so there i was, killing time talking to Darren in PI this afternoon, reminiscing about the wonders of big stompy robots and blowing stuff up. one of his friends popped by, being a bit early for a gathering to organise the gameplay for a huge WH$40k promo in the store. this lead to a little discussion about perceptions of the gamer by friends, family and prospective life partners. in essence, this was sparked off by him asking what game i played. after finding out i'm a CBT player, he made a remark about not having the resources to dive into more minis-based games, and since he started with $40k he's been essentially married to it. this lead on to how he has a honking great collection of minis (GW huge army lists ftw), and how people (= girlfriends) react when they pop by his house. essentially, once the girl gets over the shock of how much plastic and metal she is seeing (think big-ass glass-fronted display cabinet), variations of a few standard questions will come out...
1) don't you have a life?
2) wah! you love me more or those figurines more?
3) once we get married will you sell them?
question 1 is an ignorant bigoted narrow-minded attempt at passing a comment via a rhetorical question. of course we have a life. it's just different from yours. while you choose to spend your time doing things to relax and switch off such as shopping or cycling or watching a movie, every so often we like to engage our brains. stops the atrophy from setting in.
question 2... quite succinctly answered by Darren's friend. 'wait... this is the 3rd time we're meeting up, i hardly know you and you're asking me this?' why does it turn into a me-or-them thing? its ridiculous. what kind of insecure females are we breeding to feel threatened by minis...
and the 3rd question... to the non-gamer, it seems as if games are things that one discards as one ages so as to move on to more 'matured' things. what if we like it this way? what if our little escape provides us the much-needed stress relief from the mature lifestyle you happen to be touting? why is gaming considered childish anyway? because we imagine? ban the fantasy stock market then! ban Rowling, Tolkien and Gaiman! ban singing in the shower even!
in short, give gamers a break. i truly hate feeling marginalised because i carry dice and am proud of it. because i chose to use my brain in my free time instead of vegetating. because i chose to let little fantasies of big stompy robots seep out of my head and onto the table from time to time.
but then again, the people who most need to re-think their attitude towards their gamer friends, family and loved ones will never read this, because they simply dont care, being an apathetic majority secure in their 'normalness' and 'conventional social behaviour'. they live out their white-bread lives, happy to trudge the same paths and so ready to criticise the harmless variations from their comfortable middle road.
disgusting.