't strive for being in the "hip&cool" crowd anymore (as that would be night to impossible if all the young'uns keep calling you "Pops" or even "Grampa").

 

[shilsen]

The latest was a few weeks ago I was in my department's graduate student computer lab first thing on Easter Sunday morning to download and print off a bunch of stuff in Egyptian heiroglyphic fonts for my game that my home computer can't support when a very attractive woman entered the lab. Not only was she attractive, she struck up a conversation with me in which I discovered we had much in common and that she was a very bright and interesting person. Of course, I was at the lab, a one hour commute from anywhere worth living in metro Toronto first thing on Sunday morning just so I wouldn't be caught by anybody doing gaming-related stuff.

And so the inevitable question arose as to what had brought me into the lab at that time. I sheepishly admitted it was to make copies for an RPG. The game wasn't D&D but my newfound acquaintance had never heard of RPGs... so, in the end, I had to tell her it was D&D. By the time I'd reached the point of admitting that I get up at 8am on statutory holidays in the service of Dungeons and Dragons, I already felt so defensive and apologetic that when she tried to say complimentary things about my passtime, I kept insisting that it wasn't really that defensible and really was just an immature waste of time (imagine Nicholas Cage's character from Adaptation); I fled the lab shortly thereafter.

Sheepish? Defenseive? Apologetic? Come on, fusangite - you can do better than that! here's a suggestion - next time you're in the same situation, close you eyes and imagine that you're in the middle of a paladin thread discussing the problems with core alignment and the use of Aristotelian physics in the D&D world. If you can hold onto that thought, you'll never be tongue-tied. Which will, presumably, be a good thing

As for me, life's too short to do anything that I'm embarrassed or ashamed about, so I'm very open about my gaming. I mention it on the first day of the semester when telling my students about myself, have referred to playing D&D while giving a talk about teaching, and have been bringing a d12 to class to roll randomly when assigning roles in my drama class. Then again, I'm also someone who has turned down a girl asking me on a date because I had a D&D game that day (and yes, I did tell her that was the reason), so I'm possibly very slightly atypical here.

 

[S'mon]

One guy had it so bad that he turned red as an apple every time Katy entered the room. I felt so bad that I asked her to not sit on my lap when he was about (she and I have always been physically affectionate but try not to embarrass other folk).

Well, yeah, me & my wife are affectionate*, but she certainly doesn't sit on my lap at the game table - I wouldn't want a couple playing in my game to do that, either. Maybe they could hold hands or something if they must...

*Once I educated her that in England it's ok to hold hands in public. She's from Tennessee where PDAs (Public Displays of Affection) are frowned on.

Fusangite - that's a sad, sad tale.

 

[Gentlegamer]

A long time gaming buddy of mine nicknamed Axl lives and plays on Miami Beach, where he works as a tatoo artist/bartender. He always has the hottest mdel looking girls hanging about. Which isnt such a stratech if you've ever been to miami beach. Anyway, i sought of live vicariously through his wild life, as I am now married with 2 children and dont have the time/oppurtunity/inclination to hang out on south beach. He tells me he's chasing this amazing girl and he thinks hes gonna get lucky w/ her.

A week later at our gaming session, he starts telling the story of her staying over at his apartment that week. He got up early and when he returned to his bedroom, she had fished out his 3e core books and was looking at dwarves in the players handbook. She asked him what the books were for, and he tells her in a very hungover tone, "those are my room-mates. I don't know what they are."

Its funny because he had always called me out for bieng a closet d&d player. If my group was in public and began talking about the game, which they did all the time just to screw w/ me, I walked in the other direction as fast as possible. And now hes telling us that he, the bastion of in your face "screw everyone, I do what I like and dont care what others think, punk rock, mohawk wearing, harley driving, tatoo covered freak" has sold out for a hot looking chick.

It was a sad day.

He deserves the Hubcap of Shame . . .

 

[jmucchiello]

I wonder if it's kinda a generational thing. Very few gamers my age (early to mid-30s) who've gamed since they were young are very far out of the gaming closet, so to speak. For the most part, I've found younger gamers don't see what the big deal is, for whatever reason.

I'm 37, been playing since 12. I always told women I was a RPGer on first dates up until 4 years ago when I got married. (That really cut down on the number of first dates I've gone on....) If you can't be yourself, you'll never find someone who likes YOU.

I guess being 30+ puts things into a certain perspective... or at least one doesn't strive for being in the "hip&cool" crowd anymore

Mayhap I am so open because I've never striven to be in the hip/cool crowd.

(as that would be night to impossible if all the young'uns keep calling you "Pops" or even "Grampa").

Course I'm also the youngster in my gaming group, most of them are over 40.

 

[Sarajaine"The Solar"]

*puts on smoking jacket and pulls out a pipe*

Personally, I've never lied to a girl about my gaming. Makes no sense to. I am who I am. I enjoy gaming, mixed martial arts, sappy movies, football, and cuddling, as well as a million other things. Our varied interests are what makes up enjoyable to be around. Don't go around hiding anything that's important to you, unless it's sheep killing or something like.

Mate, that just got me a five minute telling off. The mrs and I are sat here perusing posts, we just read yours and I got "SEE, HE SAID HE LIKES CUDDLING IN FRONT OF EVERYONE ON THIS WEBSITE... WHY CAN'T YOU BE MORE LIKE HIM? YOU WON'T EVEN WHISPER 'I LOVE YOU' ON THE PHONE WHEN YOUR MATES ARE THERE, THIS GUY ISN'T LIKE THAT I BET... YADDA YADDA YAAAAAA BLAH BLAH BLAAAAAAAH"

*sigh*

I just got tutted at for typing *sigh* too. I also just got told that I should tell you all how much she does for me, and all the cleaning around the house and stuff... she just JUST said that I call her a "whinging wench" all the time too. Sad thing is, I was gonna say all that anyway, but she told me to first so now I can't, without looking like I was never going to.

Complexities of relationships are what keep them ticking, as are discussions about RPG's IMO.



EDIT: I'm SO not used to her posting on these boards yet. So much so, that I forgot that we were logged in as her for this, hahah. Bear in mind it was her boyfriend Scratched_back that posted this, not her. Heheh.