I m a girl get over it

[Scratched_back]

Here is me in a bikini but unfortunately not chain mail. It doesn't matter what you look like and I don't think Im attractive or ugly, I don't think what I look like has any relavance to the game.
<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v730/sarajaine/sarajaine.jpg" alt="Image hosted by Photobucket.com">

I wrote a thread about my girlfriend this morning. When she woke up, I told her I'd written it, showed her how to create an ENWorld account and said she should, to post any replies she might want to give to funny posts.

I went out to work this afternoon, and she'd been on the PC a little while, I don't think anything of it.

I come back from work, her thread has exploded to five pages, she's been -in no particular order - proposed to (or propositioned), fallen in love with, hit on, applauded, criticised, joked with, corrected, advised, dismissed, berrated, welcomed, encouraged, accused... and most concerningly... rather most notably of all dear readers... revealed.

Only on ENWorld folks!

I love this place!

 

[Banshee16]

Well, I would hope that most gamers don't actually have a problem with women playing. I think that many people are a bit defensive about it though. I saw enough instances in High School where gamers I knew were openly harassed and ridiculed by peers, and basically ostracized, when some clever bully or other found out about the hobby.

As a result, they get defensive. I think there's an insecurity factor involved, and the fear that if women know what the guy is into, they'll somehow think less about them. Not sure if that makes sense.

I myself kept my hobby private through school. Not all my friends did, and they suffered for it. Severely. I think it's wrong that it was allowed to happen by the school authorities, but that's 13 years in the past, now. I also had interests outside of gaming...competitive swimming, lifeguarding, art, soccer, and regular high school stuff....but a lot of gamers I knew didn't.....gaming is all they did. By strange coincidence a few years back, I learned that half the guys in my division of my company were gamers, but nobody realized anyone else was, since everyone was keeping it private.

Even now, some of the guys I've had in my group have been a little reclusive. I don't know if that kind of person is drawn to roleplaying, or if they become like that being so defensive and reclusive about their hobby. I've learned on two separate instances to be careful about mixing my gaming friends with my other friends. On two separate instances, players of mine who had the opportunity to meet my sister, who is very attractive and very outgoing. In these instances they made inappropriate comments to her. Not suggestive, but in one case being rather pushy, and in both instances, telling her, who they had literally met only once or twice that they had never kissed a girl or had a girlfriend, or asking her out when it's been made clear that she's already in a long-term, committed relationship. Those types of things. Obviously these instances have made her uncomfortable. And some of these guys are like 30. It's just not the kind of thing you say to someone you just met. And then I'm left making excuses for these guys.

On other instances, I've had guys in the group make comments about my own girlfriend, and in another instance, one of them did something that made my girlfriend very uncomfortable in our own house. If these were non-gamer friends, I'd be angrier, but with these particular friends, I feel bad, because I don't think they have the experience to know any better.

After having said this, I realize that it sounds like I'm painting all gamers with the weird brush. Many are quite "normal"....whatever the label "normal" means. Most of my players aren't like the ones I've mentioned, nor am I. Maybe because of defensiveness about the hobby, some gamers don't have the opportunities to interact with a lot of women, and hence have difficulty accepting them in their groups? I don't know the answer. I suspect that it's ones like that that make such a big deal out of women playing.

I've had women in my groups before, though not many, and those I had were excellent roleplayers.

On the flip side of things, many women I've known just didn't understand the hobby at all. Even my girlfriend of almost 4 years doesn't really understand it, though she accepts it since she knows I enjoy it.

Banshee

 

[Scratched_back]

from sarajaine "The Solar"

As we all know only ugly girls really game the rest are pretenders only there to get a man or keep an eye on their boy friend or husband.

What turned me off this post was how often you pointed how pretty you were then to prove we had to have the picture in the bikini.

I am female gamer and yes I am overweight but I do not have pimples nor do I dress in ratty shirts and jeans. I wear nice clothes even dresses and make up and jewlery, perfume.

I know other gamers who fit the sterotype to a tee but I also know gamers who don't how about a former Miss Florida/USA.

I don't know you but I have met "girls" who use there looks in everything they do and then wonder why they are not taken seriously. It is the way the put themselves across. The way they talk, dress and guys and other women pick up on it and don't take them or what they seriously. It is true that beautiful women have a harder time being taken seriously but sometimes they contribute to it by the way they act. Because for some reason they always need to be the center of attention they don't share well. Especially with other woman. This is not meant to be a blanket statement of all beautiful women.

If you really want to game go out and find a group. It is a great hobby. Since you have a baby on the way maybe online games might be the best. because as I mother I know how limited your times is about to become.

I never once mentioned I was attractive or ugly or anything about that. If you think I'm attractive that is your opinion.The only thing I ever said was that I did'nt look like a typical gamer. Someone commented on how I mentioned how I looked and a big debate arose as to what I do look like. I posted the 'bikini' picture because o f the on going joke about chain mail bikini's. I shouldn't be slated because I look a certain way and neither should you. I'm deeper than a puddle and I don't believe that life is all about looks. This thread has strayed galaxies away from my enitial point.

 

[fusangite]

This thread is great. Every time I look at it, it's talking about something slightly different.

I want to latch onto something Kamikaze Midget said,

The more paranoid gamer guys have tended to have really bad experiences with girls growing up and haven't dealt with them in the best ways, usually. A beautiful woman is a special kind of dangerous for a heartfelt man, since she can hurt him in ways his guy friends can't. And when some have felt that hurt, D&D can become an escapist "safety zone." So a lovely girl coming into that zone can suddenly make them affraid again. Old wounds barely healed and all that.

I think one of the problems/issues in our hobby is what has happened to the position of geeks in society. In the past generation, geek culture has exploded into the mainstream. Thanks, largely, to the massive cultural over-representation of geeks in the first generations of computer programming, our subculture has begun to collect more and more people who are geeks by choice rather than necessity. This creates an uncomfortable dynamic for those of us who became geeks in high school because we had no other choice -- we simply could not socially function in other subcultures because our skills were insufficient.

So, we're kind of like those working class families living in neighbourhoods that are being gentrified. On the one hand, we're pleased with all the cool coffee shops and art galleries opening down the street. On the other, we're expecting that any minute now, we'll get chased out of our ghetto.

This helps to explain our incredulity when someone cute and/or successful expresses an attraction to our culture. Many of us are used to thinking of being geeks as a disability rather than a lifestyle choice. We immediately want to place you in the same category as amputee- and fat-fetishists. After all, why would you want to live in this slum when you could live anywhere? We live here because this is where we can afford to live.

Anyway, I hope that makes things a little more comprehensible. If not, this post has allowed me to waste 23 minutes of time I would otherwise have spent writing about landscape Christianization in Late Antique and Early Medieval Europe.

 

[Darth K'Trava]

Nah he is a darling really,all his friends are they just can't help having a little dig sometimes about dnd+girls don't mix

Frankly, he needs to get over this "little dig" or else he might jeopardize the whole relationship due to his being an ass about it.

Women can play D&D just as well, or even better than, the guys. Sometimes us women (I'm female, BTW) can be more bloodthirsty and power-hungry than any guy.... and. on the other end of the spectrum, can probably roleplay better. Our group is mixed, male and female. Granted half our group consists of married couples but there's a few singles who game, including myself in the latter category.

 

[Darkness]

Wanna know what's funny? My wife is starting to really get into d&d, and so when we go to look for new books at the local stores (Riders or Underworld), whenever she asks questions to the staff, they address their answers to me, or they just ignore her. It's mind boggling.

I had a similar experience some years ago while helping my mom shop for electronics (or something - I don't remember the specifics).
Even though she asked the questions and I was only there to help carry the stuff, the guy would address his answers to me.

 

[Yeoman]

I had a similar experience some years ago while helping my mom shop for electronics (or something - I don't remember the specifics).
Even though she asked the questions and I was only there to help carry the stuff, the guy would address his answers to me.

Ridiculous isn't it?

 

[Darkness]

Quite.

Granted, young men are sometimes more interested in electronics than middle-aged women are. But going by stereotypes instead of reacting to actual people standing right before you is hardly acceptable - particularly when you're supposed to be a professional salesman.
(It weren't particularly arcane electronics, either. Just... something like, music, video, or cooking stuff.)

 

[Banshee16]

I had a similar experience some years ago while helping my mom shop for electronics (or something - I don't remember the specifics).
Even though she asked the questions and I was only there to help carry the stuff, the guy would address his answers to me.

Hmmm...similar experience with car shopping. We were in a Mazda dealership, and my girlfriend was buying the car. She wanted to check out one of their new models. The guy was talking to me.....literally over her head. She was trying to ask questions. It was quite rude. She was obviously incensed that he was treating her like she didn't have a brain, and we left.

We actually called the manager of that dealership the next day and lodged a formal complaint, but the manager didn't seem to care. Talking with friends afterwards, apparently this wasn't unique to that Mazda dealership. So, they lost out on a sale, since she ended up purchasing from a Ford dealership, where the salespeople actually knew how to talk to her.

Banshee

 

[Desdichado]

This creates an uncomfortable dynamic for those of us who became geeks in high school because we had no other choice -- we simply could not socially function in other subcultures because our skills were insufficient.

You make it sound like being a "geek" was because that was the only group left and we had to join it, sorta like being picked last for the sports team as a kid. I never felt that way. I dunno. Maybe I wasn't enough of a geek, but I moved in all kinds of social circles in high school. Maybe my high school was also unusual in that all the A/P type classe and other "advanced" studies were also frequented by the preppy "queen bee" crowd. As for liking D&D, fantasy/sci-fi and all that, I've been that way as long as I can remember; certainly even before starting kindergarten I was fascinatined with the fantastic.