Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="seasong" data-source="post: 309047" data-attributes="member: 5137">Balancing Roleplaying & Significant OthersAlmost all "roleplaying issues" are actually other kinds of issues which use the roleplaying as an excuse to come out into the open.Time Spent Apart: Assuming your SO does not game, time spent gaming is time spent apart from your SO. Different couples will have a different ideal amount of time to spend together, but rest assured that if your SO is not getting sufficient time at other times, roleplaying will get blamed. Sure, you spend more hours at work, but work is seen as a necessary evil, while roleplaying is "optional" time (it's not, for me, of course <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />). What I'm saying: As long as your SO gets sufficient time elsewhere, there isn't a problem here.Sacred Mysteries: If your SO is not a gamer, time spent roleplaying is time spent in a secret garden, where you participate in the esoteric mysteries and the SO is not really welcome. Any member of a masonic lodge, password-entrance club, Christian men's group (or women's group), Wiccan circle or similar deals with similar issues. With roleplaying, fortunately, it's not really a sacred mystery. Let the SO tag along... and see just how mundane it is. Remove the veil of secrecy. You may lose some mysterious respect, but you may gain a gamer, or at least a less displeased SO.Control: Some folks like to know that they are in control of their environment. If they feel like they are not in control, they begin trying to control other things... like your time. I can't give any real solutions here except to point out that this problem has nothing to do with roleplaying, and more to do with a discussion of who controls when the roleplaying is allowed to happen.Assurance: Your SO needs to know that they are of sufficiently high priority in your life. That's why they are called a Significant Other. This doesn't mean making huge sacrifices - it means letting the SO know that those huge sacrifices would be made if they were needed! Assuming that your SO is a reasonable human being (we can assume this more often than we think), just knowing that the option is there is sufficient.Ambition: Your SO may feel that you are wasting your time with roleplaying, when you could be pursuing more lofty, ambitious goals like becoming a millionaire CEO by age 30. It is important to understand that it is not roleplaying which is the waste of time - it is anything which is not a pursuit the SO thinks is worthy of you. I've noticed that teachers and counselors in High School tend to have this mentality, also. The only solution that I've found is to gently tell these people that roleplaying is fun, and that fun is a worthy goal, too - every waking moment need not be devoted to their ambition.Bad Experiences: Very often, an SO has had a previous boyfriend or girlfriend who had one of the other issues in a strong way (such as not giving the SO enough time, and refusing to do so), and now associates it with roleplaying and roleplayers. This is a prejudice - because one member of your "class" or "type" behaved a certain way, your SO expects that you will, also. If your SO is worth it, this can be overcome with discussion, time and lots of patient, good behavior. But it's a pain in the ass to have someone mistrust you because of someone else's actions <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />.Anyway, this is not a complete list, but I think it hits some high points.</blockquote>

Verification