[semi-ot] The end of innocence...and the beginning of the real world

[Maldur]

How can you guys even consider giving up playing????

I mean If your life changes, so what? If you like to play: PLAY!!
Your making yourself give up gaming, the world is not making you stop. Take a break from your life, go see europe ( ill put you up for a few days if needed) come back, Get a job and game in the evenings/weekends, (if YOU want to! not because I say so).

As for girl over Gaming (or movies or novels or anything). If she has not found out you like to watch/play/read fantasy/scifi (or other, in her eyes, bad things), are you pretending to be someone else around her? Isn't this stuff part of you? Don't change who you are, is doesn't work.

ok, I got it easy, I live in the Netherlands where rpg dont have a stigma, I have a good job so I can afford buying large quantities of books/movies/games. My girl is also a gamer as are a lot of my friends.

Giving up a hobby should not be a easy decision, dont do it over the wrong reasons. Sorry if I offended anyone, but some of these post made me angry did this and now hes several hundred euro poorer because after two years he had to rebuild his rpg/video collection, and he's a ex-wife richer.

Goodluck, Bazz (damn, you even made me sign in my own name iso Maldur)

 

[King_Stannis]

...Take a trip to Europe,

i kind of disagree with this. if you are going to be debt-saddled, the last thing you probably need is an expensive trip. take a much cheaper "day-trip", as someone might have mentioned. work on getting a good job, then getting yourself out of debt and then finally start to save money for your future.

and whatever you do, keep yourself out of credit card debt. so many people end up ruining their financial future by "charging away" their problem. used properly (ie paying off your balance every month), credit cards are a great convenience. if used as a form of financing, credit cards are the devil!

there's also no need to abandon RPG's completely. i have a 9-5 job, a wife and 2 kids, and i have a weekly game, as do many others here.

 

[Eryx]

On the plus side, if it comes down to her or RPGs, I'll be having a MASSIVE sale of pen-and-paper and computer role-playing games.

If it comes down to that, let her walk. No one is worth it, if they cannot accept you for who you are. I've seen too many friends drop away because their S.O. doesn't approve of their friends/hobby/fish...etc.

 

[The Sigil]

Concur...

If it comes down to that, let her walk. No one is worth it, if they cannot accept you for who you are. I've seen too many friends drop away because their S.O. doesn't approve of their friends/hobby/fish...etc.

I hate to sound like I'm against love and all that, but Eryx makes a terrific point. My wife is not exactly thrilled about my RPG habit... but when we were dating, she was willing to come "into the dungeon" with me and a bunch of my dopey gaming friends just so she could see what it was all about. She realizes that they are not "evil," but she doesn't find them fun. And we're both fine with that.

I don't find her love of gardening fun (yes, I went out and gardened with her a few times), but I make sure to take some time to watch our son while she gardens. She makes sure to take time to watch him while I write/play RPGs. She knows that this is one of my "stress-releasers" and as such is willing to let me indulge, even if she doesn't happen to like them for herself.

We have a lot of common interests, too (for example, both of us are basketball junkies and with the NBA playoffs around, it's party time at our house)... but it is extremely important in any relationship that acceptance of activities with little real bearing on the relationship take place (if your hobby is reading Playboy and hiring whores, that would probably put a strain on the relationship... and that kind of hobby needs to go if she asks you to dump it). Any hobby that boils down to "I'm getting together with my friends for a few hours a week" - whether it's for beers or bowling or RPGs - should be accepted, even if you don't find them interesting/fun. And that means you should accept her hobbies, too. You don't have to like doing them yourself, but give her enough space to do them.

I have seen what happens when people try to push their healthy interests aside in the name of "love" - it winds up destroying both them and the relationship. My mother loves music and art and my father is a very straightlaced person who doesn't have time for that sort of thing. My mother stopped doing music and art for almost 20 years while they were married and it destroyed their relationship - they are divorced now (there were other reasons) - and holding it inside did a lot of damage to her (I can still see the emotional scars - she was hurt by the years of repression a lot more than my father was).

Believe me when I tell you that if you try to push yourself aside for "love," you will wind up destroying yourself, you will wind up destroying your relationship, you may end up losing your capacity to love, and you will probably wind up losing her anyway. Better to lose her now and get it over with than compounding the pain over time by destroying yourself and your capacity to love in addition to losing her.

BTW, the reverse holds for girls/guys... girls shouldn't try to change for their guy, either.

Okay, I'm off my soapbox... rant over.

--The Sigil

 

[Tom Cashel]

Jack Carter: Don't listen to those fools. Life ends when you get out of college. You're close to being done. And I do mean done. I myself am 30 years old, and my job is pretty good. However, like all jobs it requires that I wear manacles and never leave my 3'x3' cell. Oh, well! The gruel is tasty...tasty like wallpaper paste. Mmm, good! And since I am in debt, all my paychecks have been garnished by the federal government so that I don't have to go to Debtor's Prison. On the plus side, I have been registered for the government's Arranged Marriage Program, so I will soon be married. Hmm...I'll have to make some space in my cell. Ah, I remember those carefree days of college education, when all I did was play D&D and have sex and smoke pot...

 

[Thorin Stoutfoot]

don't worry

I didn't play for 12 years, and did eventually come back to gaming when my life turned in that direction again. So it is possible to leave and return.

But whatever you do, don't spend money on a trip when you're in debt. Get rid of debt first. If you can save money now and sock it away in an IRA or 401(k) in an indexed fund, by the time you retire, you'll be worth lots of money. Save now!

If you need to, you can always mooch of richer friends who have RPG books.

 

[Storminator]

I can only imagine what your college life was like, Jack.

I was far busier then than I am now, and despite the debt of a mortgage (and car payments, and taxes, and insurance, and taxes, and condo fees, and kids' hockey, and taxes, and and and) I still have vastly more disposable income. I make more in month than I did in year while in college.

And go to Europe for god's sake! You're young, screw the debt! What? the debt won't be there when you get back?

PS