# Are gamers really that pathetic?



## Quasqueton

I just read an article about the point of view of convention booth babes. [I know two threads have been closed for the booth babe conversation. This is not an attempt to rehash *that* issue. This thread is about us gamers.] 

A couple women in the article commented:

"It's weird when they put their arms around me," she replies, "but then I feel them shaking and I'm like, whatever, if it's so important to you . . . it's funny when guys come up to me and tell me that it's their first time touching a girl."

"This environment is definitely over-stimulating for them."

"They seem so un-used to seeing girls."

"It's so cute they way they're so enthusiastic and enamored."

"They come up to me and they're shaking."

I started playing D&D (really became a "gamer") at age 13 (1980). I played at least once a week for many, many years, so I was what you would lable a gamer geek. I was shy, but not really socially maladjusted. My fellow gamer friends were normal boys - one ran in track and field, one played football, one was a pot-head, etc. We went out socializing on Saturday nights. We dated girls. We had girlfriends (occasionally). We "touched" girls as young and often as probably any other non-gamer boys.

I, nor any of my friends lived at home past 20-21 years. I now have a wife and family of my own (37 years old).

Although in my years of gaming, I have met the stereotypical gamer geek -- unwashed, socially retarded, too smart for his own good, etc. But the vast majority of my gamer friends were "normal" in various ways.

Is my 20+ years of life experience as a gamer that different from what others have had?

Are so many gamers *really* so pathetically socially withdrawn that the first time they've touched a girl would be a booth babe at a gaming convention? Or are the guys these women are referring to 13 year-olds? Is that situation so exciting as to make gamer guys shake?

Quasqueton


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## Crothian

They are out there but it dfoesn't seem to be the norm at least how I know it.  I know at conventions you do see this type of withdrawn and socially awkward people.  I wouldn't call it pathetic, I see it as a good thing that they have convention they can go to and be accepted at.


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## Umbran

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Are so many gamers *really* so pathetically socially withdrawn that the first time they've touched a girl would be a booth babe at a gaming convention?




Probably not.  For example - did the article say how many gamer-males were present who _didn't_ react that way?  How many well-adjusted, washed, and otherwise capable gamers walked by, without taking more than a glance at the lady?  

If not, then we cannot really extrapolate to how many gamers fit the stereotype.  I haven't read the article in question, but it soudns like it is taking advantage of the sticking power of negative impressions.  People tend to remember bad things and forget good or neutral things.


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## Turanil

Fortunately & Unfortunately, pathetic is everywhere.

Remember that a pathetic gamer, like a pathetic anybody else, is someone suffering. I hope that in the future, progress of science, understanding of psychology, sociology, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, etc., will help create a better world for all people. Yet there is still a long way to go. And, now I will get a look at d20 Future + Transhuman Space...


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## Mark

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Are gamers really that pathetic?




Nope.


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## BiggusGeekus

I've known sports junkies who never had a date.  Same deal.  I mean, let's take some random sports junkies:







The winners of the 2004 Ford World Curling Championships.  Eh.  No disrespect to the winners, but here are some guys at the top of their game and  .... well ... just look at them.

Now lets take a gamer at random.






Vin Diesel is clearly a hunk of man who gets the babes.  But, let's be honest, he's not really known for being a great DM.  Oh, sure, we all acknowledge his contributions to the hobby.  I'm sure he's a nice guy.  But he's just not top drawer stuff.

I think it's clear.  Our totally random average DM knocks the socks off of FOUR sports guys who represent the apex of their profession.  Once again, we win.  Suck dirt jocks.


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## Tonguez

Maybe its convention-goers that are pathetic


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## Jim Hague

Honestly, I think it's more that the sad cases stick out more - people're used to seeing 'normal' folks constantly, so they drop off the radar fairly easy.  But some poor sod who's shaking because he's touching a woman for the first time?  It sticks out.


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## Queen_Dopplepopolis

I think that the sad "I've never touched a girl" gamers are just drawn to the booth babes because they are paid to smile and wave... 

It's not that there's more of them in our particular population-- they just tend to come out of hiding in a situation like that.


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## Nisarg

Tonguez said:
			
		

> Maybe its convention-goers that are pathetic




People who go to "fandom" conventions, whether it be Star Trek, Comics, RPGs, Furry, or just about any other sort of non-sport or car related hobby, will tend to be the MOST fanatic followers of the hobby. The average gamer guy with a few hundred bucks is going to buy some books at his FLGS, or to go to Paris or Hawaii or blow it on a stereo system, not go to Gencon.

Among those most fanatic of the fanatics will also almost undoubtedly be the most pathetic. That by no means is to say that everyone there will be pathetic, just that there will be a disproportionate number of socially marginalized individuals there, in a hobby that ALREADY has a disproportionate amount of the socially marginalized.


Nisarg


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## Wormwood

It's like the goats at the petting zoo complaining about the hand that holds the pellets.

Sorry, ladies, you can wash off the cooties after you cash your check. Until then, just look pretty and deal with it.

Love, Wormwood (happily married, but showin' a little love for my single-guy bruddas out there)


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## Emiricol

I think it's conventions.  I started gaming when I was 10, but socially I sure didn't suffer at all in school or in my adult life (not that I advertised that I was a gamer).  I've never been to a game Con, though, so I'm just guessing, based off my own viewpoint on it.


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## Clint

That model (let's say) just had her picture taken hundreds of times in one day solely because some gamers want to be photographed with an attractive woman. For these gamers, such an event is special in some way. What does that say to the model? I'm not judging it; but picture the situation from her point of view.

I imagine a model's response would be similar after a video game con, sci fi con, or any other show where random boys/guys can approach a model and ask for a picture.

-Clint


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## Laurel

I have a feeling this is just a case of media slanting things... there are lots of gamers who aren't like this. And even if they don;t remeber them the girls probably met quite a few normal people male and female.
I also think this may be a case of reporter asking "What was wierd?" or "What do you remember?" and the above remarks may seem like they would bring more attention then a 'they were normal' answer.

I do know there are some gamers like those discribed in the article, but I don't think they total or even make up most of the players out there no. And that may just make them the memorable people to those girls.

I also want to add that for some GenCon puts them in a not so normal mind set... and may alter actions, not the girls themselves but the whole convention.


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## Wereserpent

I am socially maladjusted and I usually do not shake when talking to a girl.  Granted they are not pathetic just because they are not the most social people you have ver met.


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## Incenjucar

*shrugs*

It can't be worse than the furry convention I went to; then again, people there tended to touch like a compulsion (ever seen people petting a guy in a collar in public?  ever seen a girl calling out 'yerf!' to nobody in particular?  I have.).

Some people who get too in to just about anything tend to have problems.

Me, I'm a definate, proven nerd (I consider the periodic table entertaining, and am taking an English major to a large degree because of D&D).  But I've also had a sweet, sexy, extremely smart and *gasp* socially-capable girl come all the way from Australia hoping to get a chance at getting my pants off.  And I'm definately no Vin Diesal.


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## fanboy2000

I'd say most gamers arn't pathetic. I don't know about this years GenCon, but I'm guessing most booths don't have booth babes. I've gone to a lot of conventions, and generally if there's a girl working at the booth, she's probably a regular employee of the company, or a game designer, or an artist, or whatever. The only time I remember booth babe at a convention was at Troma's booth, and, if you've ever seen a Troma Movie, that won't suprise you.


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## alleynbard

Here is the article in question, I think
http://www.gamecritics.com/feature/report/e3expo2004_babes/page01.php
The article is about E3.  It also seems to be written in a mildly condescending manner.  I think the writer was fishing for some of the answers she got, but I could be wrong.

Personally, I have never known anyone like this. Every gamer I have ever known was very social and never had a shortage of dates or social activities outside of gaming.  Most of my friends could recognize an attractive booth babe when they saw one but never went "ga-ga" over them.

I never understood the booth babe fascination, of course not being interested in woman may aid in that confusion.


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## Stone Angel

I suppose I understand where the article is coming from. I had a little joke with a few of the other guys about doing a doc film about Gamers hitting on chicks. There was a specific incident which brought this up. But I can only laugh and poke fun because I am similarly dorky and such. But all in all I think that the article was a little skewed. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that she was famous and a celebrity more than the fact that she was pretty. I mean look at how 12 year olds react to seeing a Backstreet Boy. Can you imagine all the gamers screaming, crying, and shaking "It's the Beast Master, ohmy gawd, ohmy gawd *Faints*!"

So I don't know if I would shake when getting a picture with a hottie, I mean cmon I could walked down Illinois street and gotten a much better show   

The Seraph of Earth and Stone


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## maddman75

Yes - though there are plenty of perfectly normal gamers, it is an escapist, intellectual hobby.  Therefore it naturally attracts people only interested in intellectual pursuits or who really want to escape life.  Also many people fall into the Geek Social Fallacies and allow these folks to not develop their social skills.  And meeting one Cat Piss Man will make the typical person (or Booth Babe) forget about the last hundred normal gamers they meet.


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## Incenjucar

Having read the 'article' (you know you're dealing with a twit writer when they note that someone likes the idea of their article IN their article)...

1) Those aren't babes so much as 'we happen to be thin and have sizable breasts' gals.  I saw mostly dead eyes and so-so faces.  Suggests that, aside from money, the girls are trying to get some ego points for their bodies (and so all that work in the gym and getting just the right wonderbra were worth it).  Alas, the audience that would actually be expecting 'babes' to be the main draw to a video game are people who aren't going to be looking at eyes and faces anyways.  Heck, most of those cheesy auto magazines have better-faced gals most of the time.  Of course, they also use digital touch-up...  To me, to qualify for babe, they have to be able to be dressed in a loose-fitting sweater that hides pretty much everything, and just drown you in their eyes and the way they smile.  But again, that's me.

2) Unfortunately, the video game community has been going as fast towards porn as possible.  There was a video game that was mostly nude scenes that was out of a Heavy Metal Magazine (read: comic book porn mag) some time ago (and had horrid play according to the reviews, so you know what they were actually trying to sell), and not only is Leisure Suit Larry back, but now they have Playboy: The Mansion coming out.  That and they have swimsuit issues for a number of video game magazines, etc.

3) This is the one good thing about WotC being owned by Hasbro, much less chance we'll be mucked down in porn-covered books and ads when people can't be bothered to make something good.  I really don't want to see Mailee ala Tomb Raider poses.  *gags*


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## Talath

Stone Angel said:
			
		

> I suppose I understand where the article is coming from. I had a little joke with a few of the other guys about doing a doc film about Gamers hitting on chicks. There was a specific incident which brought this up. But I can only laugh and poke fun because I am similarly dorky and such. But all in all I think that the article was a little skewed. Perhaps it had to do with the fact that she was famous and a celebrity more than the fact that she was pretty. I mean look at how 12 year olds react to seeing a Backstreet Boy. Can you imagine all the gamers screaming, crying, and shaking "It's the Beast Master, ohmy gawd, ohmy gawd *Faints*!"
> 
> So I don't know if I would shake when getting a picture with a hottie, I mean cmon I could walked down Illinois street and gotten a much better show
> 
> The Seraph of Earth and Stone




Thats a good point; you don't see any articles providing negative publicity on screaming crying 12 year old girls when they see N'Sync or whatever. Double standard and what not.


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## Dr. Snafu

Man, I'm shaking just reading this thread!


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## fanboy2000

> There was a video game that was mostly nude scenes that was out of a Heavy Metal Magazine (read: comic book porn mag) some time ago




Off topic triva: the Publisher of Heavy Metal is Kevin Eastman, co-creater of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.


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## Serps

Yeah, well I'm shaking just _thinking_ about reading this thread!


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## Piratecat

As people said, the article was about E3, which isn't RPGs. But think about it this way:

- Let's say one person in 200 is inappropriate
- Those girls pose for hundreds of people per day
- What do you think is going to stick out in their mind, all the normal folks or the few weird ones they're bound to have?

Look at it in that light, and it's not surprising or unexpected.


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## Nisarg

Talath said:
			
		

> Thats a good point; you don't see any articles providing negative publicity on screaming crying 12 year old girls when they see N'Sync or whatever. Double standard and what not.




Well, no that's not a good point at all actually.. unless you're saying gamers have all the emotional and social maturity development of a 12 year old child?

The fact is that the average gamer is older than that, and should be held to higher standards of maturity.

The fact is also, sadly, gamers in north america tend to tolerate a much higher level of the socially retarded than is healthy for the hobby and the hobby's perception in the world at large.  The socially unfit shouldn't be allowed to continue to be socially unfit in the gaming community, and thus become our "poster boys" to the world. 

Interestingly, I've found down here in South America that this is not tolerated at all, and there are some interesting results: 
1. You have no terminally antisocial or sociopathic people in gaming groups, which you do have in gaming in North America.

2. Most people down here live up to the social norms, in terms of standards for their age group (unlike in North America where in one gaming group I played in I was the ONLY one who had a job and was living independantly outside of his parent's house, when this was a group of 25 year old men.. I was also the only one who'd had a long-term relationship with a woman).

3. There are far more female gamers down here, I'd say about three or four times as many. This might be because they feel safe about coming to a gaming club knowing they won't be harassed by mouth-breathing social imbeciles that haven't bathed in a week, don't have a job, and live with their mom.

The gaming community needs to make a choice. Do we want more well-adjusted people, and more women, in our community; or do we want to hand over the entire hobby to the cat-piss men?  Because we can't do both. And the longer we tolerate this sort of social retardation at our gaming tables the more socially functional people will associate that attitude with gaming and will leave the hobby.  Its the industry equivalent of a death spiral, it happened to furry fandom and it could happen to us.

Nisarg


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## MDSnowman

Heh trust me, after four years at a private college filled with women so good looking that they could make a "normal" man freeze like a deer in headlights I don't expect a booth babe to provoke a similiar reaction. (I am not exageratting, there were so many beautiful women at my college that I went into withdrawl during the summer.)

Sure there will be that moment of thinking "Is she actually wearing that?" maybe a turned head, but that's it.


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## Mr. Kaze

_"Is that situation so exciting as to make gamer guys shake?"_

Given the right combination of stresses and stimulants, just about any situtation should be able to make even the slightest of maladjusted folks shake.  I'm twitching right now as the last of my morning caffeine is wearing off...   

The thing to keep in mind, though, is the other half of the quote from that lady: "They come up to me and they're shaking. At a show like this, they're all nice and polite."

Or, put another way, "at least the ones who are freaks aren't the creeps."

I have to also note that pretty much all of the interviewed booth babes all said they were having fun.  Having timid little guys come up to you in shock and awe for three days straight to get pictures taken -- as opposed to waiting tables?  That's not a job, that's a paid ego trip.

::Kaze (notes that women like ego trips, even after they're married)


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## fanboy2000

Nisarg said:
			
		

> 1. You have no terminally antisocial or sociopathic people in gaming groups, which you do have in gaming in North America.




Odd, I haven't found any terminally antisocial or sociopathic people in any gameing group from Panama on up. I used to work with a guy who travled around North and South America and he never saw any either. 



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> 2. Most people down here live up to the social norms, in terms of standards for their age group (unlike in North America where in one gaming group I played in I was the ONLY one who had a job and was living independantly outside of his parent's house, when this was a group of 25 year old men.. I was also the only one who'd had a long-term relationship with a woman).




I'd say most people here live up to their social norms. Of course social norms vary from Guatemala to Quebec, to place that have very diffrent socail customs. 



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> 3. There are far more female gamers down here, I'd say about three or four times as many. This might be because they feel safe about coming to a gaming club knowing they won't be harassed by mouth-breathing social imbeciles that haven't bathed in a week, don't have a job, and live with their mom.




Odd, I've played in groups where half the group was female. One of my oldest gaming friends just got married to his gaming girlfriend. They met on the internet, on an online game chat. I used to work with a woman who gamed, and so did her husband who worked in a game store also. Judging from my customers, I'd say gaming in North America was filled with woman. My girlfriend of 2 1/2 years also plays D&D, and video games, and board games, and well, you get the idea.


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## Trencher

My first reaction to reading this was: if they hate shy and ankward men so much, why don't they work in stripjoint's or on the street where men are more forward and confident? Offcourse they could also get a real job...


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## Keeper of Secrets

I think that the majority of gamers these days are less likely to be freaks of yesteryear.

When I was younger it seemed that about half the gamers I knew were freaks, toads, socially retarded and people I did not want my parents to know I associated with.  These days, that number seems to have dropped greatly.  I am not sure what that means - either I knew a abnormal subset before (and now) of gamers or if there is some other factor at play.


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## Hand of Evil

Gamers are SO streotyped!


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## jester47

Stone Angel said:
			
		

> ...I mean cmon I could walked down Illinois street and gotten a much better show
> 
> The Seraph of Earth and Stone




In fact... thats exactly what we did!  God bless the Red Garter.  

It was interesting after that, It was like I was innoculated to the booth babes that were at the con.  I was thinking "Someone has paid you to be here and look pretty and take pics with the attendees.  You just don't take it as far as the girls down the street do.  You could really care less who we are, trekkies, vieo gamers, or colts fans, just as long as you get paid.  Pretty much.  I am sure there is an exception but thats pretty much it."

Aaron.


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## jester47

Nisarg, 

I believe your experience is contrary to the statistics. 

Aaron.


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## driver8

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> I just read an article about the point of view of convention booth babes. [I know two threads have been closed for the booth babe conversation. This is not an attempt to rehash *that* issue. This thread is about us gamers.]
> 
> A couple women in the article commented:
> 
> "It's weird when they put their arms around me," she replies, "but then I feel them shaking and I'm like, whatever, if it's so important to you . . . it's funny when guys come up to me and tell me that it's their first time touching a girl."
> 
> "This environment is definitely over-stimulating for them."
> 
> "They seem so un-used to seeing girls."
> 
> "It's so cute they way they're so enthusiastic and enamored."
> 
> "They come up to me and they're shaking."
> 
> Quasqueton




I reckon that some of these quotes are a little out of context, perhaps said in an ironic or sarcastic way, who knows.

However, lets face it, while alot of  "booth babes" are either in the industry, like alot who man Nintendo booths, and while many may be college students, Id wager the majority are models/actressess/wahtever who have little grasp of gamers or the target audience of games PnP or video.

As a result alot of the stereotypes are reinforced going in and the bad is probably remembered more than the "normal". 

Also, (allow me to fall into stereotypes) the type of woman who has the chutzpah to wear a skimpy revealing outfit in front of thousands of con goers has little in the way of a confidence problem, and no doubt sees herself as some sort of creature "above" the unwashed geeks who oggle her. So she probably has preconceived notions going in. (/end stereotyping )


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## Incenjucar

MDSnowman said:
			
		

> Heh trust me, after four years at a private college filled with women so good looking that they could make a "normal" man freeze like a deer in headlights I don't expect a booth babe to provoke a similiar reaction. (I am not exageratting, there were so many beautiful women at my college that I went into withdrawl during the summer.)
> 
> Sure there will be that moment of thinking "Is she actually wearing that?" maybe a turned head, but that's it.




Yeppers.  Just got back to the university last Thursday for dorm move-in, and I'm already in fear of what'll happen this summer when I have to go back home to the dumpy little town my folks live in to help pay them back with yard work and house-building labor, and I'm far away from all the cute young Asian women using leg-press machines that face towards mirrors where the treadmills are....  Thank heavens the school is spread out of I'd have run in to a wall by now.  

But the "Booth Babes" who have nothing in the world that they're better at than standing looking jiggly?  They could do a strip tease and I'd start yawning.  Now maybe if they had a PHD Certificate in their hand...


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## Rel

Nisarg said:
			
		

> The gaming community needs to make a choice. Do we want more well-adjusted people, and more women, in our community; or do we want to hand over the entire hobby to the cat-piss men?  Because we can't do both. And the longer we tolerate this sort of social retardation at our gaming tables the more socially functional people will associate that attitude with gaming and will leave the hobby.
> 
> Nisarg




Nisarg, nobody has to apply for a license in order to be a roleplayer.  Therefore neither you nor I, nor anybody else is in the position of denying anybody access to the hobby, outside of the normal selection process of whether or not you wish to game with a given individual.  We are also not putting in bouncers at the front of hotels where Cons are being held in order to only admit the cool people, as one might see outside a New York nightclub.

I don't see how it would in any way be healthier for the hobby to try and excluded anybody who wants to play.

P.S. Quasqueton, I had no idea that you were 37.  Having met you at the NC Game Days, I wouldn't have put you a day over 33.  Hope you can make it to NCGDV.


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## dreaded_beast

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> from all the cute young Asian women using leg-press machines that face towards mirrors where the treadmills are....




Sorry, but are you Asian?

I wonder how it would sound if I said look at all the cute young White women everywhere. 
 :\


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## Rel

dreaded_beast said:
			
		

> Sorry, but are you Asian?
> 
> I wonder how it would sound if I said look at all the cute young White women everywhere.
> :\




I think it would sound like you were attracted to white women.  Not without some reason too.  I've noticed that plenty of white women are attractive.

dreaded_beast, it's either offensive to you that he likes Asian women or it isn't.  I don't think his own ethnicity should matter.

Just sayin' is all.


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## dreaded_beast

Rel said:
			
		

> I think it would sound like you were attracted to white women.  Not without some reason too.  I've noticed that plenty of white women are attractive.
> 
> dreaded_beast, it's either offensive to you that he likes Asian women or it isn't.  I don't think his own ethnicity should matter.
> 
> Just sayin' is all.




Apologizes for going off-topic.

I will leave it at that.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

jester47 said:
			
		

> Nisarg,
> 
> I believe your experience is contrary to the statistics.
> 
> Aaron.



Must be mine is, too.  In order to actually enjoy the hobby, I had to convert a couple of my non-gaming friends into gamers, because I could no longer tolerate being in a room with all but one of the people I've ever known in real life who game.  I've met more maladjusted, mouth-breathing, foul-smelling trolls via gaming than any other facet of my life, including my stint collecting comic books.

The stereotype exists for a reason.  I've met far too many of them.


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## Dogbrain

Umbran said:
			
		

> Probably not.  For example - did the article say how many gamer-males were present who _didn't_ react that way?  How many well-adjusted, washed, and otherwise capable gamers walked by, without taking more than a glance at the lady?




What is a majority of guys at the con, Alex?

But "The vast majority of men at the convention are rather normal." just doesn't make for "interesting" press, does it?


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## Rel

Canis said:
			
		

> Must be mine is, too.  In order to actually enjoy the hobby, I had to convert a couple of my non-gaming friends into gamers, because I could no longer tolerate being in a room with all but one of the people I've ever known in real life who game.  I've met more maladjusted, mouth-breathing, foul-smelling trolls via gaming than any other facet of my life, including my stint collecting comic books.
> 
> The stereotype exists for a reason.  I've met far too many of them.




So, in other words, the fact that so many of the gamers that you were familiar with proved intolerable forced you to recruit from outside the existing gaming population.  That sounds like a win for the hobby from where I'm sitting.


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## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

Rel said:
			
		

> So, in other words, the fact that so many of the gamers that you were familiar with proved intolerable forced you to recruit from outside the existing gaming population.  That sounds like a win for the hobby from where I'm sitting.



Absolutely.  The post might have sounded salty, but I'm not really bitter... Anymore.

But Nisarg does have a point that by our tacit approval of a very ugly subset of the population, we are allowing those very visible people to be our representatives to the world at large.

And then we wonder why people have such negative stereotypes of gamers.  :\


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## fanboy2000

Canis said:
			
		

> But Nisarg does have a point that by our tacit approval of a very ugly subset of the population, we are allowing those very visible people to be our representatives to the world at large.




Eh? Approve what? It's not like it's our job to make sure everyone has a date.

[sarcasm]
What would you sugest we do? Fix-up anyone who hasn't had a date with a hooker? I know, we could have a dating service for the socialy challenged.  We could set gamers up on blind dates.
[/sarcasm]

Seriously, if some's first experance touching a girl is E3, then they have personal problems that, quite frankly really arn't any of our business. I doubt game designers like Monte Cook, Gwendolyn Kestrel, Ed Greenwood, Bill Webb, or Keith Baker are going to stop designing games because some guy took his picture with a booth babe at a con. Hasbro isn't going to close down Wizards because some of their buyers didn't get a date untill they were 30.


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## jester47

Canis said:
			
		

> Must be mine is, too.  In order to actually enjoy the hobby, I had to convert a couple of my non-gaming friends into gamers, because I could no longer tolerate being in a room with all but one of the people I've ever known in real life who game.  I've met more maladjusted, mouth-breathing, foul-smelling trolls via gaming than any other facet of my life, including my stint collecting comic books.
> 
> The stereotype exists for a reason.  I've met far too many of them.




Of the people I met last weekend, and many of the others I people watched at Gen Con, my experience in the RPGA, and from gaming in my high school days, I have found that most (95%) of gamers, are regular normal people that do not fall into the sterotype.  

But that is my experience.  However, my experience with gamers en mass indicates to me that your disgusto-groups are statistical anomilies.  But this is a conjecture based on my experience.  So who knows.  

Aaron.


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## jester47

Canis said:
			
		

> But Nisarg does have a point that by our tacit approval of a very ugly subset of the population, we are allowing those very visible people to be our representatives to the world at large.
> 
> And then we wonder why people have such negative stereotypes of gamers.  :\




I will say that I find this to be a valid point.  We can exile them from our groups, but we can't really keep them from existing.  And there is also the fact that the "exile point" varies from person to person.  So there really is no solution.  However we can take solace in the fact that most other hobbies (even sports fans, who I will point out have conventions a lot regularly then we do) have thier undesireable segments also.  

Aaron.


----------



## Nisarg

Rel said:
			
		

> Nisarg, nobody has to apply for a license in order to be a roleplayer.  Therefore neither you nor I, nor anybody else is in the position of denying anybody access to the hobby, outside of the normal selection process of whether or not you wish to game with a given individual.  We are also not putting in bouncers at the front of hotels where Cons are being held in order to only admit the cool people, as one might see outside a New York nightclub.
> 
> I don't see how it would in any way be healthier for the hobby to try and excluded anybody who wants to play.




I do.
If for every cat-piss man we have we lose five socially adjusted people (three of them women), I do see how it would be healthier for the hobby to not have cat-piss men in it.

And no, obviously we can't put bouncers at the entrances to conventions. But in our local gaming groups, clubs, FLGSs, etc., we can make a point of not just "tolerating" antisocial behaviour, and having the same standards in our gaming groups for hygene and behaviour that we would have in any other social environment.  The Geek social fallacy is what keeps too many gamers from doing that, so they tolerate the guy that smells terrible and obviously hasn't bathed, the 30 year old guy who hits on the 16 year old girl who is at a gaming table for the first time (or the 16 year old guy, for that matter), the guy who can't stop interrupting or shouting, or who won't stop talking period, or who jumps in with wildly inappropriate comments. Too many gamers tolerate these people because they think gaming has to be "inclusive".

Inclusive doesn't mean I have to tolerate cat-piss man at my table. And if no one tolerated cat-piss man at their table, we would quickly be free of cat-piss men; they'd either leave for other fandoms that would be more "accepting" (read: enabling of their psycho-social disorders), or they would bathe and start acting their ages.

Nisarg


----------



## Roman

I am one of those 'undesirables' (BTW: That is what Hitlerites in Nazi Germany called certain ethnic and indeed also social groups they did not like, so you may want to watch what you say more carefully.). I am 22 and I have never had a girlfriend nor have I ever kissed or touched a girl. The question is, Nisarg (and others who advocate getting rid of us 'undesirables'), how the hell are you going to tell me apart from anyone else? It is not as if I wear a sign on my forehead saying "virgin at 22 - never been kissed" or something like that. You would have to ask me directly. I can just picture the DMs following your advice asking every potential player whether they have ever had a girlfriend before being accepted to the group.  Even some kind of foolproof test, however, would not prevent us 'undesirables' from gaming,  since the 'undesirables' could still game in each other's gaming groups. Sorry, there is no way to get rid of us unless you wish to resort to the methods of those who used the designation you give us before you.


----------



## fanboy2000

Nisarg said:
			
		

> If for every cat-piss man we have we lose five socially adjusted people (three of them women)




This reminds me of a bit of triva: 95% of all statistics are made-up on the spot.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> in our local gaming groups, clubs, FLGSs, etc., we can make a point of not just "tolerating" antisocial behaviour, and having the same standards in our gaming groups for hygene and behaviour that we would have in any other social environment




I'm curious, did you read the relevant article? The article didn't claim that gamers didn't bathe or that they exibited anti-social behavior. Indeed, one could argue that asking someone to pose for a picture is outgoing, the opposite of ant-social behavior. The article was about a website news reporter who went around E3 the last day and interviewed (very briefly) many of the booth babes. After reading the article, I got the distinct impression that their biggest gripe wasn't posing for geeks, it was standing all day constantly smiling.

In all the cons I've been too, anti-social behavior was never the norm. Real anti-social behavior, (not minor anoyances that most people have to one degree or another) is rare, even among gamers.


----------



## Nisarg

Roman said:
			
		

> I am one of those 'undesirables' (BTW: That is what Hitlerites in Nazi Germany called certain ethnic and indeed also social groups they did not like, so you may want to watch what you say more carefully.). I am 22 and I have never had a girlfriend nor have I ever kissed or touched a girl. The question is, Nisarg (and others who advocate getting rid of us 'undesirables'), how the hell are you going to tell me apart from anyone else? It is not as if I wear a sign on my forehead saying "virgin at 22 - never been kissed" or something like that. You would have to ask me directly. I can just picture the DMs following your advice asking every potential player whether they have ever had a girlfriend before being accepted to the group.  Even some kind of foolproof test, however, would not prevent us 'undesirables' from gaming,  since the 'undesirables' could still game in each other's gaming groups. Sorry, there is no way to get rid of us unless you wish to resort to the methods of those who used the designation you give us before you.




If you've gotten to 22 without ever touching a girl because you've been remarkably unlucky, or because of personal ethics, or because you spent the last 21 years in a shaolin monastery that forbade females, or what have you; but you otherwise behave like a normal human being, then your virgin status is pretty much your own business.

I'm talking about people who's status as 20-something virgins is merely a symptom of severe psycho-social disorders that likewise cause them to have odious personal habits (regarding hygene and deportment) and to be disruptive to the community and the games they join.

If you are the former without being the latter then that's a matter between you, your god, and your penis. On the other hand if you are the latter,then you become a problem to me and to the gaming community.

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> In all the cons I've been too, anti-social behavior was never the norm. Real anti-social behavior, (not minor anoyances that most people have to one degree or another) is rare, even among gamers.




Really? 

Curious then, that among the number one bits of advice I've seen for people going to Gencon was "bring soap, remember to bathe".. and one of the most frequent complaints about Gencon was the gamer-smell.

I haven't been to Gencon but I have been to many gaming/anime/comic conventions in North America, and in just about all of them you couldn't go to a table without having at least one person at that table display the traits I mentioned.  Not one FLGS didn't have at least a half-dozen such people lingering around as "regulars", some even taking pride in "freaking the mundanes" (except in stores where the owners were wise enough to take a hard line on this sort of thing; and ironically those stores tended to be accused of being "exclusionist" or "anti-gamer").  Likewise, the high school gaming group I was in, way back when, had a strong share of the socially inept, and by the time I was in university, it got worse.. and by the time I was a prof, though I visited the local university club infrequently, I saw that the percentage of social rejects had only increased.

Again, interestingly enough, neither the gaming club ("Botch!") nor the local con ("Montevideo Comics") I've been to in South America suffered from this problem.  Again, this may be a phenomenon culturally relegated to North America.

Nisarg


----------



## vulcan_idic

It may or may not be significat that the Con referenced in the article is E3 - which while people there are also gamers, they could be considered to be an overlapping, yet significantly different segment of the larger demographic segment "Gamers"


----------



## fanboy2000

Nisarg said:
			
		

> the number one bits of advice I've seen for people going to Gencon was "bring soap, remember to bathe".. and one of the most frequent complaints about Gencon was the gamer-smell.




Odd, I haven't heard either of those from the reports I've read. And the conventions I go to, this isn't a problem.



> Again, interestingly enough, neither the gaming club ("Botch!") nor the local con ("Montevideo Comics") I've been to in South America suffered from this problem.  Again, this may be a phenomenon culturally relegated to North America.




Couple of things that can explain this without resorting to North American culture bashing.

1. When you get a large number of people together, your going have body oder, even if every single one of them bathed that day.

2. As someone who's traveled, a lot, I've noticed diffrent places have their own smell. Greece smells diffrent from Italy. Popular fragrances in soap, pollen, and other things can explain the smells coming from various people at a gaming table. If you're used to the smell from where you live, a diffrent smell when you move or visit a foreign country can be jarring. Particularly if you're already pre-disposed to dislike the place.   

I noticed, that you didn't answer my question. Do you feel the article's contents are irrelvavent?


----------



## Roman

Nisarg said:
			
		

> If you've gotten to 22 without ever touching a girl because you've been remarkably unlucky, or because of personal ethics, or because you spent the last 21 years in a shaolin monastery that forbade females, or what have you; but you otherwise behave like a normal human being, then your virgin status is pretty much your own business.




I got to 22 without ever touching a girl because I am too shy to ever ask a girl out/touch a girl/kiss a girl/etc. This obviously means that I would never 'hit' on a gaming girl or want to touch/take pictures of 'booth babes' - these things do not sound like something most shy people would do - on the contrary they seem like something outgoing/social people would do. 



> I'm talking about people who's status as 20-something virgins is merely a symptom of severe psycho-social disorders that likewise cause them to have odious personal habits (regarding hygene and deportment) and to be disruptive to the community and the games they join.




Well, I do not believe I am disruptive to the community and games I join, but then again, does anybody actually believe these things about himself or herself? I don't think anyone does. That can only be objectively judged by others, not by the individual concerned. As to my hygiene, I would say it is pretty ordinary (shower once a day or after sweating, brush teeth twice a day, blah, blah, blah - I am not going to describe my entire hygiene routine on the net).


----------



## Incenjucar

dreaded_beast said:
			
		

> Sorry, but are you Asian?
> 
> I wonder how it would sound if I said look at all the cute young White women everywhere.
> :\




1) I'm a hybrid/mutt/mule, whatever you wanna call me.  I don't HAVE an ethnicity.  However, as I do have Native American blood, and they're more related to Asians than, say, the Vikings are, it may explain my inclinations.

2) I have a special personal attraction to women of a certain variety of features and mannerisms, most of which are most easily found in Asian women.  Fine bone structures, smallish chests, dark hair, pale skin, and almond-shaped eyes get me all fluttery.  Their voices and accents to various degrees tend to just make me want to hug the snot out of them, ta boot.  Oddly enough, Lucy Lui does nothin' for me, but numerous Goth gals do, as well as a handful of pretty much every 'ethnicity', and not every Asian girl fits my personal interests.  However, they tend to hit more points with my hormones than any other groups.

3) I respect people from all cultures based on their personal merits as human beings without regard for their genetic background.  Doesn't mean I have to be equally interested in rubbing them down with massage oil any more than I have to want to make someone's granny blush.  May as well get mad at me for liking B cups much more than I like D cups.  Gee, I'm sorry that I don't roll dice to determine who gets my blood pumping.

--

Roman, I know your pain.  I didn't even admit that I liked girls until I was 18 (helps that I was in an area full of people that, due to their beliefs, or, alternatively, bad habits, I had zero desire of being emotionally attatched to).  Even used to pride myself on being "Der Ubervirgin".  Then age 20 hit, and a friend came over from overseas and, er, jumpstarted my hormones.

Which would have been great if she didn't have to return....

Eh heh...


----------



## Style

Awesome thread 

From the preceding pages I have learned that the following may or may not be true:

1. North Americans are way smellier than South Americans.
2. Some folks would be a lot happier if we put all the wiffy wierdos on an island somewhere and forgot all about them.
3. The booth girls are better at some place called Illinois Street.
4. Roman may well know shaolin kungfu!
5. There is a fundamental connection between feline urine and gaming that I was previously quite unaware of.

I used to play in a professional doom metal band for a brief spell about 10 years ago.  The average gamer is a pampered erudite next to someone with Goredeath Necrosanct written in felt-tip on their forehead.  Lovely chaps, for the most part.  It takes all sorts.

Other than that, I'd just like to add that the intolerant should be flayed alive and boiled in a stew of their own bile.  And smelly people just need to wash more, that's all.


----------



## Gunslinger

I've never been to GenCon (hopefully next year) but the folks who attended this year's Kubla Con generally had better hygiene and were better adjusted socially than many of gamers that visit my FLGS. 

[Edit] I couldn't figure out how to use th PM function (is it possible without being a community supporter?) so I'm putting it here.  Roman, try reading some of guides at this site.  http://sucs.org/~nicholas/djb/index.php

You will find some advice that I don't agree with (many of the members swear that you have to be a jerk to attract women) but the Weapons of Mass Seduction and Boot Camp both have good suggestions for slowly ridding yourself of social phobias and gaining confidence.  Also be sure to read some of the stickied threads available lower down on the page for additional tips.


----------



## Maggan

*But the question everybody is asking is...*



			
				Incenjucar said:
			
		

> *shrugs*
> 
> It can't be worse than the furry convention I went to; then again, people there tended to touch like a compulsion (ever seen people petting a guy in a collar in public?  ever seen a girl calling out 'yerf!' to nobody in particular?  I have.)




So you just happened to be there? Yeah right...

What was *your*  costume?   

M.


----------



## eyebeams

Some of the comments made here in this thread about getting a "better show at a strip joint" and such are a tad inappropriate. Reading the article, it doesn't look like the booth workers are too down on attendees. The most negative stuff had to do with theft.

To be blunt, this is one area where everyone points the finger at everyone except for themselves and whatever region/group/clique they go for. I'd say about 90% of this in game to game situations comes from the fact that it's customary for lots of gamers to game with people they aren't friends with and sometimes, don't even like. 10% comes from the fact that RPGs are a marginal hobby and thus, the fringe stands out all the more.

Another issue is the way large conventions deal with events. The smelliest area of Gen Con last year was the CCG room/hangar. It stunk because there were a thousand people in it, playing CCGs. This is pretty much unavoidable at large cons, though.

But I've met poorly adjusted gamers from all over the world. All of them like to complain about how awful gamers who aren't them are a little more than most. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, since gamers who accept the sense of shame and self-loathing they unconsciously feel their hobby deserves will tend to fit the bill, since they end up feeling they have little to lose. They may not say it (and will protest that they aren't part of the problem the whole way), but they do it.

In short, it's the folks who are most self-righteous about Cat-Piss Men who tend to *be* them. Everyone else just takes a second to go somewhere else and game with people they actually like.


----------



## Nisarg

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> I noticed, that you didn't answer my question. Do you feel the article's contents are irrelvavent?




I feel the topic of this thread goes beyond the specifics of that article.  The topic of this thread was whether gamers were really pathetic, "like" it said in the article. It is not limited to discussing that specific article,and that's not what I was doing.

Are you honestly trying to pretend that:
a) there isn't a serious ratio of people in gaming who are social rejects of some kind or another?
b) the general view of gamers in popular culture is of the worst kind of those rejects? Smelly unwashed dateless wonders at best, potential high-school shooters or deviants at worst?
c) it would be BETTER for gaming if that perception was changed?
d) the only way for that perception to change would be for gamers to take some responsibility for who they allow to be "poster boys" for their community?

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg

Style said:
			
		

> Awesome thread
> 
> From the preceding pages I have learned that the following may or may not be true:
> 
> 1. North Americans are way smellier than South Americans.




No, just South American gamers are far less tolerant of smelly people than North American gamers.



> 2. Some folks would be a lot happier if we put all the wiffy wierdos on an island somewhere and forgot all about them.




As long as its not an island in South America.    


I love actually being able to roleplay with normal people here, and where there are lots of girl-gamers. 



> 5. There is a fundamental connection between feline urine and gaming that I was previously quite unaware of.




The term "cat-piss man" originated online (either here or rpg.net, I'm not sure), based on someone's story of one of those socially inept gamers, who always smelled like cat piss. It has come to be referential to the overall phenomenon of socially retarded gamers.

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg

eyebeams said:
			
		

> But I've met poorly adjusted gamers from all over the world. All of them like to complain about how awful gamers who aren't them are a little more than most. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, since gamers who accept the sense of shame and self-loathing they unconsciously feel their hobby deserves will tend to fit the bill, since they end up feeling they have little to lose. They may not say it (and will protest that they aren't part of the problem the whole way), but they do it.




That seems pretty absurd to me. It would take some pretty weak-willed human being to become socially incompetent just because he feels his hobby demands it.

I think a more likely prognosis is that those for whom gaming is not their sole social outlet, who have other things going for them, will not be cat-piss men.. Those who have no other social outlet, and who see that the standards for social behaviour in Gaming are very very low, might just slip down to that lower common denominator, due to self-esteem issues or what have you, and because the rest of the community is an enabler for that type of behaviour.  All the more reason for gamers to have some basic standards of what they expect from the people they are gaming with. You might be saving a social life...   

It isn't just in gaming, obviously.  In my own "social outlets", I've seen similar phenomena.. be it in the pipe-smoking community, in meditation groups, in chi gung, even in politics or the freemasons.  Even in a slightly different manifestation in the line of work I'm in (academic research).  In any of these, when there are people who only have that ONE social outlet, be it just their job, or just pipe-collecting, or just gaming, they get eccentric.  But in the other communities, the eccentricity will not take the extremes of social retardation you will find in the "nerd/fandom" communities (not just gaming but anime fandom, scifi, etc), because in those other communities such an extreme would be deemed unacceptable.

Lastly, your attempt to silence dissent is noted; nice tactic implying that anyone who dares to argue we need less catpiss men is probably a catpiss man, but I think that its quite acceptable and even desperately nescessary to demand that there be certain basic standards of hygene and self-control in roleplaying, and I'm pretty confident in my social abilities.

On the contrary, I would say that while those who try to dodge the issue and pretend that there isn't a catpiss man problem are suffering from the geek social fallacy, those who try to actively attack people who demand social standards in gaming are almost certainly catpiss men themselves.  That supposition seems a lot more logical than yours.

Nisarg


----------



## Darklone

Funny thread.

You mean you guys don't start to drool and experience a major brain shutdown if you see real nice girls? 

But I don't see a connection to most boothbabes.


----------



## Agamemnon

YES. Gamers REALLY are that desperate, that pathetic. Having been to two local cons, I can affirm this.

I myself am a social reject. I don't go out, I don't have any friends, I don't even play face-to-face. I'm 21, never had a date, never will. Having seen what the mainstream is like, this is what I choose to be. I loathe them and want to have nothing at all to do with them. Hell, I even had a rotten time when going to the aforementioned local cons. I didn't play any games, I didn't talk to anyone there. By the time it was over, I felt like having a nervous breakdown. I went back home, shut the door to my room and broke out in tears.

So yes, we do exist.


----------



## Roman

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> Roman, I know your pain.  I didn't even admit that I liked girls until I was 18 (helps that I was in an area full of people that, due to their beliefs, or, alternatively, bad habits, I had zero desire of being emotionally attatched to).  Even used to pride myself on being "Der Ubervirgin".




He, he - yes, I too only admitted to liking girls only relatively recently (I do not remember precisely at what age but it was definitely later than 18) and I still avoid any topic of girls/women/sex like plague IRL. You are also correct that I still have some kind of 'pride' on being 'Der Ubervirgin'. I am not sure that pride is the correct word, though, since I am sort of 'self-mockingly' proud of it and yet not proud of it at the same time if you see what I mean.


----------



## Roman

Style said:
			
		

> 1. North Americans are way smellier than South Americans.
> 2. Some folks would be a lot happier if we put all the wiffy wierdos on an island somewhere and forgot all about them.
> 3. The booth girls are better at some place called Illinois Street.
> 4. Roman may well know shaolin kungfu!
> 5. There is a fundamental connection between feline urine and gaming that I was previously quite unaware of.




ROFL!


----------



## GrumpyOldMan

Just had to say:



			
				Jim Hague said:
			
		

> Honestly, I think it's more that the sad cases stick out more




's s'



			
				Jim Hague said:
			
		

> .....some poor sod who's shaking because he's touching a woman for the first time?  It sticks out.




Ooo-er, fnar, fnar, s, s!


----------



## GrumpyOldMan

Hey, this forum won’t let me type the word Es, En, Eye, Gee, Gee, Ee, Are

What about that well known town Shorpe


----------



## DrZombie

Cat-piss men of the world unite, they try to take your hobby away. ROFLMAO.
So we have some south-american professor telling evryone to get rid of their cat-piss gamers, some self-proclaimed virgins who might or might not wash and might smell of cat-piss telling the prof to go to hell, and the rest of us reading and laughing their head off.

Btw, agamemnon, very touching, really, my heart is bleeding for you.
I mean, come on, what are  you trying to say here. For all we know you're a 18 yr old blond babe having a laugh at the pathetic gamers. For all you know I'm a pathetic 35 yr old cat-piss fetishist still living with the mumified corpse of his mum feeding blood-covered ice-cubes to the local red-neck sheriff. I don't understand how anyone  can get excited about what some complete stranger writes on an anonymous BBS. But, well, that's just me.

Oooh, and don't let me interrupt your well-founded discussion here, ladies and gentlemen. Btw, I like asian girls as well. Does that make me a pervert?


----------



## Roman

Gunslinger said:
			
		

> [Edit] I couldn't figure out how to use th PM function (is it possible without being a community supporter?) so I'm putting it here.  Roman, try reading some of guides at this site.  http://sucs.org/~nicholas/djb/index.php
> 
> You will find some advice that I don't agree with (many of the members swear that you have to be a jerk to attract women) but the Weapons of Mass Seduction and Boot Camp both have good suggestions for slowly ridding yourself of social phobias and gaining confidence.  Also be sure to read some of the stickied threads available lower down on the page for additional tips.




Thanks I will give the site a look.  Note: I do not actually know how successful I would be at attracting women since I never even tried...


----------



## Lichtenhart

This thread is amazing, really. Now my 2cp on the whole matter.

Let's face it, our hobby means, to a certain degree, pretending to be someone else. It's bound to attract people who are unsatisfied with their life, because it offers them evasion.
In a three hour window a week, they can be someone else, be it a powerful wizard, who has magic to solve all the problems of his life, a mighty warrior, who is strong, athletic, and attractive like we'd like to be, a sneaky rogue, who can backstab people he doesn't like without going to jail, and so on.
What I always loved about roleplaying games is that they help you put things in perspective. They make you think in more than one way. It's uncommon to meet a racist gamer, a religious fanatic gamer, a politics fanatic gamer. IMHO this kind of people can be incredibly more pathetic than a smelly guy.
Gamers can be pathetic. But usually they're pathetic in a harmless way. Even the catpiss man hurts himself more than anyone else. The catpiss man, and all those who have lesser degrees of social problems are exactly that: people who have problems. They are the victims here. As much as you can be embarassed being associated with them, you can never be hurt like they hurt themselves. And since they come to roleplaying games to escape their lives, the idea of escluding them just because they make you feel embarassed is... it sounds awful to me. I've met many people thanks to gaming that have become my best friends. It wouldn't have happened if I had let something about them prevent me from talking with them, or hanging with them. You think you have absolutely no social problems, good for you. Then you could do wonders helping them find solutions to their problems too, instead of showing them the door. Then people could start thinking that gamers are humane and understanding persons (like most of the gamers I know truly are) rather than smelly, pathetic social cases.


----------



## Lichtenhart

DrZombie said:
			
		

> Btw, I like asian girls as well. Does that make me a pervert?




Only if your wife doesn't approve.


----------



## Ghostknight

GrumpyOldMan said:
			
		

> Hey, this forum won’t let me type the word Es, En, Eye, Gee, Gee, Ee, Are
> 
> What about that well known town Shorpe




Well, it contains the " n i g g e r " word, so it removes that.  I have a similar problem with my surname (it appeared when I tried to post an email address), except in my case it is the word "s h i t".  What can I say, Eric's grandma is very sensitive!


----------



## Ghostknight

Hmm, well my experience is with South African gamers.

In twenty five odd years of RPG's I can only think of two individuals that were completely socially inept.  Other than that my biggest problem is scheduling games around peoples family responsibilities (I have lost more gamers to marriage and kids than to any other cause!)

Of the people I know who game regulalrly all are married (ok, one is on his third wife- he just doesn't know how to keep his pants up!)  And most have kids.  Eevn when younger we often hit head banging clubs and alternative clubs regularly (hey- we were a amale group, we had to go out and find women, even managed to turn some of them into gamers.  far more succesfully with Vampire and its heavy goth art work and the alternatives than with the head bangers!)  As for personal hygeine, all have been pretty good (though after a marathon 48 hour straight session one weekend I must admit we were all fairly ripe!  Never did that again (never mind the smell, 48 hours no sleep and you hallucinate the monsters!)


----------



## Cerubus Dark

Tonguez said:
			
		

> Maybe its convention-goers that are pathetic



lol, I would have gone but it costs too much $$$ to go.  Besides look at all the free stuff you get


----------



## GrumpyOldMan

I deal with the ‘public’ on a daily basis, every so often I have to remind myself that they’re not all idiots, but that it’s only the idiots that I remember.

I attended my first World Science Fiction con in 1979, the place was full of people like me, long-haired leather jacket & denim wearing blokes. Not smelly, not particularly scruffy (at least no more than was fashionable at the time). There were thousands of people at the con, listening to authors talks, buying books, drinking in bars. The TV cameras were there too.

There was a half hour documentary about the con aired a couple of months later (IIRC – it’s a long time ago). The documentary showed the one (rather odd) slim and moderately attractive girl-fan who walked around every day in a different costume, the couple of dozen overweight Trekkies in Starfleet regalia, and a few of the more eccentric (short, myopic & bald; grossly overweight; extremely tall; generally weird looking) attendees. The vast mass of normal folks were visible, out of focus, in the background.

Bottom line, it does not matter how reasonable you are
1) People (I assume that booth babes are people) only remember the out of the ordinary.
2) Any filmmaker will not want to make a film about normal people doing normal things, he wants wierdos and craziness, otherwise no-one is interested.


----------



## Nightchilde-2

Okay.

I've gamed with a gamer who thought she was a werewolf.  No.  Really.  I've gamed with a gamer who thought she had Brandon Lee's soul trapped in a crystal.  I've gamed with a gamer who threw a hissy fit (a la a 2-year old not getting a piece of candy) when his character got slapped down as a result of his own action (what, he expected to be able to catch the vampire prince's chamber on fire and not have reprecussions?).  I've gamed with people who thought they could really throw lightning bolts.  I've gamed with a gamer who was so scared to death of girls that he told this girl that he really really liked that he was gay when *she* asked *him* out because of his social fears.  

I don't game with those people anymore.  I WON'T game with those types of people anymore.  Call me an elitist if you want.  I'm married with two kids, and a wonderful wife who, while not really a gamer, understands my obsession.  Yeah, the people I game with have their eccentricities (myself included), but we're all socially functional people.  Eccentricities are fine and even fun to a point, but some measure of "normal" is also important, especially since I don't want my daughters growing up to be pathetic social rejects (though if they wanna be gamers, that's fine..my oldest is very interested in gaming).

So, yes, they are out there.  The nature of the hobby attracts eccentric and "odd" people; that's pretty much a fact.  But there's "odd" (which I proudly proclaim to be) and then there's pathetic.


----------



## diaglo

i rountinely bite the heads off chickens.

i'm a gamer geek and proud of it.


i'm also married. and played varsity sports in high school of so, so many years ago.


----------



## Sir Elton

maddman75 said:
			
		

> Yes - though there are plenty of perfectly normal gamers, it is an escapist, intellectual hobby.



 I don't agree.  Roleplaying is about escapist as reading a Gothic Novel.


----------



## Sir Elton

MDSnowman said:
			
		

> Heh trust me, after four years at a private college filled with women so good looking that they could make a "normal" man freeze like a deer in headlights I don't expect a booth babe to provoke a similiar reaction. (I am not exageratting, there were so many beautiful women at my college that I went into withdrawl during the summer.)
> 
> Sure there will be that moment of thinking "Is she actually wearing that?" maybe a turned head, but that's it.



 Out of curiosity, where did you go?  Brigham Young University?


----------



## Agamemnon

Roleplaying is all about escaping your mundane day-to-day existence for something "greater". That's why it applies to the socially-inept, clueless-around-females mindset. Here's a place where they can be king for a day without fear, doubt or rejection. What's not to like?

Having poor personal hygiene or obnoxious habits is quite another bag of peanuts, on the other hand. I've found they exist in any hobby and are often the instigating cause of harmful elitism in their fellow hobbyists.


----------



## Belen

Roman,

Nothing wrong with not dating.  It can be better to take your time.  The real trick to being successful with women is to just get comfortable and be yourself.  Try talking to girls in classes about homework, or get a job that allows you to have female co-workers or deal with women, or join a club. 

You'd be surprised what a difference it makes to talk with women and get to know them.  Also, you should not feel any need to rush into dating.  Take your time and concentrate on school.  When you are ready to start dating, then you will know.

Heck, when I first started dating, I just did not care whether I got a yes or no answer and I asked a large number of women out.  I think I had nine different dates in a two month period.  The learning curve is amazing.  Trust me.

Dave


----------



## Mark

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Are gamers really that pathetic?






			
				Mark said:
			
		

> Nope.






			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> The socially unfit shouldn't be allowed to continue to be socially unfit in the gaming community, and thus become our "poster boys" to the world.
> 
> Interestingly, I've found down here in South America that this is not tolerated at all, and there are some interesting results:
> 1. You have no terminally antisocial or sociopathic people in gaming groups, which you do have in gaming in North America.
> 
> 2. Most people down here live up to the social norms, in terms of standards for their age group (unlike in North America where in one gaming group I played in I was the ONLY one who had a job and was living independantly outside of his parent's house, when this was a group of 25 year old men.. I was also the only one who'd had a long-term relationship with a woman).
> 
> 3. There are far more female gamers down here, I'd say about three or four times as many. This might be because they feel safe about coming to a gaming club knowing they won't be harassed by mouth-breathing social imbeciles that haven't bathed in a week, don't have a job, and live with their mom.
> 
> The gaming community needs to make a choice. Do we want more well-adjusted people, and more women, in our community; or do we want to hand over the entire hobby to the cat-piss men?  Because we can't do both. And the longer we tolerate this sort of social retardation at our gaming tables the more socially functional people will associate that attitude with gaming and will leave the hobby.  Its the industry equivalent of a death spiral, it happened to furry fandom and it could happen to us.
> 
> Nisarg




_I stand corrected..._

_(...would you care for some binge with your purge...? IYKWIMAITYD...)_


----------



## Rel

This whole subject is sort of like the weather.  People talk about it frequently, especially when it's bad.  But nobody ever does anything really productive about it, for the same reason as the weather, because they can't.

I've noted several people post about how they won't tolerate these "dirty gamers" at their tables.  That's dandy.  I support your right to choose who you play with.  I'm fortunate enough to have had the same group of friends to game with since time immemorial and none fit the stereotype, so it isn't a big issue for me.  But were I to find myself in need of recruiting new players, I'd exercise some sort of standards too.

But what do you think the consequences are of excluding a dirty gamer from your group?  I'm going to guess that they are almost nil.  I'm going to guess that such people are used to being rejected ten times a day.  They are not going to quit the hobby.  They are not going to stop going to conventions (indeed, if they cannot find any regular group that will accept them then I would posit that they are MORE likely to attend conventions where they have an outlet for their desire to game and be around other gamers).  They are still going to be there for the news crews to film and to be a sore upon the eyes of those who disapprove of them.

If the argument is that you shouldn't have to put up with such people in your weekly gaming group, I couldn't agree more.  You shouldn't have to put up with anybody who you find unacceptable for any reason.  But I just don't see that habit really shaping the hobby in any meaningful way.


----------



## wedgeski

This place certainly generates some interesting threads. The fact is, I've met 'socially dysfunctional' people both in and out of the hobby; mostly out, as it happens, but probably because my gaming has been limited to a circle of close friends for twenty-odd years until very recently. These people exist. If they exist at your table, ask them to have a bath before coming next time, because their body odour is offensive, then ask them what they want to do about that girt big Rhinocerous Beetle charging towards them. What's the big deal? Some of my friends are a little weird. They probably think I'm a little weird. We rejoice in eachother's weirdness.

As for the idea that 'If we want to be treated seriously as a hobby, we have to filter these people out'... that's... I don't want to write down what that is because it will just end up being a bunch of happy smiley faces when it hits the boards.


----------



## diaglo

Mark said:
			
		

> _I stand corrected..._
> 
> _(...would you care for some binge with your purge...? IYKWIMAITYD...)_





i wouldn't stand if i were you. i'd have someone help me up off the floor after reading that...

good coogley moogley.


----------



## Mallus

I'll make this simple. 

All gamers are not that pathetic.

Some men that are that pathetic.

Moreover, most men are that pathetic at least once in their lives [and there's usually liquor involved].

Some women are that pathetic, but with them it usually involves ice cream and cats.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Nightchilde-2 said:
			
		

> I don't game with those people anymore.  I WON'T game with those types of people anymore.  Call me an elitist if you want.  I'm married with two kids, and a wonderful wife who, while not really a gamer, understands my obsession.  Yeah, the people I game with have their eccentricities (myself included), but we're all socially functional people.  Eccentricities are fine and even fun to a point, but some measure of "normal" is also important, especially since I don't want my daughters growing up to be pathetic social rejects (though if they wanna be gamers, that's fine..my oldest is very interested in gaming).



I don't get exactly how the people you game with can influence your daughters.
For a person to be a reject it takes someone to reject him.
Yeah, I too hope it won't happen to your daughters, and that they will learn soon how to reject people unlike them.



			
				wedgeski said:
			
		

> This place certainly generates some interesting threads. The fact is, I've met 'socially dysfunctional' people both in and out of the hobby; mostly out, as it happens, but probably because my gaming has been limited to a circle of close friends for twenty-odd years until very recently. These people exist. If they exist at your table, ask them to have a bath before coming next time, because their body odour is offensive, then ask them what they want to do about that girt big Rhinocerous Beetle charging towards them. What's the big deal? Some of my friends are a little weird. They probably think I'm a little weird. We rejoice in eachother's weirdness.
> 
> As for the idea that 'If we want to be treated seriously as a hobby, we have to filter these people out'... that's... I don't want to write down what that is because it will just end up being a bunch of happy smiley faces when it hits the boards.




Thanks. Thanks for pointing out that -oooh- talk is still an option, and for your efforts in keeping the thread civil.


----------



## Sir Elton

Agamemnon said:
			
		

> Roleplaying is all about escaping your mundane day-to-day existence for something "greater". That's why it applies to the socially-inept, clueless-around-females mindset. Here's a place where they can be king for a day without fear, doubt or rejection. What's not to like?



 you didn't understand what I meant, did you?  This is what I mean.  Reality is an escape from Roleplaying.   Take the case of the stereotypical house wife reading a Gothic Novel.  Most people think she's escaping the humdrum of her life.  Not so.

 The same with Roleplaying.  When we play a roleplaying game, we take on the persona of someone who gets into very dangerous situations: fighting orcs, climbing on the trellis, facing down demons, and even get involved in the occasional bar brawl.

 Once you identify with your character, you are putting yourself through terrible tension: an ordeal of fear, uncertainty, and possible mistrust, pain, and betrayal.   A happy ending, where the heroes vanquish the Evil Bad Dude, comes as a relief of all that tension.

 Reality is an escape from all that, since in real life we don't put ourselves through obvious dangerous situations.  People who call Roleplaying escapist, and _play_, hasn't really identified with their character.  Roleplaying, done properly, is an intense activity.

 After it is all said and done, Reality is a welcome escape from all that.  Many times, when I read a novel, I felt myself identifying with some of the characters.  When I read _The Lost World_, I found myself in Malcolm's shoes.   Experiencing everything that Malcolm, the Chaos Mathematician, experienced in the Lost World.  After reading the book, I breathed a sigh of relief and I felt better that in Reality, demonic dinosaurs don't exist and they aren't rampaging around eating people (okay, that's from the Movie, not the book).

 Reality is an escape from Roleplaying, if everyone playing the game has properly done their job in entertaining each other.  Being an unwashed human being is a matter of personal choice; unable to get a girl to say "yes, I'll go out with you," is a matter so complex that Chaos Theory is used to explain it.

 Being unable to move out of your parents' home is also a complex situation more dealing with inflation, our use of fossil fuels, and the national economy.  Believe me, I know.


----------



## Prince of Happiness

I dunno about all that, but I do sincerely wish I was making the next Megaman game because "Catpissman" will be in there right along Fireman, Iceman, and Swordman.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Sir Elton, what about roleplaying as an escape from boredom?

Oh and here in Italy the great majority of people, male and female, move out of their parent's home only when they get married, and some don't even after that. It's considered perectly normal here.

Maybe North-American parents smell.


----------



## Sir Elton

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Sir Elton, what about roleplaying as an escape from boredom?



 I don't have a problem with that.  Anything is an escape from boredom.


----------



## Desdichado

Rel said:
			
		

> Nisarg, nobody has to apply for a license in order to be a roleplayer.  Therefore neither you nor I, nor anybody else is in the position of denying anybody access to the hobby, outside of the normal selection process of whether or not you wish to game with a given individual.  We are also not putting in bouncers at the front of hotels where Cons are being held in order to only admit the cool people, as one might see outside a New York nightclub.



But damn; wouldn't that make the hobby desireable?


----------



## Wonger

The original topic of this thread was "are gamers that pathetic".  Specifically, as pathetic as presented in that article.

If you have ever been to Gen Con, I think you have to state a resounding YES.  Yeah, there's plenty, perhaps a majority (maybe barely) of people that are perfectly "adjusted" or "normal" there.  I'd like to think I am one of them, and I've seen plenty of gamers that are.  But, unlike at a baseball game, or a day at the beach, or walking down the streets of the city - at the Con (and in our hobby) you can usually tell who isn't just by looking, after talking to them you'll know for sure, and when you glance around you can see that their numbers in the gaming community are staggeringly higher than almost any other "geek" culture (such as performance car geeks, sports geeks, gambling geeks, etc).

I honestly don't understand how anyone can think otherwise.  If 10 people are standing around, 5 look like any other schmo on the street, 1 is grossly overwieght, 1 is wearing a Klingon costume, 1 looks kind of unwashed and is wearing a gawdy comic book t-shirt, 1 is wearing chain mail, and 1 is super quiet standing off to the side timidly looking at something, I'll give you one guess as to where you are: some sort of gamer/sci-fi event.  We as grown men go in a basement, speak in funny voices and play with plastic miniatures.  Things like that article are dead on!  Can you imagine if Triumph the insult dog went to Gen Con?  He wouldn't even have to try.

Having said that (and I'm glad you all accept it now!), having some sort of social agenda to exclude someone from a gaming group because they are a huge dork, and therefore improve the hobby is ridiculous.  If someone wants to be a dork and are happy totally geeking out, more power too them.  Most likely, at the gaming table, they are an asset with their uber geek knowledge of the rules and their passion for the game.  Also, just as the article suggested, most nerds are really, really nice honest people.  Last year at the Con, me and my "normal" friends walked into the main hall with our uber-geek gaming buddy.  Very quickly he outpaced us and blended in - a fish in water.  He had a better time than any of us and more power to him - it was one place where he could get along famously with everyone and perhaps us "normal" gamers were the outsiders...made me want to go by a bunch of dork books just to keep up!  Of course, I _was_ at the Con, so maybe none of us are as "normal" as we'd like to think!

Cheers!


----------



## francisca

Just read this whole thread, here are some random thoughts I rolled up concerning my experience with these matters.

Cat-Piss Men:
Let's see.  This GenCon, I had one experience with some smelly dudes.  They smelled bad.  Real bad.  Could smell them 10 feet away.  That was it.  Out of the thousands of people I passed by, I encountered 2 smelly guys.  Were there more?  Probably, but the majority at least were fairly clean.


Really Disturbing:
However, the most disgusting thing I saw was a "normal" looking guy, walking around with a blonde all weekend.  I have suspicions she was an "escort", as she was made up to look "hot": nice body, bleached blonde hair, lotsa red lipstick, revealing clothes, no bra, thong showing, etc.., but maybe she was just comfortable with her sexuality in a Brittany Spears kinda way, I dunno.  Anyway, she looked like a 35-40 year old woman trying to pull off the current MTV hotty look.  

Now, what was disturbing about this?  Everytime I saw them, 9 or 10 times, he was either groping her, shoving his tounge down her throat, or at a minimum, pulling her so close to him as they walked that she had trouble staying upright.  The whole time, she had a shell-shocked, "I can't wait until this over", glazed over expression on her face.  Really disturbing.  


Nervousness:
I'm not too socially inept, and not very shy.  Hell I used to teach IT classes which had 100-120 18-20 year olds in them.  However, I still get nervous meeting people.  In almost all cases, I always wonder why afterwards.  Here is when I was nervous this past GenCon:
1) Meeting Jolly Blackburn (creator of KoDT).  Very nice guy.  Very much a gamer. Walked away thinking, wow, he's so _normal[/].  Duh!  Of course he is.  (Oddly enough, I was not nervous when I read at the Love Reading)
2) Meeting some ENWorlders.  Dunno why.  Maybe because I respect their opinions, and don't want to come off as an ass.  (On the upside, one of them seemed at least as nervous as me.)

So, to you guys who get sick to your stomach from nervousness, guess what?  It happens.  To most people at least.  It gets better the more you meet and greet people.  Get past it.  Yes you can.  Really.  Just relax.

When it comes to the opposite sex, be bold.  You may surprise yourself.  Don't ever consider someone out of your league based on looks.  Anyone who is obsessed with appearence is not someone you want to be with anyway.  That's not to say that hygiene and wearing some decent clothes aren't important, but don't worry about fashion.


Social Ineptitude:
I've seen some descriptions of truly social inept people in this thread.  I would not game with them unless they changed their ways.  I also would not hang out with them in general.  I don't put up with people who continually ruin otherwise good times.  In that regard, I agree with Nisarg.  However, I don't advocate shunning them or pushing them off a cliff or anything else like that.  Politely point out their foibles.  If they get huffy and throw a fit, they're not ready to accept their shortcomings.  Tell them to come back when they are.

For those of you who feel completely inept, how did you find your gaming group?  You must have some social skills._


----------



## Desdichado

Roman said:
			
		

> I am one of those 'undesirables' (BTW: That is what Hitlerites in Nazi Germany called certain ethnic and indeed also social groups they did not like, so you may want to watch what you say more carefully.).



Oh, please.


			
				Roman said:
			
		

> I am 22 and I have never had a girlfriend nor have I ever kissed or touched a girl. The question is, Nisarg (and others who advocate getting rid of us 'undesirables'), how the hell are you going to tell me apart from anyone else?



You've obviously completely missed the point.  The undesirables are actually very obvious, because they stink, they're rude, they're sloppy, and they're, well, undesirable.  Nobody wants to hang around with them.  Sexual history is beside the point.  Or should we exclude priests as well?  And, no, that's not an invitation to make a cheap (and obvious) wisecrack.


----------



## Desdichado

Style said:
			
		

> Other than that, I'd just like to add that the intolerant should be flayed alive and boiled in a stew of their own bile.



And that's where the "tolerant" usually break down into hypocrisy.


----------



## Nightchilde-2

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> I don't get exactly how the people you game with can influence your daughters.
> For a person to be a reject it takes someone to reject him.
> Yeah, I too hope it won't happen to your daughters, and that they will learn soon how to reject people unlike them.




Because environment is a huge part of childhood development, and when I'm not playing online, my children are present.  And I don't particularly care to introduce into their environment on a regular basis those who are mentally unstable enough to think that they shapeshift into a wolf at the full moon, trap peoples' souls in crystals or for whom personal hygeine means bathing once a month and smelling like urine.  If they get into their heads that this sort of behavior is "right" and acceptable, and begin emulating or sharing in it, then they WILL be rejected by society.

It's not about rejecting people that are unlike them.  I'm very open-minded, and I encourage them to be too.   I do/will encourage them to meet and interact with people of a wide range and with an open outlook, but those that are unstable enough to not work in polite society they should be, at the very least, wary of.  There's odd/eccentric and then there's potentially dangerous.

Would you want your 2 or 8-year old's world-views influenced by someone who believes that drinking human blood is a perfectly viable form of socially acceptable behavior?  I sure wouldn't.


----------



## Thornir Alekeg

OK, I'll try this again...hopefully won't timeout this time.

Regarding the original point of this thread:  I think there is a difference between RPGers and computer gamers.  RPGers for the most part play in a direct social environment.  Computer gamers for the most part play in a virtual social environment.  I suspect that there are a larger number of diehard fanatic computer gamers who are highly introverted and maybe have never had the nerve to speak directly/touch a woman than is the case for diehard fanatic RPGers.

Regarding the rather ugly turn of this thread into one of bashing people who don't meet social norms; I would rather see the RPG hobby (or game or pasttime or whatever you want to call it) be one of inclusion than exclusion.  I have met some very interesting and wonderful people through gaming that do not fit into my ideals of possessing social graces.  Sure I've met others I would rather not associate with, but then again I've met people like that at work, at school, at the supermarket, on the bus...


----------



## Jim Hague

Wonger said:
			
		

> *snip*




Nice to know that, indeed, it's not just limited to the smelly, annoying sorts.  There's also the ones that like to give us our opinions.   :\ 

Look, you're going to run into the maladjusted sorts anytime you're in a gathering for _any_ hobby.  I've seen them at sports events, car shows, gun shows, model shows, model railroad shows...

You get the picture.  If it's a niche, you have people who get into it for whatever reason, and get into it at the expense of social niceties such as shaving, bathing or social skills.  It's no more prevalent in our hobby than any other.  We seem 'weird' to many because there's folks who, when speaking on RPGs, descend into arcane language that makes no sense to Joe Schmo.  We wear funny clothes.  The mainstream generally doesn't see the appeal of the hobby.  As has been pointed out time and again, and bears repeating: the 'normal' folks in our hobby don't make good press.


----------



## Desdichado

Sir Elton said:
			
		

> Being unable to move out of your parents' home is also a complex situation more dealing with inflation, our use of fossil fuels, and the national economy.  Believe me, I know.



Blaming inflation (which we have never been without since the history of modern economics) the use of fossil fuels (!) or the national economy as the major factors in gamers being unable to leave their parent's homes?

To put it politely; that's _extremely_ dodgy logic.


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

jester47 said:
			
		

> I will say that I find this to be a valid point.  We can exile them from our groups, but we can't really keep them from existing.  And there is also the fact that the "exile point" varies from person to person.  So there really is no solution.  However we can take solace in the fact that most other hobbies (even sports fans, who I will point out have conventions a lot regularly then we do) have thier undesireable segments also.



Arguably, the sports guys can be a LOT worse.  They smell AND they have a penchant for trying to give you noogies.  At least smelly gamers generally don't try to touch you.

Also, for the record, my notion of "undesirables" has nothing to do with someone's shyness or virginity.  Heck, I was a virgin until substantially later than the national average.  My notion of "undesirables" is based on boorish, smelly, rude, piggish people who cause people to flee the building.

Nisarg may be overstating the case, but he has a point.  I'm not saying we need to "purge" people from the hobby, but maybe we could try educating them.  I failed miserably most of the time at that, but I did introduce one guy to deodorant successfully, and after my impassioned variations on "Dude! It is NOT cool to leer at the 16 year old!" were ignored for three sessions, I got the pleasure of witnessing an education when she slapped him so hard it left a welt.

Actually, I think that was educational for both of them.

So my success rate was 2 out of about 15, but I was working alone.  No one else in any group I was ever in would in any way comment on these elephants in the gaming room.  That was what finally put me over the edge.  Had the entire group brought a little social pressure on some of these behaviors, things might have changed.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Are so many gamers *really* so pathetically socially withdrawn that the first time they've touched a girl would be a booth babe at a gaming convention? Or are the guys these women are referring to 13 year-olds? Is that situation so exciting as to make gamer guys shake?
> 
> Quasqueton




Yes, yes they are.

I understand that the government is working on some type of drug to turn these social misfits into a new legion of meta mutants and take over the military.


----------



## Agamemnon

Sir Elton said:
			
		

> you didn't understand what I meant, did you?




No, it appears that I didn't. I assume that my being a foreigner and not a native English speaker has led me to misunderstand your point so utterly. It is to be expected, of course, but I'm afraid I cannot do any better.

I still stand by my conclusions. When I play, or DM, or design worlds or monsters or whatever, I'm escaping. In the world of my imagination, I'm free. Whenever I'm forced back into the real, I'm sad because I prefer the illusion. If something bad happens in-game, I can always think "it has to work out in the end, it's a story and that's what stories do". 

Games I can work with. They have rules, they have patterns that can be interpreted and taken advantage of. Good gets rewarded, evil punished. Real life has nothing of the sort. In reality, everything is in flux and there are no rerolls and happy endings. That's why I play, and I am certain I am not alone in this reasoning. After all, not being exceptional in any other aspect leads to me not being exceptional in this one, either. Therefore, we must out there.


----------



## Agamemnon

double post


----------



## Sir Elton

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Blaming inflation (which we have never been without since the history of modern economics) the use of fossil fuels (!) or the national economy as the major factors in gamers being unable to leave their parent's homes?
> 
> To put it politely; that's _extremely_ dodgy logic.



 Obviously, you haven't followed the housing market in Salt Lake City for the past 29 years.  Dodge logic?  Hardly.  Follow my life for the past 29 years.


----------



## James Heard

Things _I've_ learned from this thread:

1. At least as much as the concept of bashing North American gamers as 'smelling like catpiss', I don't want to ever risk playing with any intolerant foreigners. So since I've already banned the local German from my table I'll now include everyone who isn't exactly like me including all foreigners. Except for Italians and Thais, because I like pasta and I'd be in big trouble with the other. Noodles are cool.

2. People hate themselves all over, but in some places they use that as an excuse to hate others. This explains global warfare and booth girls in general.

3. Asian girls are hot, but other girls are hot too until you hear them talk derisively about the people around them. Apparently one should consider renting booth girls from someplace called Illinois Street. I'm not sure if that still allows for free pictures.

4. When the booth girls aren't looking down on their customers the owners of the booths are perfectly willing to look down on booth girls. Really, noodles are very excellent and I like them very much.

5. There is no spoon.


Seriously, if you've only met creepy smelly people in gaming then you're a lucky person. Some of those booth girls are much more insane than anyone I've ever known that pulled the wide-eyed stare from me for showing up at a Con in Trek constume. Every gamer I've ever met is better adjusted than any of the people I used to do drugs with, yet the druggies are supposed to be more mainstream. They smell better too. Not every gamer I've ever met was capable of intelligent conversation at a Con, but after a night out drinking and passing out in a linen closet once or twice I assure you that neither have I.


----------



## Incenjucar

Maggan said:
			
		

> So you just happened to be there? Yeah right...
> 
> What was *your*  costume?
> 
> M.




Heh, I was on there on purpose.  Further Confusion 2002 I think.  Wanted to see what conventions were like, and I was mostly involved in furry-based roleplaying back then.  I noticed -most- of the people there were somewhat dirty-looking or otherwise just looked awkward.  And, of course, there was the infamous-in-furry RoxyKat (however you spell it), a guy in a buxom latex pink cat girl suit, whom I couldn't even bring myself to focus my vision on.  I knew one person there from a MUCK, but was so nervous due to the creep-factor of the place that I never really looked at him (we were both on computers right next to each other playing the MUCK between events, heh).  Also accidentally walked in to the 'adult art room'.  The buggers didn't mark it, and the beard I had at the time made me look too old to card, I'm guessing.  I just saw endless 'pink' and backed away with blurry vision.  Heh.

Great ego boost though; I was in the top 10% of attractiveness at the con, easily.

--

Roman

Absolutely nothing bad about being a virgin; the risks can be nasty, and, frankly, the cuddling was more fun than the nekkid stuff, for me at least.

Besides, if you ever -do- get in a situation, some women will get very very very aggressive about trying to be your first, and it's one huge ego boost, and a good laugh, too.  Having a girl get mad at your pants and saying really really bad cliche` porno lines which I won't repeat here has got to be the funniest thing in the world.  As I always say, if you run, they chase.

--

Joe

They actually have that drug on TV that's supposed to make you all 'social', so, heh.  My mother used to try to get me to use it, even, before my ex showed up to visit.

--

This all just makes me think that we really need to have outdoor gaming meets in parks, with a dress code.  (the following is humor.  Kinda.) That or we need to hire hookers for all of these fellas (and jigalos for the ladies, I wager -- they can't ALL be guys), so they know what they're missing at might try to bathe once in awhile in hopes of getting another chance at it.


----------



## jester47

I see Nisargs point, I just disagree with his numbers. 

<RANT>
As for the inclusion thing, why should I spend time around you if I don't like you?  1) If I let you hang around me and I don't like you I AM ALREADY LYING TO YOU.  2) Why do I want to punnish myself?  I don't.  

Why hurt us both?

There is a difference between being a virgin because you are an introvert and being a vigin because you are an ___hole.  Even if you can't help it cause you were brought up in the wrong environment or somthing, I still don't want to spend time with you.  Nothing against virgins here, its just a percieved measure of social acceptance. 

This IS elitism in the truest sense of the word.  I choose who I spend time with.  I choose who I like.  Elitism is choosing for your company those who you find desirable.  If you don't like that I don't choose you for any reason, then don't choose me.  Its easy.

I think the Ramones said it best:  "I don't wanna walk around with you, I don't wanna walk around with you, I don't wanna walk around with you, So why you wanna walk around with me?"

Change what I don't like about you then we can talk.  Ask me, find out what it is, if I have not told you, I will.  Most people really don't care what you do in your free time.  They only really care that you don't annoy them and that you are ok to be around if they have to be around you.

The difference between leprosy and social leprocy is that social leprosy has a cure.  It does not mean you have to go live with the other lepers.  All you have to do is find out that one thing that bothers MOST people about you and change it.  

You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You're the same decaying organic matter as everything else. (Fight Club) This means that everyone goes through the same feelings of isolation, separateness, rejection and disappointment that you do.  EVERYONE understands how you feel.  They have all felt it before too.  The only difference, what separates the outcasts from the accepted, is how fast you get over it.  
</RANT>

Aaron.


----------



## jester47

I have to confess.  I at one point was the little known sidekick to CatPiss Man:  Cat Piss Boy.

This all started when I was 14.  My mom got a himalayan persian.  The problem was that the cat was traumatised.  The kids of the previous owner had pretty much chased and tormented the cat to the point that it shunned all human contact.  We renamed the cat Kubla Kahn.  Because of his trauma, Kubla had a problem with using the box.  The cat went anywhere.  Now at the time I was a messy teenager.  Cloths (clean or dirty) went on the floor in one of two piles (clean and dirty) where any self respecting messy teen would put them.  As it turns out, Kubla would sneak into my room, pee, and be gone before I was the wiser.  Many times he would pee on my cleans.  He was a sneaky bastard too.  So I took to keeping my bedroom door closed.  this only worked occasionally, as he was a sneaky bastard and would sneak in when I was not looking and had the door open.  So I learned to smell my cloths every morning.  Initially it was a brief snif, but after several times discovering a piss stain on my pants or the back of my shirt, I came to carefully inspect every garmet.  It took me about a year to get to the point where my habits were good enough that I very very rarely if ever smelled like cat piss.  The thing is, at school, if I got a reaction on a day that I missed the sniff, I would say "yeah, I smell like crap, cat pissed on my shirt and I missed it."  At least I got points for knowing about it.  Granted, dates were hard to get, but getting a car and good cat habits fixed that.  

So it can be done.  

Aaron.


----------



## SpikeyFreak

Not much to add, just wanted to say that I went to QuakeCon 2004 in Dallas, mostly just to have a road trip with an old buddy of mine, but partly to see all the unwashed losers that I hear about at conventions.

I was really disappointed.  I would say that 95% of the people I saw were normal people.  There were probably only 3 or 4 people I saw that I remember because they were super-nerds.

Next road trip will hopefully be to Texas Renn Fest.

--Normal Spikey


----------



## Elf Witch

This is such and old dead horse. It has been around as long as there as been any kind of fandom. I remember back in the 70s in Trek fandom worry about the image certain freakazoids were giving the rest of us. At a Worldon I talked to a person who had been attending them since 1950 and it was an issue back then.

There will always be social misfits attracted to hobbies like this it is one of the downside of being involved in something this creative. Think about it for a moment in this hobby you are encouraged to pretend to be someone else. And for some people that is like a siren's call.

The media plays it up big time. As someone else said they never talk to the normal people who go the cons because that is not an interesting newsbite. What would grab your attention the normal person in jeans or the the guy in the conan outfit with a huge axe? 

Some of this is being taken way to seriously. Get over yourselves please. It is very simple don't play with people you don't like or who offend you. 

But this talk of "cleaning" up gaming makes me wonder if part of it is a little bit of embarrasment and worry of what other people might think about the hobby you choose to be in.

Just wondering.


----------



## fanboy2000

Nisarg said:
			
		

> I feel the topic of this thread goes beyond the specifics of that article. The topic of this thread was whether gamers were really pathetic, "like" it said in the article. It is not limited to discussing that specific article, and that's not what I was doing.




Fair enough. I think the article is a good read because of what it dosen't say. Really, I dosen't make video gamers out to be the pathetic losers the origanaly post claimed it did. I think that's an important point.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Are you honestly trying to pretend that:




Ahem. I'm not trying to _pretend_ anything. I simply disagree with you. Contrary to popular belife, people can simply disagree. Try it sometime, you might find that you enjoy it.



> a) there isn't a serious ratio of people in gaming who are social rejects of some kind or another?




Yes, I actually think that. Of course I have the exact same pices of evidence you do to back-up my conclusion, an article about booth babes at a video game convention and personal experiance. 



> b) the general view of gamers in popular culture is of the worst kind of those rejects? Smelly unwashed dateless wonders at best, potential high-school shooters or deviants at worst?




When you live in world (as I do) where mothers run CCG legues because they love to play, when guy, his son, and his current girlfriend are playing the same CCG and having a blast, when two of your closest gaming friends are married, one of them with a baby, when you ran a game at the local pizza parlor for two years, when you've sold the latest D&D bookk to highschool cheerleader and her exact opposit on the same day, then yeah, I'd have to say that isn't the popular view of gamers. 

Where I live, the local gaming club has whole familes playing. While everyone seems to agree that unwashed, smelly, and stinky people are the sterotypical gamer, not everyone (as this thread indicates) belives it. 



> c) it would be BETTER for gaming if that perception was changed?




Sense I don't think that the perception is as pervailent as you do, then this has no real meaning to me. It's rather like the question "have you stopped beating your wife yet."



> d) the only way for that perception to change would be for gamers to take some responsibility for who they allow to be "poster boys" for their community?




Sigh. If you don't want to game with someone because you don't like them, go right a head. I don't care what the reason is. To exclude someone from your table "for the good of the hobby" is elitest. 

In all honesty, I'd rather take an inclusionist attitude toward the hobby. Oh, I have my limits, but they involve extreems like people who think they are werewolves.

Anyways. Just make a note that I dissagree with you, it does happen sometimes.


----------



## Desdichado

Agamemnon said:
			
		

> I still stand by my conclusions. When I play, or DM, or design worlds or monsters or whatever, I'm escaping. In the world of my imagination, I'm free. Whenever I'm forced back into the real, I'm sad because I prefer the illusion. If something bad happens in-game, I can always think "it has to work out in the end, it's a story and that's what stories do".



Yet, you refer to gaming as an escapism as if it were a truism that _everyone_ plays games to "escape".  I don't think that's true.  I don't escape; I'm actually quite satisfied with my life in general, and hardly want to escape to a life anything like that of a typical D&D adventurer.


----------



## Desdichado

Sir Elton said:
			
		

> Obviously, you haven't followed the housing market in Salt Lake City for the past 29 years.  Dodge logic?  Hardly.  Follow my life for the past 29 years.



_Dodgey_ logic, not dodge logic.  And actually, I am passingly familiar with the housing market in Salt Lake City, having a brother that lives there.  He is a student with a part time job with a new wife who just graduated (and is yet unemployed), and yet he is able to afford an apartment.  And besides, you referred to situations that are common all over the US as the causes of it being hard to find a place to live.


----------



## Desdichado

SpikeyFreak said:
			
		

> Next road trip will hopefully be to Texas Renn Fest.



You mean the big one in Plantersville?  Hate to disappoint you; my experiences there were that it is mostly normal people too.  I mean, yeah, there's always a girl or two wearing nothing but some skimpy chainmail (although I only remember once that I cared to actually look at said girl) and a freak or two, but you have to go out of your way to notice them.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Is it really that important for you people to leave home the soonest possible? I can understand if one has to go to a far away university, but otherwise?


----------



## Thornir Alekeg

jester47 said:
			
		

> <RANT>
> As for the inclusion thing, why should I spend time around you if I don't like you?  1) If I let you hang around me and I don't like you I AM ALREADY LYING TO YOU.  2) Why do I want to punnish myself?  I don't.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> </RANT>
> 
> When I suggested that gaming should be inclusive, I mean in general, not that if you game you should allow anyone to game with you.  An individual should decide for himself who they want to hang around with.  What I don't like hearing is the idea that people who do not act like others want, or smell like others want or whatever, should be driven from gaming in order to improve its image or acceptance to the masses.  That is elitist garbage.


----------



## Desdichado

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> If you don't want to game with someone because you don't like them, go right a head. I don't care what the reason is. To exclude someone from your table "for the good of the hobby" is elitest.



I dunno.  Not saying you advocate this, but there's a vibe of "pathological tolerance" in this thread that I don't think is a virtue by a long shot.  I won't game more than a session or two with people I don't enjoy being with.  I don't mean just people I can tolerate, I mean people I _actively enjoy_ being with.  Life's too short, and I have too many other things that I _would_ enjoy.  One of them being gaming with my friends.  

Now, to do it for the "good of the hobby" is just pretentious, IMO, but to do it for my own enjoyment of the hobby just makes perfect sense.

And for what it's worth, I've seen very few examples of the "cat-piss" man around.  I have seen them; often in gaming stores where they seem to just hang around like parasites, but I've never actually games with one, even at big events like ENWorld gamedays and such, where they could (in theory anyway) run amok.


----------



## Desdichado

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Is it really that important for you people to leave home the soonest possible? I can understand if one has to go to a far away university, but otherwise?



It is to me.  Otherwise you're putting a financial (and otherwise) burden on your parents when you are supposed to be mature enough to handle that yourself.

Now, I see no problem with living at home while a single college student going to school nearby, or something like that.  Living at home when you're 35 is something else entirely.  Living at home as a chronically unemployed and unemployable 35 is, by any definition of the word, a problem.


----------



## JoeGKushner

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Living at home when you're 35 is something else entirely.  Living at home as a chronically unemployed and unemployable 35 is, by any definition of the word, a problem.




Joshua, have you been spying on my role playing group? I swear, it sounds like you're talking about one of my friends. The only thing this guy has going for him is that because he lives in the basement, we can play at his house without offending 'normal' people. Man, you're temping me to put that in my sig... tempting... yonked!


----------



## Desdichado

Glad to be of service!


----------



## maddman75

I'm with Joshua all the way on this one.  Read the article I linked to on the geek social fallacies, its most illuminating.  It is not evil to suggest that smelly socially retarded people should be told to sod off.  Its *normal*.  Its something that happens in most other hobbies, but we tolerate Cat Piss Men for whatever reason.  All you are doing in that case is enabling their antisocial behaviour, which harms them in the long run.

As for not working, I agree again.  Now there's a difference if its a temporary situation, going to college, or something like that.  We all fall on hard times.  But to continue to do so because you've no ambition for independence is a problem.  (Not as big a problem as, say, lack of hygene or general lack of social skills)


----------



## Pielorinho

*Moderator's Notes:*

I got an email early this morning saying this thread was sinking fast, but I've only just now been able to get around to taking a look at it (yay dealing with broken computers!)  Actually, I want to thank folks for turning it back on-topic, and for keeping the conversation respectful and polite; it can be pretty difficult to do so on a touchy topic like this.

Of course, if it starts going wonky again, please let me or another mod know.

Thanks, folks!
Daniel


----------



## Lichtenhart

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> It is to me.  Otherwise you're putting a financial (and otherwise) burden on your parents when you are supposed to be mature enough to handle that yourself.
> 
> Now, I see no problem with living at home while a single college student going to school nearby, or something like that.  Living at home when you're 35 is something else entirely.  Living at home as a chronically unemployed and unemployable 35 is, by any definition of the word, a problem.




I guess you are not a financial burden if you work, and bring money back to the family to pay taxes, buy food and whatnot. But I'm very curious about how a son is an _(otherwise)_ burden.
My house has belonged to my family for three generations. My great-grandfather built it, and my grandfather and my dad had always lived here. In fact their wives came to live here too. For two years, my mother, my father, my grand mother and my great-grandmother had lived under the same roof. And it's rather normal here, so I can't see what are these burdens you talk about.


----------



## Edward Kann@StoryART

Some of the most respected and brilliant inventors, scientists, world leaders, artists, and writers throughout history, both men and women have had issues in their lives that would make them an easy target for a "convention babe" or "hey i'm normal, cute and popular sudo-journalist" to bash in news articles.

Maybe the "cute" awkward guy is shaking because he has a medical condition.  

This is the same shallow and frankly pathetic point of view of someone trying to make themselves feel better about who they are by putting down anyone that looks like an easy target.  It seems like the same sort of shallow playground bully maneuver that we've all witnessed in grammar school, evolved into high school pecking order and is still being played out in this writers review of a convention.

I suppose it would have been a lot to ask to have something of depth to say about the fabulous artwork, the cutting edge..or even bleeding edge science fiction visions of some of the writers, the hard work put into so many great books and the really awesome support that RPG fans usually offer to one another in an article, but hey that would take work.

They always say "write what you know" and if all you know is turning up your nose and giggling at people then I suppose that is what you will write.  Of course to my mind that writing belongs back in the Junior High School year book social pages where it belongs.

Gamers are great!  They represent a cross section of some of the most brilliant creative artistic people in the world.  Gamers certainly have my respect and support.  If you gathered 100,000 people together at sporting event I bet you would find a lot more "people needing a bath" or exhibiting some kind of quirk..sometimes nasty violent quirks than you would find at any gaming convention.  Gamers are quirky...yes well people pretty much fill that bill everywhere.

Sorry if I get up on a soap box on this but gamers are my tribe and I get my hackles raised when someone tries to take a cheap shot at my tribe.

My two cents.

Edward Kann
StoryART Games


----------



## Desdichado

Different cultural expectations; living at home if it's normal for large extended families to live in the same house obviously isn't a problem.

And living at home if you're a contributing member of the family is always fine, as far as I'm concerned, although very unusual in my neck of the woods.  It's an expectation that if you can do so, you prefer to be independent as an adult in the US.

The problem is the hangers-on; the aforemented chronically unemployed who don't accept responsibility for their own lives.  The critique against these types of gamers (who, granted, might be pretty few.  I don't personally know any, although I know people like this who aren't gamers.) is that they have the sense of responsibility of a 12-year old.  Quite often, this is just one of their many personality flaws; they often have the social etiquitte of a 12 year old as well, for instance.  It's really normally a symptom of problems rather than a problem in an of itself.


----------



## nyrfherdr

I've said it before and I'll say it again... This place is AWESOME!
I haven't laughed so hard in ages.  Thanks everyone.

Where else can someone provide the etymology of the word catpissman and then actually be introduced to someone who once could be called by the label.

Where else can someone argue for excluding those that lack social graces while interacting with many of the people who exhibit the very traits mentioned.


And on no other site  would I find the entire thread remain polite, thoughtful and full of both humor and good will.

Thanks everyone.  I have to say I'm proud to be a member of this community even if it is pathetic.

Game ON!
Nyrfherdr


----------



## Nisarg

The quote below is an excellent example of one of the Geek Social Fallacies outlined.  Namely, the idea that we cannot be "mean" and must be "compassionate" by ignoring the odious personal habits of others, because we ourselves might have been picked on at some point. 

Many gamers were picked on at some point, or felt like they didn't fit in at some point.  Unfortunately, for many this means they later on feel incapable of doing anything that would seem like being "exclusionary" to others.  Even though it means putting up with people who have no self control, or hygene, or behave inappropriately.

If you really care about those people, Lichtenhart, you may want to consider that what some of them might NEED is someone to tell them to grow up a bit, to have expectations of how they will behave around others.  Not to attack them because they are different, but to tell them in a friendly way that its not acceptable for them to act the way they're acting or smell the way they smell. It might actually give them a life-shock that will lead them to better themselves.

Ignoring someone's problem is not always a kindness; and usually enabling someone is very unhealthy for them, because it keeps them trapped in their problems instead of helping them to better themselves.

Nisarg



			
				Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> This thread is amazing, really. Now my 2cp on the whole matter.
> 
> Let's face it, our hobby means, to a certain degree, pretending to be someone else. It's bound to attract people who are unsatisfied with their life, because it offers them evasion.
> In a three hour window a week, they can be someone else, be it a powerful wizard, who has magic to solve all the problems of his life, a mighty warrior, who is strong, athletic, and attractive like we'd like to be, a sneaky rogue, who can backstab people he doesn't like without going to jail, and so on.
> What I always loved about roleplaying games is that they help you put things in perspective. They make you think in more than one way. It's uncommon to meet a racist gamer, a religious fanatic gamer, a politics fanatic gamer. IMHO this kind of people can be incredibly more pathetic than a smelly guy.
> Gamers can be pathetic. But usually they're pathetic in a harmless way. Even the catpiss man hurts himself more than anyone else. The catpiss man, and all those who have lesser degrees of social problems are exactly that: people who have problems. They are the victims here. As much as you can be embarassed being associated with them, you can never be hurt like they hurt themselves. And since they come to roleplaying games to escape their lives, the idea of escluding them just because they make you feel embarassed is... it sounds awful to me. I've met many people thanks to gaming that have become my best friends. It wouldn't have happened if I had let something about them prevent me from talking with them, or hanging with them. You think you have absolutely no social problems, good for you. Then you could do wonders helping them find solutions to their problems too, instead of showing them the door. Then people could start thinking that gamers are humane and understanding persons (like most of the gamers I know truly are) rather than smelly, pathetic social cases.


----------



## fanboy2000

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Not saying you advocate this, but there's a vibe of "pathological tolerance" in this thread that I don't think is a virtue by a long shot.




Sometimes, its not that gamers tolerate the thouse you find repusive, its that some gamers just don't care the same way you do. Nisarg obviously belives that gaming people _he_ belives are social rejects is bad; I think of it a a matter of _personal_ choice.



> I won't game more than a session or two with people I don't enjoy being with.  I don't mean just people I can tolerate, I mean people I _actively enjoy_ being with.  Life's too short, and I have too many other things that I _would_ enjoy.  One of them being gaming with my friends.




I agree with you 100%. Monte Cook said it best: Don't game with anyone you wouldn't want to spend several hours with doing something else. 

People should chose the company they keep. Absolutely.



> Now, to do it for the "good of the hobby" is just pretentious, IMO, but to do it for my own enjoyment of the hobby just makes perfect sense.




Yep, couldn't have said it better.



> And for what it's worth, I've seen very few examples of the "cat-piss" man around.  I have seen them; often in gaming stores where they seem to just hang around like parasites, but I've never actually games with one, even at big events like ENWorld gamedays and such, where they could (in theory anyway) run amok.




What is it with gamers, old ladies, alleyways and cats anyways? Oh well. I guess there are just some mysteries in life that will never be solved.


----------



## Agamemnon

Oh, FINE. I must be wrong, then, just like I'm always wrong about everything. The story of my sodding life, that is. I do beg your forgiveness that my misguided views thus tainted your thread.

*sigh*

I guess it's time for me to leave now.


----------



## Aust Diamondew

Tonguez said:
			
		

> Maybe its convention-goers that are pathetic




lol.  All of the gamers in the groups I've been are normal (more or less normal) people.  And none of us have ever been to a convention.


----------



## fanboy2000

Nisarg said:
			
		

> If you really care about those people, Lichtenhart, you may want to consider that what some of them might NEED is someone to tell them to grow up a bit, to have expectations of how they will behave around others.  Not to attack them because they are different, but to tell them in a friendly way that its not acceptable for them to act the way they're acting or smell the way they smell. It might actually give them a life-shock that will lead them to better themselves.




There is more at work here than Geek Social Fallacies, namely etiquette. No, I'm not acussing you of being rude. Judith Martin, an etiquette expert for the Washington Post, has repetedly stated that it is rude to correct other people. The only exception to this is correcting your own children, and even then the children can't be adults.

Think about it, how many people honestly thank you for correcting them? A few, to be sure, but most don't, and some will simply be rude back to you. Particularly if what you're correcting them about is a personal matter. 

If you really want to change others behavior, then simply do what you belive in and act as an example. To think that wagging your finger at someone you have no control over and saying "do what I want!" works is fine, but don't come crying to me when people don't change simply because you told them too.

Any solution to a problem that you come up with requiring someone other than yourself to change is doomed to failure.


----------



## jester47

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> When I suggested that gaming should be inclusive, I mean in general, not that if you game you should allow anyone to game with you.  An individual should decide for himself who they want to hang around with.  What I don't like hearing is the idea that people who do not act like others want, or smell like others want or whatever, should be driven from gaming in order to improve its image or acceptance to the masses.  That is elitist garbage.




Thats just it, I know people that think if you game you should allow anyone to game with you.  The rant was directed at people that have that belief because it is a symptom of how they live thier lives.  They want to be included and so are all inclusive.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Nisarg said:
			
		

> If you really care about those people, Lichtenhart, you may want to consider that what some of them might NEED is someone to tell them to grow up a bit, to have expectations of how they will behave around others.  Not to attack them because they are different, but to tell them in a friendly way that its not acceptable for them to act the way they're acting or smell the way they smell. It might actually give them a life-shock that will lead them to better themselves.




If that's what you said since the beginning, than we didn't understand each other and we perfectly agree. In fact I said nothing in my posts about "ignoring" their "odious personal habits". What you just said is quite what I called "helping them find solutions to their problems too, instead of showing them the door".
I was under the impression that we were talking about excluding people because they behaved or smelled in a certain way _tout court_, without first trying to talk with them and help them getting out of their bad habits.
I'm glad to have been wrong.

Also, I've never been picked on because of gaming. There is no social stigma to speak of about gamers in Italy, and probably in Europe in general, from what I heard. Our local TV channel once filmed a Vampire LARP of ours and aired it with no slanted commentary, just as a curiosity. I guess the article that generated the thread had a quite different purpose.


----------



## Wormwood

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Any solution to a problem that you come up with requiring someone other than yourself to change is doomed to failure.



Nisarg won't be happy until the Night of the Gamer Long Knives.

Personally, I couldn't care less about "the hobby" or it's image. I just want to roll dice with with my loser friends.


----------



## Nisarg

Sir Elton said:
			
		

> Obviously, you haven't followed the housing market in Salt Lake City for the past 29 years.  Dodge logic?  Hardly.  Follow my life for the past 29 years.





If the housing or economic situation was such in a region that NO ONE can move out of their parent's home, I would buy this.

But really, I moved out of my parent's home at 21, after finishing my undergraduate degree; others have done so even earlier. And its not that it was "different" back in my days, lots of people do it today. And other people don't. Those who don't can make excuses, but its fundamentally because they choose not to, because in some way or another (economically, emotionally, etc) they find it easier to not move out. 
Which isn't nescessarily a problem until you hit about 24 or 25 years old, still haven't moved out, don't have a job, and have never had a serious relationship. At that point, its a problem on many levels.

Nisarg


----------



## jester47

Nisarg said:
			
		

> If the housing or economic situation was such in a region that NO ONE can move out of their parent's home, I would buy this.
> 
> But really, I moved out of my parent's home at 21, after finishing my undergraduate degree; others have done so even earlier. And its not that it was "different" back in my days, lots of people do it today. And other people don't. Those who don't can make excuses, but its fundamentally because they choose not to, because in some way or another (economically, emotionally, etc) they find it easier to not move out.
> Which isn't nescessarily a problem until you hit about 24 or 25 years old, still haven't moved out, don't have a job, and have never had a serious relationship. At that point, its a problem on many levels.
> 
> Nisarg




Basicly it comes down to:  Are you living WITH your parents (providing income are a responsible adult etc but prefer an extended family format) or are you living OFF your parents (that is they are still providing for you)?  

Aaron.


----------



## Trainz

Agamemnon said:
			
		

> Oh, FINE. I must be wrong, then, just like I'm always wrong about everything. The story of my sodding life, that is. I do beg your forgiveness that my misguided views thus tainted your thread.
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> I guess it's time for me to leave now.



 NO. Don't be sour about it.

 It takes a big man to admit he's wrong (maybe you are, maybe you aren't), but by admiting you're wrong, it demonstrates that your intellect is able to review paramaters and re-evaluate them. There are too many conceted people around that do not have that ability. They would rather go down squirming than admit error and evolve.

 A trick: if you admit that you're wrong in an elegant way, most people will automatically put you a notch higher in their minds because you display maturity and intellect.

 Works for me !


----------



## Thornir Alekeg

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Ignoring someone's problem is not always a kindness; and usually enabling someone is very unhealthy for them, because it keeps them trapped in their problems instead of helping them to better themselves.
> 
> Nisarg




And there is the crux of the matter.  Are you in fact "bettering" someone by trying to get them to conform to your personal standards?  If the people you speak of are happy with their own lives is it your place to tell them that they should not be?  We are not talking about addictions to drugs or self-destructive behavior, we are talking about social norms here.  

Maybe these people are not as popular as they could be, but if they are OK with that, then who are we to tell them to change?  Perhaps they are the people most commonly associated with the sterotypical gamer, but rather than try and "fix" what appears to be the exception among gamers in  order to better the gamers image, why not instead educate those who put all gamers into that catergory that most gamers are fairly well-adjusted and would be considered normal by most standards.  Either that or just ignore those people completely and just play the game you enjoy and not worry about what other people think of you for it.


----------



## Nisarg

Elf Witch said:
			
		

> This is such and old dead horse. It has been around as long as there as been any kind of fandom. I remember back in the 70s in Trek fandom worry about the image certain freakazoids were giving the rest of us.
> .




um, yes.. and that's a perfect example of a fandom that was once relatively mainstream that slowly got absorbed by the freak kingdom.

In the early and mid-to-late seventies, Star Trek fans were normal people in every sense of the word, who just really loved the series.  There were a few really wierd people in there, some social misfits, but for the most part you had just as many men as women, you had old people, you had kids, you had familiest, etc etc.
But slowly, the number of freaks started increasing, more and more, and no one did anything to stop it, they were tolerated.. but people who were uncomfortable with this freakiness slowly started "dropping out" of Trek fandom. They left the scene, only to be replaced with more freaks. 
By the present day, Trek fandom is solidly in the freak kingdom.. you can't see a reference in pop culture to Star Trek without it being derogatory, implying Trekkies are wierd, socially malajusted, perpetual virgins, slightly insane, and not good people to be around. 
Its only the largeness of Star Trek that saves it, that there are still a great deal of normal people who watch ST, without being "Trekkies".

Furry fandom had way less luck. It went from being a comic-arts subculture that admired stuff like Usagi Ujimbo (sp?) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the original comic, not the awful tv cartoon), composed of largely normal people, until it got slowly overrun by the Fursuit freaks and the Yiffers and the people who wanted the artists to draw pics of 12 year old wolf-boys being raped... naturally, serious artists started abandoning furry art in droves, matched in velocity only by the normal people who would otherwise have found furry art cool, but today wouldn't touch it with a fifty-foot pole.

RPG gaming in North America is probably slightly bigger than Furry fandom, and much smaller than Trek fandom, which has in one way given it the worst of both worlds.. popular culture doesn't even have furries on its radar.. but it sure does have "·D&D geeks". It knows just enough about roleplaying to portray the roleplayers as the geeks and losers on sitcoms, to present the peopel who play it as either nerd-kids or total loser-adults.  For anyone who seriously tries to tell me that RPG fans aren't seen negatively by popular culture please show me a TV or movie reference in recent years where being a roleplayer was seen as a cool or at least "normal" thing to do?  Where RPGs weren't referenced in an insulting way?

Nisarg


----------



## Nisarg

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Is it really that important for you people to leave home the soonest possible? I can understand if one has to go to a far away university, but otherwise?




You have to understand LIchtenhart that in north american/Anglo-saxon culture, its considered inappropriate to keep living in your parent's house after your early 20s.  The point of view in this culture is that if you are not living on your own by then, you are being irresponsible, putting a burden on your parents, not being mature, not being independant, its not seen as desireable to women(or to men), just plain wierd etc. etc.


I know that in Latin cultures its different. There, someone in their late 20s living with their parents is not seen as wierd.

But in North America at least, its a sign of being a loser, if you're living with your parents (and had never moved out), beyond about age 25...

Nisarg


----------



## jester47

Agamemnon said:
			
		

> Oh, FINE. I must be wrong, then, just like I'm always wrong about everything. The story of my sodding life, that is. I do beg your forgiveness that my misguided views thus tainted your thread.
> 
> *sigh*
> 
> I guess it's time for me to leave now.




Nope, no forgivness here.  Simply put your views have not tainted this thread but rather just made everyone else think more.

Your being wrong will continue to be the story of your life if you walk away now and don't learn from your experience.  If you stay and fight and learn, your chances of being right will be greater next time.

A.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Nisarg said:
			
		

> You have to understand LIchtenhart that in north american/Anglo-saxon culture, its considered inappropriate to keep living in your parent's house after your early 20s.  The point of view in this culture is that if you are not living on your own by then, you are being irresponsible, putting a burden on your parents, not being mature, not being independant, its not seen as desireable to women(or to men), just plain wierd etc. etc.
> I know that in Latin cultures its different. There, someone in their late 20s living with their parents is not seen as wierd.
> But in North America at least, its a sign of being a loser, if you're living with your parents (and had never moved out), beyond about age 25...




This much I understand. I am interested why is it that way in Anglosaxon culture, and if you feel compelled to get out because of peer pressure or because you actually feel uncomfortable.


----------



## Incenjucar

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Furry fandom had way less luck. It went from being a comic-arts subculture that admired stuff like Usagi Ujimbo (sp?) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (the original comic, not the awful tv cartoon), composed of largely normal people, until it got slowly overrun by the Fursuit freaks and the Yiffers and the people who wanted the artists to draw pics of 12 year old wolf-boys being raped... naturally, serious artists started abandoning furry art in droves, matched in velocity only by the normal people who would otherwise have found furry art cool, but today wouldn't touch it with a fifty-foot pole.




Yep:  There's a recorded incident where some moron put advertisements for some furry convention in to an alternative lifestyle magazine, and the fandom went to pot all but over night.  Over-pushy Fetishists in general tend to be a big problem these days, as is evident in the Gay Pride Parade, which has brought protest from many homosexual individuals and groups.  I've heard of incidents like burning a leather flag (Yes, there's a leather flag) and the rainbow flag to protest making hetero persons think that gay=horny indescrete perverts.  Tolerance has its downsides.  Freedom vs. security.


----------



## Nisarg

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> If that's what you said since the beginning, than we didn't understand each other and we perfectly agree. In fact I said nothing in my posts about "ignoring" their "odious personal habits". What you just said is quite what I called "helping them find solutions to their problems too, instead of showing them the door".
> I was under the impression that we were talking about excluding people because they behaved or smelled in a certain way _tout court_, without first trying to talk with them and help them getting out of their bad habits.
> I'm glad to have been wrong.




No no, I'm not implying excluding them outright.

I am however arguing that they should be confronted about whatever their odious personal habits are, and told very clearly that those habits are NOT acceptable in our community.  They should be given the chance to change, but if they are unwilling to change they should not expect to be able to continue being part of the community.

Obviously the best result for all concerned is if people can change and better themselves, can address whatever problems they have or issues they hold, and can be a productive part of the community. I'd rather have one more socially healthy gamer than end up with no gamer; but I'd rather have no gamer than keep an socially unhealthy gamer.

Nisarg


----------



## jester47

Nisarg said:
			
		

> You have to understand LIchtenhart that in north american/Anglo-saxon culture, its considered inappropriate to keep living in your parent's house after your early 20s.  The point of view in this culture is that if you are not living on your own by then, you are being irresponsible, putting a burden on your parents, not being mature, not being independant, its not seen as desireable to women(or to men), just plain wierd etc. etc.
> 
> 
> I know that in Latin cultures its different. There, someone in their late 20s living with their parents is not seen as wierd.
> 
> But in North America at least, its a sign of being a loser, if you're living with your parents (and had never moved out), beyond about age 25...
> 
> Nisarg




The predominance of the conjugal (or nuclear) famliy developed in english speaking regions on a large scale in the 20th century, peaking in the 50's and 60's.  So for the most part it raises questions, and in a time where people don't know thier neighbors, assumptions are generally made.  Before it was known if the person was simply a bachelor, down on thier luck, an idiot, or a good for nothing.

Aaron.


----------



## Nisarg

Thornir Alekeg said:
			
		

> And there is the crux of the matter.  Are you in fact "bettering" someone by trying to get them to conform to your personal standards?




If it makes them more capable of interacting in society, yes. Its not about my personal standards, its about basic societal proficiency.

And no, "individuality" is not measured by how filthy you are or whether you feel the urge to scream at gaming tables, or hit on adolescent girls/boys in gaming shops. Telling you not to do those things is in no way discriminating against your individuality. 

Your individuality has nothing to do with your capacity to interact in society; its one of the things "nerds" tend not to get, that you can choose to be capable of functioning in society and it won't make you a "sell out" or one of the "mundanes", it will just mean you won't be freaking them out and causing unnescessary strife. 



> If the people you speak of are happy with their own lives is it your place to tell them that they should not be?




It the people in question are part of my community or culture, then yes. It is my place, because how they act will bear upon how society at large views my community or my culture, it will also bear upon the future of my community or my culture.

Imagine you have a village.. now, you get one guy who likes to pee on his front lawn, in public. The village decides its not their "place" to tell him that's unnaceptable. What will happen? 
In a short time, people in other villages and cities will hear about how your village is the one that has lawn-pee-ers.  Whatever is good about your village will be overshadowed by your fame for having front-lawn urination considered acceptable in your community (which it isn't in most communities).  Eventually, you will have other lawn-urinators coming to live in your village, not because they actually like your village that much, just because they think its a "safe place" to urinate on their front lawns. They feel "accepted" there and not "judged", so they come to your village, and pretty soon your village stops being about what it once was, and starts being more and more about lawn-peeing.  
Eventually, you will get people who think its ok to pee on the front lawns of others. And people who think its ok to do other, worse things on their lawns and the lawns of others, and the whole village is turned into a dump.

If you feel like part of a community it is always ok to ask other people who identify themselves as part of your community to live up to certain basic standards, the same basic standards that society at large and most other non-deviant hobbies expect of normal mature human beings.

Nisarg


----------



## Incenjucar

At present, it's mostly a United States thing.

Europeans seem to be staying home longer these days, without it being a huge issue.


----------



## jester47

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> This much I understand. I am interested why is it that way in Anglosaxon culture, and if you feel compelled to get out because of peer pressure or because you actually feel uncomfortable.




For me its easy.  Anything more than 2 weeks with my parents and I start to go nuts.  But maybe thats because I left when I was a teenager so they still operate like I am a teenager, which might be what gets on my nerves...

Aaron.


----------



## fanboy2000

Lets compair this statement:



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> but if they are unwilling to change they should not expect to be able to continue being part of the community.




With this one:



> No no, I'm not implying excluding them outright.




I hate to say it Nisarg, but you are right: You are *not* _implying_ that we should exclude gamers who's personal habits you dissagree with outright. 

Indeed. I've dicided that you are right about everything. Feel free to put that in your sig.


----------



## jester47

Nisarg, 

you should write a book:  Nisarg on Nerds



Aaron.


----------



## jester47

We have reached 8 pages, thats over my follow the thread limit.  I have made my opinions clear, and now I am not giving anything to the conversation.  Have fun guys, see ya on other threads.

Aaron.


----------



## Thornir Alekeg

Nisarg said:
			
		

> If it makes them more capable of interacting in society, yes. Its not about my personal standards, its about basic societal proficiency.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If you feel like part of a community it is always ok to ask other people who identify themselves as part of your community to live up to certain basic standards, the same basic standards that society at large and most other non-deviant hobbies expect of normal mature human beings.
> 
> Nisarg




Wow...the gaming community has had people that have these issues, well I would say for about 30 years now.  I didn't realize that the threat of the community degenerating become so extreme.  Oh, what shall we do?  I know, let's have WotC include a bar of soap, basic hygiene guidelines and social standards in a boxed set with an abridged set of rules.  To get the complete rules you must pass a test that shows you can follow the included guidelines.  

OK I'm starting to get a little too snarky here.  I think I'll join Jester47 and give up on this thread.  I should know better than to respond to any of Nisarg's postings.


----------



## Stone Angel

Aaron you have defended your points nobily. 

But I mean this is a hobby. Just a hobby. Well I smell today, had a hard day at work, whats that mom, I can't play my guitar untill I've showered. But Mom.

Now that I have my little joke. Seriously. There were some people there that I would choose not to go to a club with. Yes. I mean who wants someone at a club that won't reply to what you say. Sits there and looks depressed, and otherwise drains the life out of a 10' radius in the bar. I mean I go there to have fun. Does that mean I would not play D&D with. Of course I would. Gaming is social just different social. There(at the club) I would have nothing in common with them. At the gaming table is there something that we have in common. I played sports in highschool and college, I was in drama, band, chorus, BPA, I was in who's who of highschool students, I got good grades. I coming from this background am well adjusted in just about any situation. I have learned to tolerate any person even if they are not. And where I come from toleration is not accepted. Stinky maybe they ran out of deoderant, whatever. If you were at my house and I thought you smelled I would tolerate it. Twice I would ask you to shower, but would I ban you from coming over. No

The original question is "Are gamers that pathetic" all over a girl, c'mon I mean we have the internet, most of us have probably seen things these girls have never even heard of. I just don't like the verbage thats all. Am I a dork yeah. Pathetic hardly. Like at Gen Con a football camp was going on. One of the big guys screamed "Dork, Fag" at a guy that was a little goth. I was like say that again and you will have to tell everyone that you got your ass stomped by a "Dork, Fag".  

The Seraph of Earth and Stone


----------



## d20Dwarf

Stone Angel said:
			
		

> I was like say that again and you will have to tell everyone that you got your ass stomped by a "Dork, Fag".



Yeah, and that sorta hurt my feelings too, SA.


----------



## Terwox

guess I'm here late, but hey.
most of the people I've gamed with have been relatively poor in the social department.
a lot of stinky people, a lot of jerks, a few braindead stoners, and a majority of people with some heavy emotional disturbance.
I've always sort of seen that as the norm -- you game because something is wrong, basically... you enjoy the hobby because something is lacking.
It's just how I always felt about it -- I've also known the people who started dated and quit gaming -- pretty common thing too.

But I've made some great friends.  Sure, there's people in my past who smelled like piss and had lifestyles that make me retch, and I wish I'd of avoided some of them outright, but it went how it went.  I miss gaming, I just moved away, and the first thing I feel like I need is a gaming group -- not for an escapist movement, but just because it would be nice to have some friends who I shared a common interest with!

Man... some of my favorite people are past 25 year old guys who live alone and have never had a date.  They don't smell, they're perhaps a bit maladjusted, but damnit they're good people and they're my friends!

Well, all rambling aside -- just game with your friends.  I'm attracted to somewhat weird people, that's just the way of things, and sometimes it turns out funny, and sometimes you make good friends.  If you don't want to deal with catpiss men, by all means, kick them out of your house, stop talking to them.  I've had some stinky friends, though, and it all turned out great.  A lot of people who are stinky are stinky because they don't have much choice... poverty and all that, simple unawareness, whatever.

Anyway, stick to your friends.  Not writing off the weird guy will mean you won't meet any of the true freaky people you want to stay away from -- and for those who have gamers around their kids, no questions asked just don't even consider freaky people IMHO -- but you'll miss some really great people... who just have some problems... maybe just bigger problems than the rest of us.

but i'm a psychology goon.  if you've got less tolerance for freakiness, by all means you aren't bad or evil, just accept it and tell catpissers to stop eating out of the litterbox.  have fun gaming, everyone.


----------



## jester47

Alright, Stone Angel dragged me back into this thread- 

While I talk a stern game, its very much a case by case situation in reality.  I find 95% of gamers ok.   60% I would classify as normal (only very minor eccentricities and good hygene habits)  35% I would say have a major eccentricity or some social trait that may get annoying occasionally.  But its ok cause in reality everyone, everywhere is really crazy.  Its just a matter of how.  The last 5% are those that are eccentric to a debilitating level where it affects their ability to interact and take care of themselves.  

I don't believe in instant ostracism.  I make it a point to give everyone three conscious chances.  That is after I say 3 times, ok, lets give him/her a chance.  Its over.  1st time I let it go.  2nd, and 3rd time I point it out.  As long as your redeeming traits outweigh your non-redeeming ones, you are good in my book.  When I start tolerating (read that as "not approving of but dealing with your presence") you, you are in trouble.  

There is a big difference between tolerance and acceptance.  Tolerance is not acceptance.  Tolerance implies that somthing is tolerated.  It implies that you think the other party is in error.  

And there is a big difference between comraderie and friendship.  Comraderie is not friendship.  Comraderie is any situation where you, because of common interest or circumstance, associate with people you would not associate with otherwise.  Frindship means (in my mind) that you like being around that person regardless of circumstance or interest. 

I made a lot of friends last weekend at GenCon from people who before I simply considered comrades.  I think people in general (and some gamers) need to learn these distinctions better.  

Aaron


----------



## Ogrork the Mighty

I think living at home with your parents is looked down upon b/c it's seen as someone being unable (or unwilling) to support themselves. However, I also think people in university or pursuing other post-secondary education are largely exempt from this, at least until they finish school.

There are a lot of valid reasons for living at home and, in Canada at least, there is a statistically significant trend for young adults to live at home longer. Some of it may be economics, some of it may be influenced by new immigrants and their cultural norms, and some of it may be growing acceptance of it.

I don't consider someone a loser for living at home, so long as they have a plan to not be living at home. Maybe when school is finished, when they've saved enough money for a down payment on a house, etc. It's when someone lives at home with mom and pop, has a crappy job, and no intention of moving out that my loser-sense begins to tingle...


----------



## Lichtenhart

Nisarg said:
			
		

> RPG gaming *in North America* is probably slightly bigger than Furry fandom, and much smaller than Trek fandom, which has in one way given it the worst of both worlds.. popular culture doesn't even have furries on its radar.. but it sure does have "·D&D geeks". It knows just enough about roleplaying to portray the roleplayers as the geeks and losers on sitcoms, to present the peopel who play it as either nerd-kids or total loser-adults.  For anyone who seriously tries to tell me that RPG fans aren't seen negatively by popular culture please show me a TV or movie reference in recent years where being a roleplayer was seen as a cool or at least "normal" thing to do?  Where RPGs weren't referenced in an insulting way?



(emphasis mine)
North American popular culture is pervasive, it reaches everywhere. But it's far from being the global popular culture. Many things don't reach Europe, or if they do, they are just dismissed as 'americanate' (italian term).
E.g. Dark Dungeons and the 'D&D is the tool of the devil' crusade never reached Italy, I think. Had it done, it would have only been slightly frowned upon, i think.
Another example: in every movie I see about an american school there are bullies, jocks, and cheerleaders. Those categories do not exist in italian school, and most people I know have trouble relating to them.
So Nisarg, I'm seriously trying to tell yo that rpg fans aren't seen negatively by italian, and I think european in general too, popular culture.
I've put some example in a post above. 
I remember that when 3.5e came out, there were some interviews in a gaming store on the national channel.
I can't really speak for japanese culture, and I invite someone more competent than me to speak about it, but I don't think that in Japan rpgfans are seen any worse than the common otaku.
So I wonder if it couldn't be the other way around. Couldn't it be that rpgs being depicted negatively attracts weirdos, rather than rpgs attracting weirdos makes them be depicted negatively?


----------



## Incenjucar

Sadly, here in the US, we just have a whole lot of people with a whole lot of issues, period.  We're largely a self-seperating bunch that has to hyphenate every bloody thing (African-American, European-American, Asian-American, Italian-American, Canadian-American, rather than "American" or, better, "a person.").  Harmony isn't the American way by a long shot.  Us vs. Them is the eternal struggle here.  And the Media thrives on it.

Heck, I've seen the folks on Fox News try, repeatedly, to tell a woman who felt that women and men in the military should be in seperate barracks that she was saying women shouldn't be in the military.  She couldn't get the dipstick to stop trying to change her words, because said stick knows that seperate barracks aren't going to make him nearly as much money as screwing with equality.


----------



## Ogrork the Mighty

I've heard from a european friend that D&D isn't as big in europe as it is in North America. Or at least there are other rpgs that are more popular. Over here, it seems to be D&D that gets the big bullseye painted on it.


----------



## Desdichado

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> Sadly, here in the US, we just have a whole lot of people with a whole lot of issues, period.  We're largely a self-seperating bunch that has to hyphenate every bloody thing (African-American, European-American, Asian-American, Italian-American, Canadian-American, rather than "American" or, better, "a person.").  Harmony isn't the American way by a long shot.  Us vs. Them is the eternal struggle here.  And the Media thrives on it.



Yeah, and y'know, it's _so_ different everywhere else.  It was absolutely _amazing_ to see the solidarity when I was in Argentina.  Or Prague.  Or Krakow.  Or Rostov.


----------



## fanboy2000

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Yeah, and y'know, it's _so_ different everywhere else.  It was absolutely _amazing_ to see the solidarity when I was in Argentina.  Or Prague.  Or Krakow.  Or Rostov.



 1. That's about the funniest thing I've read in this thread, and true too!

2. Instead of getting this thread closed due to the abundance of sarcasim I want to post, I'll instead be sending it out via inter-geek telepathy.

3. However, due to a bug in the system, only anti-social geeks will be able to recive the transmission.


----------



## Incenjucar

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Yeah, and y'know, it's _so_ different everywhere else.  It was absolutely _amazing_ to see the solidarity when I was in Argentina.  Or Prague.  Or Krakow.  Or Rostov.




You'll have to pardon me, I suppose, as my information on the rest of the world tends to center around North America, Europe, Australia, and the major Asian countries.  I'm well aware that most countries are full of bigoted nimrods, however, the US is especially diverse and retains it based on every bloody possible difference.  Cripes, I mean, people here get angry at each other over whether the 'furry' genre can include reptiles.

But yes, every nation ultimately proves my rules of thumb (which of course have the rare exception:

1) People are stupid.

2) People suck.

So do people ask D&Ders in Prague, Argentina, Krakow, and Rostov if their books are satanic on a regular basis?  Are gamers in those countries as often 'cat piss men'?  Do a number of them all but 'cat in their pants' if they see a woman look directly at them?


----------



## vulcan_idic

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Where RPGs weren't referenced in an insulting way?




Um...  FoxTrot?  One of my favorite cartoons...  Jason (also a Trekkie, as I am) is occassionally show playing D&D with his friend Marcus.  Of course he's usually about to fight a Paige monster (his sister), but I wouldn't consider that a negative or insulting reference in any way.


----------



## Nisarg

vulcan_idic said:
			
		

> Um...  FoxTrot?  One of my favorite cartoons...  Jason (also a Trekkie, as I am) is occassionally show playing D&D with his friend Marcus.  Of course he's usually about to fight a Paige monster (his sister), but I wouldn't consider that a negative or insulting reference in any way.




Would that be Jason the Ubernerd, the one who enjoys doing homework and taking tests, and everyone else in his class despises?

Yes, he's clearly a great example of a positively-presented roleplayer.

Nisarg


----------



## Kalanyr

> *Originally Posted by Nisarg*
> Where RPGs weren't referenced in an insulting way?






> *Originally Posted by Nisarg*
> Yes, he's clearly a great example of a positively-presented roleplayer.




These are not the same thing. In order for an RPG to not be presented in a negative light does not require a gamer to not be presented in a negative light.

Edit- And FoxTrot makes fun of everyone of its characters, so the poking of fun at the Ubergeek really isn't as negative a comment as you make out.


----------



## Thalia

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> I can't really speak for japanese culture, and I invite someone more competent than me to speak about it, but I don't think that in Japan rpgfans are seen any worse than the common otaku.




This is true, as far as P&P RPGs are concerned. MMORPGs are a different matter entirely. 

But to clarify: the word "otaku" is a negative, and quite insulting word in Japan. I myself live in Japan and will happily tell people in a social setting that "I am an Otaku"; but it comes across (I think) as self-deprecating and slightly ironic humor -- much as saying "I am a Geek/Dweeb/Nerd" would in North America. I would certainly never call someone else an "otaku" (except the people I game with and some other close friends, and even then only in jest.)

The stereotypical image associated with "otaku" in Japan is not far from the "hikkikomori". That is, unwashed, smelly, socially inept introvert, often connected in the sensationalist press with stalkers, mass murderers, and other urban monsters.

Re: the stalkers in Kon Satoshi's "Perfect Blue" or Kitano Takeshi's "Dolls."

sorry for the tangential veer ----->


----------



## fanboy2000

I have to wonder if the word nerd or dork is realy insulting today. There are nerds out there richerer than any sports star or team owner.

For example Kobe Bryant makes about 15 Million a year, Bill Gates is worth 52 billion. Gee, who would you rather be? This actually reminds me of a mini-series I saw on PBS once. (Back when people watched PBS for documenturies rather than the Discovery Channel or the History Channel.) Microsoft used to be in the business of writing computer languages, and IBM originally came to them because they wanted to include BASIC with the OS they were going to use, CP/M. When IBM first approched Gates he was at some kind of coding convention, and was badly in need of a shower. (The stigma used to be attached to programers too, I guess they haven't realized they need to be over taken with alterintive and anti-social lifestyles yet.)

Dork Tower has a substantial non-gaming readership. When I sign up for a new screen name on websites, fanboy is often already taken. Obviously some people think words like dork, nerd, and fanboy are neutral now. 

I don't know about anyone else, but I don't get my values from TV or the movies. I know gaming doesn't have the stigma it once had because of the people around me, I've given plenty examples of that.


----------



## Incenjucar

1) Nerd means "You are smart and will most likely have a large amount of money"

2) Dork means, er, Moby's.. er... ahem.

Yeah, I can handle being called those.

Someone calls you a dork, you accuse them of peeping in on you while you shower, then wink at the nearest female.

If you, yourself, are female, nobody will ever mess with you again if you do this.


----------



## Turanil

Ogrork the Mighty said:
			
		

> I've heard from a European friend that D&D isn't as big in Europe as it is in North America. Or at least there are other rpgs that are more popular. Over here, it seems to be D&D that gets the big bullseye painted on it.




True. RPGs are less known and less popular in Europe (at least in France) than in the US.


----------



## maddman75

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> This much I understand. I am interested why is it that way in Anglosaxon culture, and if you feel compelled to get out because of peer pressure or because you actually feel uncomfortable.




Personally, it was my own discomfort.  I moved back in after my divorce, at about 26 or so.  I stayed in school and finished a few months later.  Since I was done with school and had a decent job I really wanted to get out on my own.  My parents were great, and I know I can always go back if I need to.  But you feel like you're not a real independant person, making your way in the world, living with your parents at that late age.

Or as a wise man once said, you reach a point where you either move on, or just buy a Klingon costume and go with it.


----------



## Nisarg

Kalanyr said:
			
		

> These are not the same thing. In order for an RPG to not be presented in a negative light does not require a gamer to not be presented in a negative light.
> 
> Edit- And FoxTrot makes fun of everyone of its characters, so the poking of fun at the Ubergeek really isn't as negative a comment as you make out.





Um.. really, if "Jason the really nerdy kid from the Foxtrot comic" is the closest you can get to non-insulting, its time to fold the hand and cash in the chips.

Nisarg

P.S. also, he's one of those cleverly designed characters in that nerds will see him in an almost kind-of-cool light, because he reminds them so much of how they were at that age, while the rest of the general public will just see the character of Jason as a loser.


----------



## Nisarg

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> 1) Nerd means "You are smart and will most likely have a large amount of money"
> 
> 2) Dork means, er, Moby's.. er... ahem.
> 
> Yeah, I can handle being called those.
> 
> Someone calls you a dork, you accuse them of peeping in on you while you shower, then wink at the nearest female.
> 
> If you, yourself, are female, nobody will ever mess with you again if you do this.





Wow, this sounds like advice someone's mom would give; "don't worry if they call you nerd, honey, just tell them your mom said nerd means cool!".

Yea.. that won't get your head dunked in a toilet...

And, for the record, a tiny percentage of nerds will, due to some invention or innovation, get astoundingly rich.
The vast vast majority will not, because any career ambitions they may have will be stymied by a lack of social graces.  In this culture the guy with 18 Cha is far more likely to end up making millions than the guy with 18 Int.
Those who "don't fit in" will have a lot of trouble being able to play well with others in the business world, will not be able to interact with their superiors well, will not be able to lead their inferiors well, and no matter how smart they might be will not get very far.

Like I'd said before in the thread, one of the symptoms of the socially handicapped gamer is a chronic inability to keep even the most menial of jobs.  In my old gaming group in Canada (average age of about 26-27) there were plenty of times when I was the only one of two out of seven people who had a regular job, and the only other guy who did had been a McDonald's employee for the past 7 years (without ever making manager, though he constantly claimed he was "about to get that promotion"); of the rest some were just plain unemployed, some were chronic students, one was in a prolonged process of suing his old place of work for a fraudulent claim while making zero effort to look for new work, and a few were the type that would get a minimum-wage job they thought was "cool" until a few weeks later it got "boring" and they got fired, usually for missing shifts.  These guys were all "nerds", and I'd bet they all had well above-average intelligence if one was to test them. And yet.. no big million-dollar futures for them.

The guy who can play well with others is the one who will make the big bucks, more often than the anti-social geek.

Nisarg


----------



## drothgery

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Wow, this sounds like advice someone's mom would give; "don't worry if they call you nerd, honey, just tell them your mom said nerd means cool!".
> 
> Yea.. that won't get your head dunked in a toilet...
> 
> And, for the record, a tiny percentage of nerds will, due to some invention or innovation, get astoundingly rich.
> The vast vast majority will not, because any career ambitions they may have will be stymied by a lack of social graces. In this culture the guy with 18 Cha is far more likely to end up making millions than the guy with 18 Int.



Bah. You're conflating "shy, introverted, nerdy guy" with "lazy, poor personal hygeine nerdy guy". The former (which is where I'd categorize myself) is unlikely to make millions, but has a pretty good chance of doing quite well in a technical field.


----------



## Incenjucar

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Wow, this sounds like advice someone's mom would give; "don't worry if they call you nerd, honey, just tell them your mom said nerd means cool!".
> 
> Yea.. that won't get your head dunked in a toilet...




Honestly, nobody was ever stupid enough to try and dunk me in a toilet, though I did have a death threat in middle school.  You do realize that not all nerds are whimps, right?



> And, for the record, a tiny percentage of nerds will, due to some invention or innovation, get astoundingly rich.
> The vast vast majority will not, because any career ambitions they may have will be stymied by a lack of social graces.  In this culture the guy with 18 Cha is far more likely to end up making millions than the guy with 18 Int.




We're not talking millions, we're talking upper middle class or otherwise very comfortable compared to, say, the majority of football players.  Like all those guys helping companies with their computers because technophobes can't figure'em out on their own.  There's a much larger space in the world for engineers, computer nerds, and even librarians than there are places for the vast majority of 'jocks' who don't get in to proffessional sports after all those years of throwing footballs, and the ones who end up destroying their bodies in the attempt and end up crippling themselves so they couldn't play anyways.



> Those who "don't fit in" will have a lot of trouble being able to play well with others in the business world, will not be able to interact with their superiors well, will not be able to lead their inferiors well, and no matter how smart they might be will not get very far.




You do realize that not every nerd is afraid to socialize, right?  Nerds are just eccentric smart people.  They aren't all 'cat piss men'.



> Like I'd said before in the thread, one of the symptoms of the socially handicapped gamer is a chronic inability to keep even the most menial of jobs.




Which is not the vast majority of nerddom.



> In my old gaming group in Canada (average age of about 26-27) there were plenty of times when I was the only one of two out of seven people who had a regular job, and the only other guy who did had been a McDonald's employee for the past 7 years (without ever making manager, though he constantly claimed he was "about to get that promotion"); of the rest some were just plain unemployed, some were chronic students, one was in a prolonged process of suing his old place of work for a fraudulent claim while making zero effort to look for new work, and a few were the type that would get a minimum-wage job they thought was "cool" until a few weeks later it got "boring" and they got fired, usually for missing shifts.  These guys were all "nerds", and I'd bet they all had well above-average intelligence if one was to test them. And yet.. no big million-dollar futures for them.




Honestly, they sound like the Mensa folk I've dealt with (minus wanting to grope animals -- I hope).  But they're hardly the majority of nerds.  You just ran in to a bad batch of them.  Other nerds include accountants, scientists, engineers, architects, bankers... the list goes on.



> The guy who can play well with others is the one who will make the big bucks, more often than the anti-social geek.
> 
> Nisarg




Anti-social geeks are nerds now?

I think you have your definitions mixed.

I dunno, maybe my country and coast upbringing gives me a different view than the urban or suburban set, but the only issue I've really seen with nerds is those that let the label and stereotype get to them.


----------



## Aust Diamondew

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Wow, this sounds like advice someone's mom would give; "don't worry if they call you nerd, honey, just tell them your mom said nerd means cool!".
> 
> Yea.. that won't get your head dunked in a toilet...
> 
> And, for the record, a tiny percentage of nerds will, due to some invention or innovation, get astoundingly rich.
> The vast vast majority will not, because any career ambitions they may have will be stymied by a lack of social graces.  In this culture the guy with 18 Cha is far more likely to end up making millions than the guy with 18 Int.
> Those who "don't fit in" will have a lot of trouble being able to play well with others in the business world, will not be able to interact with their superiors well, will not be able to lead their inferiors well, and no matter how smart they might be will not get very far.
> 
> Like I'd said before in the thread, one of the symptoms of the socially handicapped gamer is a chronic inability to keep even the most menial of jobs.  In my old gaming group in Canada (average age of about 26-27) there were plenty of times when I was the only one of two out of seven people who had a regular job, and the only other guy who did had been a McDonald's employee for the past 7 years (without ever making manager, though he constantly claimed he was "about to get that promotion"); of the rest some were just plain unemployed, some were chronic students, one was in a prolonged process of suing his old place of work for a fraudulent claim while making zero effort to look for new work, and a few were the type that would get a minimum-wage job they thought was "cool" until a few weeks later it got "boring" and they got fired, usually for missing shifts.  These guys were all "nerds", and I'd bet they all had well above-average intelligence if one was to test them. And yet.. no big million-dollar futures for them.
> 
> The guy who can play well with others is the one who will make the big bucks, more often than the anti-social geek.
> 
> Nisarg




Don't forget about all the jocks and charismatic people who work at gas stations and supermarkets for the rest of their lives.

Honestly people a very small percent of the population gets rich.  You can find losers anywhere who don't give 2 *#@$ about contributing to society. 
I knew charismatic people at my school who don't work a day in their lives and just have *#@$ handed to them by their parents.

All of the people who I game with work (or currently aren't working because they have started to work on getting higher education), most have had a girl friend with in the past six months.


----------



## Lichtenhart

maddman75 said:
			
		

> Personally, it was my own discomfort.  I moved back in after my divorce, at about 26 or so.  I stayed in school and finished a few months later.  Since I was done with school and had a decent job I really wanted to get out on my own.  My parents were great, and I know I can always go back if I need to.  But you feel like you're not a real independant person, making your way in the world, living with your parents at that late age.



What screams independence about you and your parents paying two rents when you could help them pay only one, and put the money away to help your sons study too? Did your parents rent your room to someone else while you were away? Otherwise it's just a waste to me.

I don't understand and I guess I'll have to go buy a klingon costume.




			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Wow, this sounds like advice someone's mom would give; "don't worry if they call you nerd, honey, just tell them your mom said nerd means cool!".
> 
> Yea.. that won't get your head dunked in a toilet...



If it's normal for nerds to have their head dunked in the toilet, that I can probably see why there is so many (according to you) people who don't wash, and in general want nothing to do with your society.
If that kind of violence is accepted and mainstream, than the society's problems are much worse than even the cat piss man's problems.



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> And, for the record, a tiny percentage of nerds will, due to some invention or innovation, get astoundingly rich.
> The vast vast majority will not, because any career ambitions they may have will be stymied by a lack of social graces.  In this culture the guy with 18 Cha is far more likely to end up making millions than the guy with 18 Int.
> Those who "don't fit in" will have a lot of trouble being able to play well with others in the business world, will not be able to interact with their superiors well, will not be able to lead their inferiors well, and no matter how smart they might be will not get very far.
> 
> Like I'd said before in the thread, one of the symptoms of the socially handicapped gamer is a chronic inability to keep even the most menial of jobs.  In my old gaming group in Canada (average age of about 26-27) there were plenty of times when I was the only one of two out of seven people who had a regular job, and the only other guy who did had been a McDonald's employee for the past 7 years (without ever making manager, though he constantly claimed he was "about to get that promotion"); of the rest some were just plain unemployed, some were chronic students, one was in a prolonged process of suing his old place of work for a fraudulent claim while making zero effort to look for new work, and a few were the type that would get a minimum-wage job they thought was "cool" until a few weeks later it got "boring" and they got fired, usually for missing shifts.  These guys were all "nerds", and I'd bet they all had well above-average intelligence if one was to test them. And yet.. no big million-dollar futures for them.



Three simple questions:
1) Were they happy with their lives? If they were, why should they change their ways?
2) Who are you to judge? Where goes one's freedom if not getting the job you think they should have means they're useless idiots?
3) They were the only people you could find to game with? and then you tell me that there are less gamers in Europe than America? At the last Vampire larp I went there were 140 players and 20 masters. In a city of 150,000 inhabitants. My town counts 5,000 inhabitants, and I have gamed with 18 different persons that I can remember on spot. If should really think about it, probably more would came to my mind. That means about 3 different parties to game with at any time, and I say again, in a town of 5,000 inhabitants. Plenty of choice to me if you ask. You really couldn't find anything better?


----------



## Elf Witch

Nisarg said:
			
		

> um, yes.. and that's a perfect example of a fandom that was once relatively mainstream that slowly got absorbed by the freak kingdom.
> 
> In the early and mid-to-late seventies, Star Trek fans were normal people in every sense of the word, who just really loved the series.  There were a few really wierd people in there, some social misfits, but for the most part you had just as many men as women, you had old people, you had kids, you had familiest, etc etc.
> But slowly, the number of freaks started increasing, more and more, and no one did anything to stop it, they were tolerated.. but people who were uncomfortable with this freakiness slowly started "dropping out" of Trek fandom. They left the scene, only to be replaced with more freaks.
> By the present day, Trek fandom is solidly in the freak kingdom.. you can't see a reference in pop culture to Star Trek without it being derogatory, implying Trekkies are wierd, socially malajusted, perpetual virgins, slightly insane, and not good people to be around.
> Its only the largeness of Star Trek that saves it, that there are still a great deal of normal people who watch ST, without being "Trekkies".
> 
> 
> 
> Nisarg




There are no more freaks now then there were in the 70s. I have been in trek fandom since then and I have found it to be about the same the only thing that really changes is the make of the uniforms that certain fans make.

Let me clue you in on something about SF fans they had the first con in the 40s and even back then they were sterotyped as bespectecled weak freaks who couldn't get a date if their life depended on it. This image of a maladjusted smart nerd living in his parents basement was around in the 40 long before gaming ever was thought of. 

The sterotype has always been here and you know why because some people find it easier to sterotype. For example a person who learns klingon and likes to dress in costume for events and likes to practice with a bathleth is a maladjusted freak right? Just because he also happens to have a wife two kids and is a neonatalogist saving thousands of premature babies every year. But if you saw him at a con in full costume in character you would not know all those other facts about him.

As for trek having a lot of freaks in it are you aware that Starfleet one of the biggest clubs raises a lot of money for charity? 

Everything you are saying has been said  many times before by others it is nothing new. Like I said before I think a lot of this is worry that you will be judged this way for being in this hobby.


----------



## Incenjucar

It also has zero to do with nerddom.  I worked retail at a drugstore for three and a half years (Only got out of there two weeks ago, in fact), while working may way up through some college credits.  While there was a semi-nerdish floor manager (In that he knew computers in-depth so that he could play games on them), and a definate number of geeks (like the guy who was a film major but wasn't actually planning on leaving the retail store any time soon), the majority of people who were stuck there are, gasp, average joes.  And, while I did know a few fallen nerds in the town (Guy who got the highest SAT scores in the state at one point was at McDonalds last I saw him... and HE actually had drive, just not enough ego), most people with a brain in their head just outright left after high school for bigger and better things.  ...which is why the town was so bloody dead for people to hang out with all those years... *grumbles*

The point is, whether someone falls doesn't have that much to do with whether or not they're a nerd.  It's that whole "I will" versus "IQ" thing.  The first matters more, and any sector of society can have it; though I wager part of the reason 'jocks' instinctively pick on 'nerds' is because of awareness of the nasty synergy confidence and intelligence gets later on in life.  Good way to smash the competition; make them so introverted and afraid of the world that they won't even bother.


----------



## Elf Witch

I had a friend who used to get flack for living at home. Come on you are 25 you have a good job why don't you move out get your own place. I was one of the few who knew the real reason was because her father was a gambler and it was her salary keeping a roof over her younger siblings heads, but since she didn't say anything except to her closest friends people assumed that she was taking advantage of her parents.

Since you don't always know what goes on in someones private life maybe it is not such a great idea to be so quick to judge.

As for people who have low paying jobs maybe they are underemployed because of emotional or mental illness and it is keeping them from fulfilling their potential. I don't see what someone's job has to do with their ability to game. Or are you actually saying that only people in a certain income bracket should be allowed to game? :\ 

If someone is doing something that offends you at the table then talk to them it is that simple if it gets to annoying talk to the group. If yhe problem can't be solved ask the person to leave or you leave the group.


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

You can't just not be a nerd, you also have to fight for what's good about being a nerd.

Note this comment:



			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Would that be Jason the Ubernerd, the one who enjoys doing homework and taking tests, and everyone else in his class despises?
> 
> Yes, he's clearly a great example of a positively-presented roleplayer.
> 
> Nisarg




So Jason is a dilligent, curious, individualist, and that's the sort of person we don't want to be role-playing?

Actually:

Jason is cruel, petty, vinidicative, and prefers crushing his fellow students and siblings to honestly playing with them or helping them to appreciate what he loves.

But this is not what Nisarg and most critics will point out. Because by having those positive traits Jason is already a nerd, because the negative traits are a given.  And that's not Jason or Nisarg's fault that's the way any stereo-type works.  You take a set of good elements and bad elements and associate them with each other because the point of a stereo-type is to prevent the norm, with its faults and virtues, from being challenged.

To do the best sort of good you have to take Nisarg's advice and act contrary to the bad parts of a stereo-type...

...but you also have to defend what's good about it.

Go out and become more beautiful than the average man, be Buffy, but if you do that then defend what's cool about being Spock.

Because yeah it's wrong for a man to not keep up with his hygiene, but it's worse for a man to attack a kid, even a fictional kid, for doing his homework.


----------



## Incenjucar

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> Because yeah it's wrong for a man to not keep up with his hygiene, but it's worse for a man to attack a kid, even a fictional kid, for doing his homework.





Very well said.

As for the rest of it, that's part of what I've been trying to do lately (I've become a big fan of championing odd causes over the last several years... ).

Alas, it's expensive as heck.  Between the hair gel, and all the soap I use in my two-a-day minimum showers (helps that I live in a dorm and have an hour-long power walk every night, in a fricking overheated city), all the deoderant I apply (to the point where I've learned that too much changes your skin color...), the conditioner to keep my locks healthy (and since it's between "Solid Snake" and "Aragorn" right now.. that's a lot of goop...) the sun screen I use because I look better pale...

Now I know why so many nerds are unkempt -- they use all that money on D&D books instead.

Maybe there should be a fundraiser for "Nerd Beautification"...


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> What screams independence about you and your parents paying two rents when you could help them pay only one, and put the money away to help your sons study too? Did your parents rent your room to someone else while you were away? Otherwise it's just a waste to me.




These are excellent points, Lichtenhart, and most studies will point out the advantages of your perspective, particularly from an economic stand point.

Italians are famed even in America for having very high rates of home ownership and the sort of practice you discuss above, when imported to America with Italian families, is often given a great deal of credit when trying to explain the meteoric rise of Italian immigrants into the American middle class.

I, obviously, agree with this point of view, though I live with the American one.  One of the great joys I took in meeting some Italian friends of mine the other day is that there was none of the anxiety I sometimes feel when explaining where I live and how I got there.

That said, I will try to give you some hard reasons, Lichtenhart, for why the prejuidice against adults living with their parents is so ingrained. 

There are advantages to the American emphasis on seperating from one's parents:

first, American parents, as a group, aren't as good as Italian parents.  Americans have a much higher rate of divorce, family ties and life are typically less robust, there are far greater cross-generational differences in education and opinion, and children are less valued.

Second, puting greater pressure on getting out into the world, even if it means living at a much lower and having greatly reduced capacity to save money allows young Americans greater mobility in the search for jobs and helps to reinforce, in many areas, a pattern of marriage/romantic/family life at younger ages than is typical in many other cultures and at lower material costs.

I live in west Texas, and a Turkish friend of mine was appalled at the young ages people marry in this area, typically right after college.  He explained that in his culture you can't get married unless you can buy your bride a house.  Here almost all young people rent and cohabitate or marry without any consideration of such capital arrangements.

Third, American culture is very fractious.  As Joshua pointed out earlier, human beings are generally divisive, but Americans don't harbor settled divisions.  Instead, the culture as a whole favors quick and shallow, but nonetheless incredibly heartfelt divisions.  As a result, neighborhoods are not something you are born into or live in so much as choose based on the advertised lifestyle of the neighborhood and how chimes with your self-construction and economic possibilities.

As a result, moving into one's own home is very frequently seen as the first step into the self-decision and actualization that characterizes adulthood.

Fourth, much of the current prejuidice stems from the fact that this insitution is actively threatened.  The last two American generations, X and Y, had/have a much higher rate of adult individuals living with their parents than the two generations prior.  Theories about why this shift is occuring are many and range from:

-high divorce rates create a new need for hearth and home to
-changes in the labor market

regardless of why it is happening, the general tendency in the face of this shift will be for the issue to gain much more attention with much to most of it being negative as the culture tries to prevent the general trend from backsliding.

Particularly since a very high rate of trans-generational home residency would create a nasty little situation for the current construction of the real estate market and probably have some unpleasant consequences for the labor market as well.


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> What screams independence about you and your parents paying two rents when you could help them pay only one, and put the money away to help your sons study too? Did your parents rent your room to someone else while you were away? Otherwise it's just a waste to me.




These are excellent points, Lichtenhart, and most studies will point out the advantages of your perspective, particularly from an economic stand point.

Italians are famed even in America for having very high rates of home ownership and the sort of practice you discuss above, when imported to America with Italian families, is often given a great deal of credit when trying to explain the meteoric rise of Italian immigrants into the American middle class.

I, obviously, agree with this point of view, though I live with the American one.  One of the great joys I took in meeting some Italian friends of mine the other day is that there was none of the anxiety I sometimes feel when explaining where I live and how I got there.

That said, I will try to give you some hard reasons, Lichtenhart, for why the prejuidice against adults living with their parents is so ingrained. 

There are advantages to the American emphasis on seperating from one's parents:

first, American parents, as a group, aren't as good as Italian parents.  Americans have a much higher rate of divorce, family ties and life are typically less robust, there are far greater cross-generational differences in education and opinion, and children are less valued.

Second, puting greater pressure on getting out into the world, even if it means living at a much lower level and having greatly reduced capacity to save money allows young Americans greater mobility in the search for jobs and helps to reinforce, in many areas, a pattern of marriage/romantic/family life at younger ages than is typical in many other cultures and at lower material costs.

I live in west Texas, and a Turkish friend of mine was appalled at the young ages people marry in this area, typically right after college.  He explained that in his culture you can't get married unless you can buy your bride a house.  Here almost all young people rent and cohabitate or marry without any consideration of such capital arrangements.

Third, American culture is very fractious.  As Joshua pointed out earlier, human beings are generally divisive, but I don't so much refer to settled divisions of race, class, and ethnicity as I do to constructed differences of lifestyle, interests, and opinion.  In Italy, for instance, it would be largely unheard of for a congregation to split its resources and membership over relatively minor theological differences, yet this is a given of American religious life.  As a result, neighborhoods are not something you are born into or live in so much as choose based on the advertised lifestyle of the neighborhood and how that chimes with your self-construction and economic possibilities.  You don't live in the neighborhood you grew up in or have an attachment to, you live in the neighborhood for young urban hipster or the neighborhood for up and coming corporate employees or the nieghborhood that you can afford that has the sort of crime and social life you're willing to tolerate or enjoy.

As a result, moving into one's own home is very frequently seen as the first step into the self-decision and actualization that characterizes adulthood.

Fourth, much of the current prejuidice stems from the fact that this insitution is actively threatened.  The last two American generations, X and Y, had/have a much higher rate of adult individuals living with their parents than the two generations prior.  Theories about why this shift is occuring are many and range from:

-high divorce rates create a new need for hearth and home to
-changes in the labor market

regardless of why it is happening, the general tendency in the face of this shift will be for the issue to gain much more attention with much to most of it being negative as the culture tries to prevent the general trend from backsliding.

Particularly since a very high rate of trans-generational home residency would create a nasty little situation for the current construction of the real estate market, not so many renters people sitting on houses for longer, and probably have some unpleasant consequences for the labor market as well.


----------



## Nisarg

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> If it's normal for nerds to have their head dunked in the toilet, that I can probably see why there is so many (according to you) people who don't wash, and in general want nothing to do with your society.
> If that kind of violence is accepted and mainstream, than the society's problems are much worse than even the cat piss man's problems.




I agree with this, actually. There is something very messed up in North American society, how it treats its children, and especially how it treats emotionally vulnerable, sensitive, and intelligent children.  The current school system is a very big part of the blame here: it basically takes adolescents at the time they should be learning how to be adults and instead drops them into a savage jungle surrounded by other children, and to far too great an extent leaves them to their own jungle law.

That said, and given as stipulated that society has a lot of changing to do, there is no question that any individual in that situation needs to learn how to be social, how to be able to interact with society, for their own good and society's.  Its unfortunate if some people do not somehow get that lesson in adolescence, but it does not exclude them from still having to learn it in later adulthood.



> 3) They were the only people you could find to game with? Plenty of choice to me if you ask. You really couldn't find anything better?




Let me clear up that the guys I were describing were NOT cat-piss men, they all did have a sufficient degree of social capacity to be good gamers, and they all were very good gamers.  My posting of their example was not in reference to that, but to nerds.. you can be a nerd without being a "catpiss man". I was specifically responding, in that post, to the argument that being a nerd automatically means you will end up "making wads of dough" or having a bright career future.

Nisarg


----------



## Lichtenhart

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> *snip*



Thanks a lot, Doc, these are the kind of answers I was looking for.

I went to check numbers about divorce, and well, they are quite impressive: in 2002 italy had the lowest divorce rate in Europe, with 7 divorces every 10.000 inhabitants. US the same year had a rate of about 40 divorces every 10.000 population. 6 times as many. You're right this, cannot be ignored.
Also, in 1999 US had a feritlity rate of 2.07 children per woman VS 1.22 Italy.

All your other points are sound and interesting as well.


----------



## Nisarg

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> You can't just not be a nerd, you also have to fight for what's good about being a nerd.
> 
> Note this comment:
> 
> Because yeah it's wrong for a man to not keep up with his hygiene, but it's worse for a man to attack a kid, even a fictional kid, for doing his homework.




Let me say for the record that I wasn't "attacking Jason for being a nerd"; I was pointing out that regardless of what nerds feel about him to the public at large that fictional character is a negative stereotype.  I was just saying that if the best D&D players can manage to present as a "positive" portrayal of D&D in popular media is Jason Foxtrot, they're in a lot of trouble.  My entire point was that Jason is not an accurate representation of what all roleplayers are like, but that the tolerance of certain kinds of extreme elements in the roleplaying community makes them into our poster-boys, and leads to the creation of stereotypes like Jason.

Nisarg


----------



## frankthedm

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Among those most fanatic of the fanatics will also almost undoubtedly be the most pathetic. That by no means is to say that everyone there will be pathetic, just that there will be a disproportionate number of socially marginalized individuals there, in a hobby that ALREADY has a disproportionate amount of the socially marginalized.
> 
> 
> Nisarg




Yep.


On this subject, back in 2001 did anybody find that the LOTR card game Ladies [decipher] seemed kinda lonely with the Fellowship of the ring trailer drawing the attention from them? One of those ladies at the decipher booth [wizard world]took and held my arm while the other was showing off some of the cards. [5 other con goers were hearding around a small screen of the FoTRtrailer]


----------



## AdmundfortGeographer

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> Italians are famed even in America for having very high rates of home ownership, ...




This sounded so much bunk I just had to find the latest data on it.  And I was right. Based on a comprehensive study last updated in December 2000, Italy is in the middle of the pack of 14 nations compared, behind Spain (74.33), Finland (72.19), Australia (70.06), UK (68.56), US (67.15), Luxembourg (66.60), and Belgium (65.58); Italy at (62.91) is ahead of Canada (62.81), France (57.10), Sweden (54.42), Netherlands (47.57), Austria (44.32) and Germany (42.81).

Also the study of 400,000 households in 14 countries revealed: "Rather Italians and Spaniards young adults tend to live with their parents well beyond the age of 25, owing to higher unemployment and more difficult access to independent living arrangements (either rent or purchase)."

http://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/44.html

This study was done by Italians, FWIW. Here is the abstract:

"We explore the determinants of the international pattern of homeownership using the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), a collection of microeconomic data on fourteen OECD countries. In most of these countries the cross-section is repeated over time. This allows us to construct a truly unique international dataset on over 400,000 households. The dataset also includes selected demographic variables (carefully matched between the different surveys). After controlling for individual-country effects, cohort effects and calendar time effects, we find strong evidence that different downpayment ratios affect the age-profile of housing tenure, particularly for the young."

Not that this counters your whole post  , or anything of it at all, I just had to check on that little factoid about Italian home-ownership rates being "famously very high."

Pardon the exploration in nit-pickery. 


Regards,
Eric Anondson


----------



## Lichtenhart

Unemployment in Italy, but I think in Spain too, is a regional thing. There are areas where there is 15% unemployment rate, and areas, like where I live in, where the only unemployed people are the hopeless drunk.


----------



## Incenjucar

Maybe he meant that those who lived on their own owned their own homes, but otherwise they tend to stay with the family?


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Eric Anondson said:
			
		

> snip




Not a problem, I'm all for nitpickery.

This is just a very quick response, but it looked to me like that survey actually complements my impression.

If American households are smaller then it stands to reason that a larger percentage of the population owns homes. 

When the specific phenomena I was thinking of was the percentage of households that were rented as opposed to owned.

Which again, if the American emphasis is on creating new households, then you would expect that number to be higher for Americans than it would be for Italians.

And in a culture that had larger households, or at least a slower rate of creating new ones, you might expect to see a lower percentage of home owners as a function of population, but a higher percentage of homes being owned by residents.

Which is where the theory on Italian enculturation into the US comes in.

Interesting that the Spanish have both the highest rate and are also noted for large households.  

Saw an article on the rates of Italian and Irish ownership vs rental recently in the Journal, I think, I'll see if I can find it sometime tomorrow.

It's also worth pointing out, in relationship to your quote Eric, that it's always been my impression that it is much harder to rent in Italy than it is in the United States.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Italy has so many laws to protect tenants that it often scares the owners, who prefer to sell than to rent. Also, traditionally, italians despise monthly payments, not only for houses, but also about cars and everything else. hire purchase is way less common than in the US.


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Let me say for the record that I wasn't "attacking Jason for being a nerd"; I was pointing out that regardless of what nerds feel about him to the public at large that fictional character is a negative stereotype.  I was just saying that if the best D&D players can manage to present as a "positive" portrayal of D&D in popular media is Jason Foxtrot, they're in a lot of trouble.  My entire point was that Jason is not an accurate representation of what all roleplayers are like, but that the tolerance of certain kinds of extreme elements in the roleplaying community makes them into our poster-boys, and leads to the creation of stereotypes like Jason.
> 
> Nisarg




I'm sorry if I came out as being too hostile there, I was trying very hard to shorten the post.

At no point did I think that you thought poorly of Jason for doing his homework.

I did think, however, that your response was illustrative of the point that the stereo-type itself is negative and that that includes good things as well as bad.

As is the case here, a nerd is a nerd is a nerd, and that is always bad, in the logic of calling someone a nerd, and that effectively means that many good things are bad.

Which is why I would argue that although a work like Buffy, which tries to make nerds 'cool,' does a good job by busting apart the stereotype...

...a work like Revenge of the Nerds does more by subverting it.  Sure, you can argue that the individual nerds are negative stereotypes, but the nerds overall are the heroes of the piece and enjoyed a good deal of pop cultural success.

Keep in mind, however, that I think both approaches are necessary.  I just become leery when I see the first advocated over the second.

The first is certainly the easier and prettier route, I just think that the second does some good on its own and the first without the second just works to reinforce the stereotype because all it does is enable the holders of the stereotype to point to exceptions as exceptions.

I'm all for being socially acceptable, I'm not for people being out to point out the socially acceptable nerds without being challenged by those socially acceptable nerds.

In the longer post I think I made it clearer that I meant a hypothetical adult attacking Jason, as does happen and happens more frequently with non-adults, for doing his homework and not you.

Even, though, I would argue that I can point out better examples than Jason, people who play role-playing games who aren't mean, vindictive, and uninterested in the lives of their fellows.  I don't think any of them could not be painted with the broad tar of negative nerdiness simply because by playing the game they are nerds, again in the sad logic of it all, and that makes them already and continually a negative type.

Take, for example, the geeks from freaks and geeks, no worse off, in the larger sense, than any of the rest of their fellows, it is high school after all, very much the happy center of the show, and yet... 

On the other hand, Buffy has had some nice role-playing moments, and PVP recently pointed out that Picard LARPS.

All better than Jason.


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Unemployment in Italy, but I think in Spain too, is a regional thing. There are areas where there is 15% unemployment rate, and areas, like where I live in, where the only unemployed people are the hopeless drunk.




I also understand, not from any statistics just from the people I know, that it takes longer to get an appropriate job out of the gate from an educational institution than is stereotypical for the US.

Not that it won't happen just that it takes a while.

In the US many of the professions that might have similar problems, such as English and some science graduates, also have the advantage of institutions that enjoy keeping them around for in-house work.


----------



## I'm A Banana

> Also, traditionally, italians despise monthly payments, not only for houses, but also about cars and everything else. hire purchase is way less common than in the US.



Usury is a sin, right? 

And yeah, the cultural reasons/ramifications of living with one's parents or not are deep-seated, and very intriguing, since they run through many viens of life. A lot of the reason I know people I am around don't want to live with their parents is very practical, and has nothing to do with economy or family stability. More, they just don't want to be treated like children anymore. I don't know why it is (perhaps the lack of a cultural right of passage?), but American parents seem rather shockingly unwilling to allow their kids to grow up. Nevermind letting your sixteen year old stay out past midnight, I'm talking about letting your twenty-five year old make her own financial descisions about her life. I can't tell you the number of stories I've heard from friends who've gone home for summers, only to have their parents re-instate a curfew for them while they were around. No one I know who is mentally healthy could endure being treated like a child until they're 32. If the parents could show some respect, maybe some of it would be shown back to them.  (Lest anyone accuse me, mine pretty much let me grow up -- they were quite *over* prepared for their goodie-two-shoes kid to get the hard talks...)

Americans also seem to benefit from space to grow. Italy is pretty much settled -- every place that could be built on was built on millenia ago, and there's few true 'wild areas', am I wrong? No place that bears and boars could still be lurking?  Compared with the massive *space* in the US (how many miles of highway do you drive on in between cities when taking a road trip?), there's no inhibition to growth. 

Still, the lure of family is quite strong. Most women I know, for instance, would like to live basically within driving distance of their own parents, brothers, and sisters. However, most of them still find the idea of moving back in repellant, because how could they ever, say, spend a tender, private night with their husbands, with Mom an Dad setting a 1 am curfew?


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> Usury is a sin, right?
> 
> 
> Americans also seem to benefit from space to grow. Italy is pretty much settled -- every place that could be built on was built on millenia ago, and there's few true 'wild areas', am I wrong? No place that bears and boars could still be lurking?




No comment on the rest of your post or your main points, but...

1.) Dang right it is.

2.) benefits an interesting term, but Italy actually has a pretty healthy for a place that's been settled and civilized for so long, native population of bears and wolves.  Even the Romans thought they had been hunted out, but the central mountain chain is so, for lack of a better term, impenetrable that they hid out there until modern times, when the reunification of Italy imposed classically-liberal property laws which killed the local community property based farming systems.  The population of those regions moved out and the bears and wolves have had some success moving into the newly depopulated regions.

One more example of how capitalism can be bad for peasants, and good for...  ...wolves?

Sorry, that's really tangential, but that area of the world is something my father studies so I've sort of sucked in with growing up.


----------



## Kalanyr

> One more example of how capitalism can be bad for peasants, and good for... ...wolves?




Yoinked for my sig.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Yeah, since I've been a scout for 13 years, I've seen my fair share of boar packs. One even crossed our camp once. Near where I live, there are some wolves, but they are a lot less conspicuous.

It's nice to know that less than 40 miles from home there are places where I can see eagles and roe deers.

If we had less summer fires, I'd say our forests are quite well protected.


----------



## Roman

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> Roman
> 
> Absolutely nothing bad about being a virgin; the risks can be nasty, and, frankly, the cuddling was more fun than the nekkid stuff, for me at least.
> 
> Besides, if you ever -do- get in a situation, some women will get very very very aggressive about trying to be your first, and it's one huge ego boost, and a good laugh, too.  Having a girl get mad at your pants and saying really really bad cliche` porno lines which I won't repeat here has got to be the funniest thing in the world.  As I always say, if you run, they chase.




That is hilarious, I cannot stop laughing!


----------



## Gnarlo

Roman said:
			
		

> That is hilarious, I cannot stop laughing!




I have to agree, it might be the age difference but my first reaction to "Having a girl get mad at your pants and saying really really bad cliche` porno lines which I won't repeat here" is not to think that it's the funniest thing in the world.  

Come to think of it, that's not my second, third, or fourth reaction, either


----------



## Rel

My wife is a little "mad at my pants" right now.

IYKWIMAITYD


----------



## Incenjucar

It was especially funny when she pouted at me, slid off the bed, and declared "I hate you forever!".

At various times, I just couldn't figure out which pair of cheeks I wanted to pinch.

 

Buuut, point is, gamers are not automatically or most-often pathetic-in-regards-to-women as some seem to think.  Some of us are international playboys, despite all logic.  The internet helps, of course. It's amazing how people will interact with a character who looks infinately better than you, and because they get to know you, have no reaction when they find out that you aren't, in fact, a 6'2" yaun-ti/elf/human/efreet/fire nymph genasi-ish thingie with fangs and magical powers.. okay, I do have the fangs, but they aren't nearly as long...

Frankly, in my case, roleplaying (online in this case) gave me an opportunity to be comfortable with social situations.  The trick is to -let- the hormones slip out once in awhile, so that you get the interest to pursue.  Or just hope the very first time you let a girl (or boy, depending on taste) in to your room she (or he) thinks your clothes are evil and should die.


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Kalanyr said:
			
		

> Yoinked for my sig.




My first sig!  Hurray!


----------



## fanboy2000

Wow, this thread is really big!


----------



## Bauglir

Well as a 25 year old virgin who's never so much as kissed a girl and lives at home with his parents.  I know I meet the criteria.

I'm generally quiet in manner, and get quickly forgotten in large gatherings of people.  As a result I came to dislike large gatherings.  I don't go out to clubs or just to meet people, instead preferring small gatherings of close friends.  I am aware this makes me abnormal (my group of friends is gradually diminishing as people leave and there is noone new coming along) and I hate it about myself.

The situation is self-perpetuating.  Due to lack of experience I don't have the skills or instincts to deal with any potential partner that should come along.  Those skills are expected, even assumed by this age, meaning I appear weird and stupid - hardly attractive traits, and so the opportunity to change is beyond my reach.

Even so I am not a 'catpiss man'.  I look after my hygiene, and I think my company is at least tolerable if not desirable.  I don't shake at the mere mention of a girl.  I am simply ill-equipped to deal with them on some levels.

I suspect there are as many people like me around roleplaying as there are catpiss men.  Perhaps some of the catpiss men started out here and fell into a pit of apathy, no longer caring how they appear to others.


----------



## Dogbrain

Nisarg said:
			
		

> I agree with this, actually. There is something very messed up in North American society, how it treats its children, and especially how it treats emotionally vulnerable, sensitive, and intelligent children.  The current school system is a very big part of the blame here: it basically takes adolescents at the time they should be learning how to be adults and instead drops them into a savage jungle surrounded by other children, and to far too great an extent leaves them to their own jungle law.




What "blame"?  This is how the system is supposed to work.  The masters send their children to exclusive, private schools that nurture minds and provide excellent socialization and human manipulation skills.  Those prole and petit-burgeoisie children who somehow manage to be dangerously competent must be reminded of their true place.  If they are not sufficiently brutalized and ground down by "public" education, the masters risk losing their priviliges.


----------



## Desdichado

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> You'll have to pardon me, I suppose, as my information on the rest of the world tends to center around North America, Europe, Australia, and the major Asian countries.  I'm well aware that most countries are full of bigoted nimrods, however, the US is especially diverse and retains it based on every bloody possible difference.  Cripes, I mean, people here get angry at each other over whether the 'furry' genre can include reptiles.



Well, I've never known anyone to get mad about that.  Or to ever ponder that question at all, now that you mention it.  As you say, offensive and easily offended nimrods exist all over the place.  I don't think there's any reason to postulate the in the US we're more divisive than people in general anywhere else.


			
				Incenjucar said:
			
		

> So do people ask D&Ders in Prague, Argentina, Krakow, and Rostov if their books are satanic on a regular basis?  Are gamers in those countries as often 'cat piss men'?  Do a number of them all but 'cat in their pants' if they see a woman look directly at them?



Don't know; I didn't game with anyone while I was any of those places.


----------



## Rel

Having given this topic a bit more thought over the weekend, I've come to a further conclusion that I figured I throw out there to be chewed upon by the masses.

It seems to me that if you buy into the notion that the "cat piss men" are the "poster children" for Roleplaying and you desire to change this, you should be very open about your gaming hobby to people outside the gaming community.  After all, if you are a "normal", sweet-smelling, well socialized professional adult who is no longer living in his parents' basement then you are providing a counter to the stereotype.  If you are openly a gamer then the people who know you will have their perception of the hobby altered.  And they will further have some ammunition against those who they encounter that cling to the stereotype.

You should also be actively trying to recruit outsiders to the hobby, provided that they aren't "cat piss men" already.  Because, in doing so, you are increasing the percentage of people in the hobby that are "non cat piss men" and thereby decreasing the proportion of "cat piss men".

This appears to me to be the only viable strategy for changing the demographics of the hobby because I don't think that you can effectively drive the "cat piss man" element out of roleplaying.  And "rehabilitating" the current "cat piss man" population seems to be an iffy prospect at best.

As a final thought, I'll note that I could never have guessed a week ago that I'd have ever used the term "cat piss man" so many times in a single post.


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

Kamikaze Midget said:
			
		

> ...they just don't want to be treated like children anymore. I don't know why it is (perhaps the lack of a cultural right of passage?), but American parents seem rather shockingly unwilling to allow their kids to grow up.



Bingo.

Give the man a prize.


----------



## Agamemnon

Bauglir said:
			
		

> Well as a 25 year old virgin who's never so much as kissed a girl and lives at home with his parents.  I know I meet the criteria.




You and me both, Mr. B. Well, I'm a few years younger and have kissed a girl on two occasions, but besides those minor points, your situation parallels mine.


----------



## Nisarg

Dogbrain said:
			
		

> What "blame"?  This is how the system is supposed to work.  The masters send their children to exclusive, private schools that nurture minds and provide excellent socialization and human manipulation skills.  Those prole and petit-burgeoisie children who somehow manage to be dangerously competent must be reminded of their true place.  If they are not sufficiently brutalized and ground down by "public" education, the masters risk losing their priviliges.




As someone who was a product of a fairly elite private school I can tell you that they have their own very special kind of brutality.
The main difference is that the insulting jock in the public system is likely to be a broken-down slob by the time of your 20th reunion, whereas the insulting jock in the private system is likely to be George W. Bush.

Nisarg


----------



## Desdichado

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> All your other points are sound and interesting as well.



They may appear so, but they are speculative, not givens.


			
				Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> first, American parents, as a group, aren't as good as Italian parents. Americans have a much higher rate of divorce, family ties and life are typically less robust, there are far greater cross-generational differences in education and opinion, and children are less valued.



The divorce rate statistic is easily confirmed, but others, and your intepretations of them, are difficult, at best.  Americans value their children less than Italians?  I dunno; I find that claim outrageous.


			
				Dr. SM said:
			
		

> Second, puting greater pressure on getting out into the world, even if it means living at a much lower level and having greatly reduced capacity to save money allows young Americans greater mobility in the search for jobs and helps to reinforce, in many areas, a pattern of marriage/romantic/family life at younger ages than is typical in many other cultures and at lower material costs.



True, but that's a consequence of the idea that kids move out when they reach adulthood, not a cause.  Throughout American history, I'd bet the average age of newlyweds has been increasing.  Not that I've looked up that to confirm, or anything.  But Americans, in relation to many other cultures I've seen, are much more mobile.


			
				Dr. SM said:
			
		

> I live in west Texas, and a Turkish friend of mine was appalled at the young ages people marry in this area, typically right after college. He explained that in his culture you can't get married unless you can buy your bride a house. Here almost all young people rent and cohabitate or marry without any consideration of such capital arrangements.



Yes and no.  You've found one counter example, but ignored examples that would have shown that Americans don't get married any earlier than many other cultures, and in fact much later in life than some.  


			
				Dr. SM said:
			
		

> Third, American culture is very fractious.



Not moreso than anyone else, I'd wager.  I also don't see how your example of identifying with a particular neighborhood is indicative of the "fractiousness" of Americans anyway.


			
				Dr. SM said:
			
		

> Fourth, much of the current prejuidice stems from the fact that this insitution is actively threatened. The last two American generations, X and Y, had/have a much higher rate of adult individuals living with their parents than the two generations prior.



And here's where your reasoning really gets wonky; because there's a change in popular opinion and habits, there's a backlash creating the prejudice?  A prejudice that pre-existed the change?


			
				Dr. SM said:
			
		

> Particularly since a very high rate of trans-generational home residency would create a nasty little situation for the current construction of the real estate market, not so many renters people sitting on houses for longer, and probably have some unpleasant consequences for the labor market as well.



Now, you're telling me that the real estate industry is driving cultural pressure for gamers to move out of their parents' basements or risk looking like losers?  We're moving into the realm of conspiracy theory here...


----------



## ledded

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Thanks a lot, Doc, these are the kind of answers I was looking for.
> 
> I went to check numbers about divorce, and well, they are quite impressive: in 2002 italy had the lowest divorce rate in Europe, with 7 divorces every 10.000 inhabitants. US the same year had a rate of about 40 divorces every 10.000 population. 6 times as many. You're right this, cannot be ignored.
> Also, in 1999 US had a feritlity rate of 2.07 children per woman VS 1.22 Italy.
> 
> All your other points are sound and interesting as well.



So, this divorce rate differential is purely indicates that Italians are better parents?

Or could it possibly have something to do with predominant Catholocism as a religion, or other cultural mores?

How about digging up statistics about the percentage of children who finish primary schools, the rate of domestic violence, etc so on and so forth.  That may help you get a less skewed view than pinning a statement like "Italians are better parents..." than one piece of data.

While I think a lot of your points have some validity, and are well thought out at times, IMO you pin too much on a singular source of data and make broad statements encompassing huge, diverse groups of people without taking into effect the literal tons of variables.  

I'm gonna have to go with Joshua Dyal on this one though.


----------



## eyebeams

Nisarg said:
			
		

> That seems pretty absurd to me. It would take some pretty weak-willed human being to become socially incompetent just because he feels his hobby demands it.




That's how I would characterize people who loudly proclaim their contempt for other hobbyists instead of just gaming according to their tastes. 



> I think a more likely prognosis is that those for whom gaming is not their sole social outlet, who have other things going for them, will not be cat-piss men.




Nope. Even antisocial people often have varied interests. I work with people who are extremely poorly socialized in my job as an adult educator. Their interests are varied, too.



> Those who have no other social outlet, and who see that the standards for social behaviour in Gaming are very very low, might just slip down to that lower common denominator, due to self-esteem issues or what have you, and because the rest of the community is an enabler for that type of behaviour.




No. Gaming's fundamental problem is that people game with folks they don't like, and then they bitch about it as if the hobby owes them a social life. That is the essence of facile rants about how awful Those Gamers are. The signal to noise ratio in idiots declaring each other to be antisocial nerds is so high that the real hardcases are easy to lose sight of -- and they don't seem to be any worse than in any other marginal pursuit.



> All the more reason for gamers to have some basic standards of what they expect from the people they are gaming with. You might be saving a social life.




I don't owe gamers a social life and I have no obligation to be community-minded so as to help the community wean itself of its addiction to arranging game sessions in a fundamentally dysfunctional fashion.



> It isn't just in gaming, obviously.  In my own "social outlets", I've seen similar phenomena.. be it in the pipe-smoking community, in meditation groups, in chi gung, even in politics or the freemasons.  Even in a slightly different manifestation in the line of work I'm in (academic research).  In any of these, when there are people who only have that ONE social outlet, be it just their job, or just pipe-collecting, or just gaming, they get eccentric. But in the other communities, the eccentricity will not take the extremes of social retardation you will find in the "nerd/fandom" communities (not just gaming but anime fandom, scifi, etc), because in those other communities such an extreme would be deemed unacceptable.




I'm quite familiar with academic institutions and I practice Qigong. You are simply exaggerating the relative functionality of those communities.



> Lastly, your attempt to silence dissent is noted; nice tactic implying that anyone who dares to argue we need less catpiss men is probably a catpiss man, but I think that its quite acceptable and even desperately nescessary to demand that there be certain basic standards of hygene and self-control in roleplaying, and I'm pretty confident in my social abilities.




Yes. They all say that, you see. You're just a bunch of pixels from a server, as far as I'm concerned. I have no guarantor of your conduct, good or bad. The thing is, though, that I don't feel the need to really find out and come up with the appropriate hue and cry, because your habits are irrelevant to me. So it is with anyone I won't be gaming with.



> On the contrary, I would say that while those who try to dodge the issue and pretend that there isn't a catpiss man problem are suffering from the geek social fallacy, those who try to actively attack people who demand social standards in gaming are almost certainly catpiss men themselves.  That supposition seems a lot more logical than yours.




Well no, Nisarg, I just don't think it's anybody's business. To put it in starry vulgarity: I don't give a f***. I game with my friends. I don't game with people I don't like, whether it's because they're stinky, cheaters, dumb, or like George W. Bush. Hell, if they don't care for the EBM our group normally uses for game soundtracks, can't succinctly describe Gnosticism, parse Rick Mercer references or wing dialogue, they'll probably meet the door.

And you know what? It bothers me not one whit that there are Cat Piss Men. They're in every hobby. I don't bother with them. I don't even bother with people who aren't CPMs who I just don't feel like gaming with or talking to.

Thus, the idea of "enforcing standards" strikes me as an ill-witted escapade that I associate with poorly socialized people desperately looking for some form of camouflage. I don't care about standards that apply to people I will never interact with in any way. I have no need to describe and enforce universal standards. 

It's lame.


----------



## Incenjucar

More proof that gamers aren't that pathetic:  D&D and related subjects just got me a fifteen minute conversation with a nice, attractive young woman, that looked like it only stopped at my door because I didn't invite her in.  Which reminds me, I need to get some refreshments in my dorm...

Yay gamer grrrlz.


----------



## Nisarg

eyebeams said:
			
		

> No. Gaming's fundamental problem is that people game with folks they don't like, and then they bitch about it as if the hobby owes them a social life.
> That is the essence of facile rants about how awful Those Gamers are. The singal to noise ratio in idiots declaring each other to be antisocial nerds is so high that the real hardcases are easy to lose sight of -- and they don't seem to be any worse than in any other marginal pursuit.




Yes, it is a foolish and contradictory behaviour to say that the hobby owes you a social life, while gaming with people you dislike.

But are you implying that people should game only with people who are already in their social circle? Or just that they shouldn't complain?

My own perspective is this: I don't game with anyone I dislike, but the majority of the people I game with are at the same time people that I feel no need to include in the rest of my social life. I don't need them to be in other parts of my life, because I fill the other parts of my life with other social pursuits.  Thus, I don't feel the need for gaming to give me a social life.

To me the fundamental problem is not gaming with strangers; it is allowing other gamers to do things to you or others or your group that you would never tolerate in other social situations, out of a misguided idea that you can't "pick on" a fellow gamer or that your gaming group/club/FLGS/convention would fall apart if you held gaming to the very same social standards that you would any other kind of group/club/place of business/convention.

The problem is not complaining that gaming doesn't give you a social life, its depending on gaming to do so in the first place; which in turn makes you unwiling to do anything that might threaten the peace of your "social family" of gamers.



> And you know what? It bothers me not one whit that there are Cat Piss Men. They're in every hobby. I don't bother with them. I don't even bother with people who aren't CPMs who I just don't feel like gaming with or talking to.
> 
> Thus, the idea of "enforcing standards" strikes me as an ill-witted escapade that I associate with poorly socialized people desperately looking for some form of camoufalge. I don't care about standards that apply to people I will never interact with in any way. I have no need to describe and enforce universal standards.
> 
> It's lame.




Well then I really do have to wonder why you are even posting to this thread?

Nisarg


----------



## Desdichado

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Thus, the idea of "enforcing standards" strikes me as an ill-witted escapade that I associate with poorly socialized people desperately looking for some form of camoufalge. I don't care about standards that apply to people I will never interact with in any way. I have no need to describe and enforce universal standards.
> 
> It's lame.



That strikes me as an ill-concealed, unjustified and unjustifiable _ad hominem_ "argument."


----------



## Zimri

I dunno. I know a fair number of "jock athletic types" that smell bad and abuse their wives. NBA basketball players probably shouldn't run around doing drugs and having questionable sexual contact with female fans, It would probably be a huge boon to the clergy if priests et al stopped abusing young parishoners. So yeah it seems to me like just about every group allows it's members to break laws/social conventions. I personally would much rather hang with "cat piss man" than someone that actually hurts people.


----------



## Olgar Shiverstone

Bauglir said:
			
		

> Well as a 25 year old virgin who's never so much as kissed a girl and lives at home with his parents.  I know I meet the criteria.




Don't feel bad; you're well below the norm -- when I was out on recruiting duty a few years back, the average age kids in the US left home was 26.  No idea what the virginity stats are, though.

I suspect much of the pressure to move out is cultural.  I'd be curious as to what people's thoughts are on the influence the expansion in the American west had on the decline of the extended family.  With all that available space to "make one's fortune", it would seem to work against the extended family staying together -- might as well have your own ranch next door; there's plenty of space.  



> I suspect there are as many people like me around roleplaying as there are catpiss men.  Perhaps some of the catpiss men started out here and fell into a pit of apathy, no longer caring how they appear to others.




Why's everyone so down on CatPissMan?  I _game_ with CatPissMan!  He's not that bad; just make sure the fan is blowing in his direction.


----------



## eyebeams

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> That strikes me as an ill-concealed, unjustified and unjustifiable _ad hominem_ "argument."




The topical content of this thread consists of an ill-conceived ad hominem argument. In what ways are "Gamers who bitch about the behaviour of gamers are losers" and "Gamers who don't fit my criteria are losers," qualitatively different? 

People who simply confine their ire to real interpersonal situations instead of broad categorizations would, of course, have no reason to take offense from the former.

These complaints don't speak to a special case in gaming. They speak to something like one of the running gags in _Seinfeld_. 

You ever see the episodes where Jerry is dating and is looking for some rationale to dump his girlfriend? It's like that; looking for the funny voice or the slightly irritating habit or whatnot to justify the fact that you just don't see eye to eye.

The problem, at heart, is that people treat gaming like some sort of collective blind date. 

Being in a good gaming group is more like being in a band. You don't tolerate poor performance and personal incompatibility, but you can recognize talent elsewhere.


----------



## eyebeams

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Yes, it is a foolish and contradictory behaviour to say that the hobby owes you a social life, while gaming with people you dislike.
> 
> But are you implying that people should game only with people who are already in their social circle? Or just that they shouldn't complain?




Nope. You make connections through the hobby based on whether or not you're going to get along with a person. You actually talk to this person and meet them like a normal person, instead of as a response to a want-ad.



> My own perspective is this: I don't game with anyone I dislike, but the majority of the people I game with are at the same time people that I feel no need to include in the rest of my social life. I don't need them to be in other parts of my life, because I fill the other parts of my life with other social pursuits.  Thus, I don't feel the need for gaming to give me a social life.




I prefer to game with well-rounded people instead.



> To me the fundamental problem is not gaming with strangers; it is allowing other gamers to do things to you or others or your group that you would never tolerate in other social situations, out of a misguided idea that you can't "pick on" a fellow gamer or that your gaming group/club/FLGS/convention would fall apart if you held gaming to the very same social standards that you would any other kind of group/club/place of business/convention.




We do not disagree, except that the mechanism has nothing to do with camaraderie in the scene. There is virtually no sense of fellowship in the scene.



> The problem is not complaining that gaming doesn't give you a social life, its depending on gaming to do so in the first place; which in turn makes you unwiling to do anything that might threaten the peace of your "social family" of gamers.




The mistake here is letting someone into that group in the first place using the lame blind date method.



> Well then I really do have to wonder why you are even posting to this thread?




Oh, this "Nebulous Group of Other Gamers Sucks, Part XXII" theme is a pet peeve of mine, because it's the effect of a dysfunctional standard that is far more destructive to the health of the hobby than gamers who are actually wacky and smelly.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Joshua Dyal and ledded, since you disagree so much with Dr.Strangemonkey, could you please add your own views on the matter? I'm still curious.

ledded, I looked for the statistics you talked about: according to Unesco 98% of italians and 97% of americans reach the end of secondary school. I could find no direct confrontation about domestic violence rates, only general criminality rates that I guess won't help our discussion.

Nisarg, eyebeams, we managed to keep the thread civil so far, let's all take a deep breath.


----------



## Desdichado

Olgar Shiverstone said:
			
		

> I suspect much of the pressure to move out is cultural.  I'd be curious as to what people's thoughts are on the influence the expansion in the American west had on the decline of the extended family.  With all that available space to "make one's fortune", it would seem to work against the extended family staying together -- might as well have your own ranch next door; there's plenty of space.



I suspect it's earlier than that; even before they went west, most families that immigrated to America in the first place were anxious to get away and start something new; "make their fortune" so to speak.

Frankly, I'm more interested in the more recent relative devaluation of the nuclear family, personally.


----------



## Desdichado

eyebeams said:
			
		

> The topical content of this thread consists of an ill-conceived ad hominem argument. In what ways are "Gamers who bitch about the behaviour of gamers are losers" and "Gamers who don't fit my criteria are losers," qualitatively different? .



Y'know, I don't completely see eye to eye with Nisarg and his point of view, but at least I don't so blatandly mischaracterize what he's actually saying.

And I'll refer you back to my earlier post (about three or four pages ago) on the dubious "virtues" of pathological tolerance.


----------



## Wereserpent

As much as I love the people I game with, I cant stand them for more than a few seconds.  Well, most of them.  Anyways, I do not think gaming owes me a social life, hell I do not want a social life.  I could care less if I am ignored.  As of current I am a Junior in high school, and I have never once been picked on.  I am mostly ignored, which suits me fine.  

I do shower everyday, I cant remember the last day I did not shower.


----------



## eyebeams

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Y'know, I don't completely see eye to eye with Nisarg and his point of view, but at least I don't so blatandly mischaracterize what he's actually saying.




Would you care to explain what you see as a mischaracterization? Nisarg said that it's time to stop tolerating all these l00z3r gamers. He set one specific criteria having to do with whether folks are living with their folks or not as a sign of social dysfunction.

In what way is this not: "Gamers who don't fit my criteria are losers?"

And what is being used to support this position? A Really Popular essay on the Internet.



> And I'll refer you back to my earlier post (about three or four pages ago) on the dubious "virtues" of pathological tolerance.




Pardon? In case you've just been skimming, I advocate *intolerance.* I don't care whether Cat Piss Man is out there. I'll never be gaming with him. I don't care about being surprised at CPM hanging out at a table at a con or something. I talk to players before committing.

And when I do hear about a reputed CPM from gamers I don't care for, I usually find the k3wl gam0r more irritating than the supposed CPM.

One of the great lessons in life is that you do not have to get along with nice people, and that you will not like many nice people. Once this is contemplated, you will, in the fullness of wisdom, be able to not game with people for no reason other than your gut feeling, and you will no longer need the prop of pretending that folks are nerdier than thou.


----------



## Desdichado

eyebeams said:
			
		

> Would you care to explain what you see as a mischaracterization? Nisarg said that it's time to stop tolerating all these l00z3r gamers. He set one specific criteria having to do with whether folks are living with their folks or not as a sign of social dysfunction.



Actually, no, he didn't do that.


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> In what way is this not: "Gamers who don't fit my criteria are losers?"



I'm not sure where you're going with this.  If you're _not_, as you seem to be saying below, advocating tolerance of the worst kind of social inadequacy at your table, what are you arguing about?  Are you not saying the same thing then?


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> And what is being used to support this position? A Really Popular essay on the Internet.



Well, that's a dubious honor.  It's not so much a really popular article as an obscure article that he happens to believe in.


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> Pardon? In case you've just been skimming, I advocate *intolerance.* I don't care whether Cat Piss Man is out there. I'll never be gaming with him. I don't care about being surprised at CPM hanging out at a table at a con or something. I talk to players before committing.



In which case I have no idea why you're arguing with him, and telling him things like "if you're complaining about it, you must be the worst kind of cat piss man out there."  That's not even dodgy logic, that's no logic at all.  That's merely a personal attack, and in light of your supposed agenda of intolerance, it makes no sense whatsoever.  Why are you so defensive, that you'll jump to unsupported and unsupportable conclusions to shout him down, without even addressing his points, then?


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> And when I do hear about a reputed CPM from gamers I don't care for, I usually find the k3wl gam0r more irritating than the supposed CPM.



All of which is going... where again?  Your entire argument, as near as I can tell, is "I don't like your attitude, so I bet _you're_ cat piss man, and anybody you don't like is probably someone I will like, i.e., I'm rubber and you're glue, etc. ad nauseum."  If the substance of your argument is actually something different than I'm understanding from that distillation, please spell it out for me again in plainer English; somehow I'm missing it.


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> One of the great lessons in life is that you do not have to get along with nice people, and that you will not like many nice people. Once this is contemplated, you will, in the fullness of wisdom, be able to not game with people for no reason other than your gut feeling, and you will no longer need the prop of pretending that folks are nerdier than thou.



See, yet again, instead of actually _addressing_ the argument proposed (wow, what a concept!) you merely decide to meaninglessly insult the other guy by calling him a nerd.  I've seen better arguments from my children.  I mean, are you seeing where we're losing you here?


----------



## eyebeams

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Actually, no, he didn't do that.




Well yeah, he did. He said that if you didn't move out by the time you were 24 or so, there was something wrong with you.



> I'm not sure where you're going with this.  If you're _not_, as you seem to be saying below, advocating tolerance of the worst kind of social inadequacy at your table, what are you arguing about?  Are you not saying the same thing then?




I'm saying that there is no "good of the hobby." There are no common interests vis a vis the type of people you game with, and I find opbsessing over it to be an odious habit in of itself that is just a facet of the same old struggle for geek cred.



> Well, that's a dubious honor.  It's not so much a really popular article as an obscure article that he happens to believe in.




I see the GSF quoted all the time.



> In which case I have no idea why you're arguing with him, and telling him things like "if you're complaining about it, you must be the worst kind of cat piss man out there."




If you're complaining about it in a fashion that does not describe specific cases but appeals to a purported trend, then you are, to be frank, part of the problem with gaming, not the solution. I met precisely *one* purported CPM that lived up to their reputation -- and I guest at cons pretty regularly. The rest are just at the wrong end of particularly juvenile social games.

Have I met socially bent folks? Yes I have. Have they ever intruded on my gaming? No. The kind of play I prefer demands mutual trust and a degree of discipline.



> That's not even dodgy logic, that's no logic at all.




There are two possibilities:

1) There is X (a higher proportion of dysfunctional people in gaming compared to other hobbies) and Y (folks who want to sally forth and stop it).

or:

2) There is only Y, looking for attention in an odious fashion.

One explanation is simpler than the other. It's eminently logical.



> That's merely a personal attack, and in light of your supposed agenda of intolerance, it makes no sense whatsoever.  Why are you so defensive, that you'll jump to unsupported and unsupportable conclusions to shout him down, without even addressing his points, then?




You'll have to reiterate his points and the fashion in which I've supposedly dodged them in order for this to make any sense to me. You keep making assertions without backing them up with anything but your personal feelings.



> Your entire argument, as near as I can tell, is "I don't like your attitude, so I bet _you're_ cat piss man, and anybody you don't like is probably someone I will like, i.e., I'm rubber and you're glue, etc. ad nauseum."  If the substance of your argument is actually something different than I'm understanding from that distillation, please spell it out for me again in plainer English; somehow I'm missing it.




You must ask yourself now if you are really committed to engaging what I am writing.

In any event, my points are simple: 

1) By far, the most prevalent instance of social dysfunction in gaming consists of gamers dissing each other by saying that a given gamer/group/scene is lamer than them and theirs. 

2) This is far more common than CPMs.

3) This happens because people are not picky about who they game with.



> See, yet again, instead of actually _addressing_ the argument proposed (wow, what a concept!) you merely decide to meaninglessly insult the other guy by calling him a nerd.  I've seen better arguments from my children.  I mean, are you seeing where we're losing you here?




What was that about an ad hominem again? I was just describing the cure for the 3 tiered problem above. If you believe that it applies to an actual poster, despite the fact that I have not mentioned any poster in particular, and you believe that it is strewn with insults that the actual text does not contain, then this exchange is no longer useful, because you have chosen not to respond to what I am actually writing.


----------



## fanboy2000

There are, I belive, three diffrent kinds of arguments going on now.

1. I don't game with socially inept people, but I don't care if any one else does.

2. I don't game with socially inept people, and, for the good of the gameing community, neither should you. Because if you do, then those people will continue to be the poster boys for hobby to the rest of the world. 

3. I do game socially inept people (or, I am socially inept myself) and I don't care what anyone else thinks.


I fall into number one. And if I understand their aruments correctly, so does Joshua Dyal, eyebeams, and a few others. 

Nisarg is the champion of the number 2, but will likely say he isn't because I use the term socially inept instead of anti-social. <sarcasm>I imagine he'll have some other small issue with the wording and will likely write a 1000 word post on the matter.</sarcasm>

And I think Olgar Shiverstone falls under number 3.


----------



## Gnarlo

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> Nisarg is the champion of the number 2, but will likely say he isn't because I use the term socially inept instead of anti-social. <sarcasm>I imagine he'll have some other small issue with the wording and will likely write a 1000 word post on the matter.</sarcasm>




And then he'll get _Medieval_ on yo' ass.  I mean Renaissance.  Aw, screw it.


----------



## Incenjucar

Guys, deep breath.  Calm down.  You know how kitty's bladder starts aching if people get mad.

Maybe it would be wise if everyone just restated their positions without the blend of commentary?


----------



## broghammerj

Hey I throw in my two cents because that's all its worth.



> first, American parents, as a group, aren't as good as Italian parents. Americans have a much higher rate of divorce, family ties and life are typically less robust, there are far greater cross-generational differences in education and opinion, and children are less valued.




Hey, my parents are divorced.  I'm a doctor,  my sister is a school teacher, and my brother is in the Army and just got back from Iraq (whether it's right or wrong he's still in prinicple, attempting to help our country).  I think we've all contributed to society and my parents have helped make us who we are.

Someone correct me, but I thought I heard that the number of unwed parents were drastically increasing in many of the socialist Scandinavian countries.



> I live in west Texas, and a Turkish friend of mine was appalled at the young ages people marry in this area, typically right after college. He explained that in his culture you can't get married unless you can buy your bride a house. Here almost all young people rent and cohabitate or marry without any consideration of such capital arrangements.




The average age of American marriage is getting later and later.  So is the age of birthing children, except in the poor and underprivledged.

Most of the Turks are Muslim. I live in the middle of the highest number of Lebanese outside of Lebanon and a ton of various people from other Muslim cultures.  My wife is an obstetrician.  I guarentee you she delivers more young, MARRIED, arabic women in their teens with multiple children because that is the cultural expectation.  I don't know where this age bias of your friend comes from.  There is a proponderence of arabic men in their 20s marrying girls in their teens and bearing large numbers of children.  Note, I really hate to generalize a group of people but if we're doing to it to Americans I simply use it as an example.

*Lichtenhart,*

If I could give you my take on the American mentality of moving out.  It would be best encompassed by the so called "American Dream".  If you work hard you can accomplish anything here in America.  I think this is why American work hours have now exceded everyone elses in the world.  Although most Americans know this to not be true, we are afforded a great number of opportunities. 

This idea stems from many levels but most importantly that our poor immigrant parents came to start a new life from their home countries.  There is an idea of independence and opportunity from us being a young country of 200+ years and fighting our revolution to win independence.  The great migration west over the open plains allowed people to have their own piece of land if they wanted it.  These all sort of end up as drives to succeed for ourselves.  Your parents help you, but there is a time to break out on your own to find your success.  In a sense, one does what they have done before you.  There was also a great movement from an agrarian economy with the big family of farm hands to a urban based, service oriented work force.

Of the extended families I know, there are two types.  One is the family that takes back in the elderly member who can no longer care for themselves due to health reasons.  The other is a current immigrant family who has moved to the USA.  They stick together as that is how they are raised and not everyone in the family speaks the language, knows the culture, etc.  I find a lot of this changes when they start to have American born children.

As to the gamer geek portion of the thread

Yeah I'm a geek.  I built my own computer, play RPGs, and know way to much trivia reguarding Star Trek.  I never played a lot of sports in school.  I was joe average in terms of popularity.  I didn't date a lot in high school.  My wife still thinks that after 7 yrs I am a dork.  She doesn't understand my hobbies or makes any attempt except them anymore than the booth babes at the trade shows.  She was the class president, star basketball player, etc.  Trust me when I say we wouldn't have "hung out" in school.

You know what happened....people grew up including myself.  People began to care less about sports, popularity, etc.  I figured out you have to get on the social horse and if you get bucked off then you just dust off and get back up.  Oh yeah, and I showered between those dustings


----------



## Nisarg

fanboy2000 said:
			
		

> There are, I belive, three diffrent kinds of arguments going on now.
> 
> 2. I don't game with socially inept people, and, for the good of the gameing community, neither should you. Because if you do, then those people will continue to be the poster boys for hobby to the rest of the world.
> 
> Nisarg is the champion of the number 2, but will likely say he isn't because I use the term socially inept instead of anti-social. <sarcasm>I imagine he'll have some other small issue with the wording and will likely write a 1000 word post on the matter.</sarcasm>




Hehe, actually fanboy, you more or less hit the nail on the head as far as my position.. socially inept and anti-social are de jure different, but de facto the same in this case, as the TYPE of social ineptitude I'm talking about in the case of these CPMs is often not something they are doing willingly, but the end result is an anti-social behaviour anyways.  In some cases they want to be socially well-adjusted, but they just can't.  In fact, "socially maladjusted" might be the best description.

Nisarg


----------



## S'mon

These guys exist but mostly you (if you're not one) will only see them at Conventions, esp US Gencon - in fact one British example told me he flew to US especially for Gencon.  Maybe because UK Gencon has no Booth Babes (*sigh*)  
The reason you'll only see them at Cons, esp Gencon, is that they have very poor social skills and so rarely have friends who they can game with, and if they answer cold-call ads to continuing games they usually quickly find they don't fit in with the group (possibly not admitted, or asked to leave later), hence they need to go to Cons to get their RPing fix (and see babes).  This is a bit sad, OTOH they get a lot of enjoyment from RPG products, even if they never get to play, and with high disposable incomes (no wives, girlfriends or children, often still living w parents well into adulthood), their money helps fuel the RPG economy.


----------



## Beowolf

alot has been said here and a lot(most?) of it has been off topic. many very good and insightful ideas have been discussed.

in regards to the causes of the social problems in our cultures, we should first look at the fact that our common society ( what it considers "normal" people involved in "normal" hobbies/activities) is entirly foucused on appearance and money whereas gamers focus on creativity and inteligence. because the common society is now the majority other scocial groups are automatically seen as inferior or lame. Most of us (gamers) have this preconception because it is shown to us everyday in all forms of media. so when we see a gamer who has social problems we assume the worst of the individual because of the hobby he is involved with even though we normaly accept people in the hobby because we are in it aswell. take said individual and place him in a common scocial group he would be seen as weird or unusual but accecpitbal because he is enthusiastic about sports or fashion.
if we looked deeply in all of the common social groups we would find individals with the same problems as similar individuals in gaming but find also that the common scocial groups accept them but mabye see them as eccentric while if he was involved in gaming he would be seen as a freak even by fellow gamers.

i have seen this frist hand. on my football team there are the typical jocks and skater punks but also some who would fall under the socialy mal-ajusted colum but because they are on the team and in the circle they are accepted for the most part(beyond additional ribbing or gossip slander)
i could be considered one of the weirdos on the team because i don't socialise with many of them but outside of that most people would consider me normal aside from my gaming habit.


looking at our over acceptance of these mal-ajustants in regards to what is stated in the GCF. although it maybe true at least we have a social group that can accept anybody regardless of race or culture and/or socual problems. think about it how many people in gaming society would not be accepted anywhere in the common scocial groups but are seen as normal to fellow gamers



i know my ideas my have drifted a lot and i did not cover much but i will probably refine them and add more later. its late and i have three more days of hell week to get through!


----------



## Plane Sailing

It's great to see that this long (and potentially divisive) thread is staying civil - thanks to everyone for keeping it polite, long may it continue.

Cheers!
Plane Sailing 
(Moderator)


----------



## Desdichado

eyebeams said:
			
		

> I'm saying that there is no "good of the hobby." There are no common interests vis a vis the type of people you game with, and I find opbsessing over it to be an odious habit in of itself that is just a facet of the same old struggle for geek cred.



OK, now that I can agree with.


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> I see the GSF quoted all the time.



I'll take your word for it.


			
				eyebeams said:
			
		

> If you're complaining about it in a fashion that does not describe specific cases but appeals to a purported trend, then you are, to be frank, part of the problem with gaming, not the solution. I met precisely *one* purported CPM that lived up to their reputation -- and I guest at cons pretty regularly. The rest are just at the wrong end of particularly juvenile social games.



And this I can understand as well.  I think, however, that the scope in this thread is not as broad as all that after all.  Nisarg seems to be saying that he doesn't like cat piss man (then again, who really does?) and thinks they bring down the reputation of the hobby to outsiders.  You seem to be saying that you doubt there really are that many CPMs, and the gaming snob tries to establish "geek cred" by being less uncool than CPM is a bigger problem.  

I guess now that I understand where you're going, I tend to agree more with you.  Cat piss man is a near mythical creature whereas folks who appear relatively normal (if somewhat nerdy) and who don't smell, yet who are incredibly socially immature and obnoxious are the bane of gamers in my opinion much moreso that a mythical loser who can't find work, can't stand the sun, can't leave his basement, can't find a shower, etc.  I mean, I agree with Nisarg too, but I don't think the problem is nearly as big as he makes it out to be, and in addition, I think it's pretentious to go about "cleaning up the hobby."  I don't do anything much "for the sake of the hobby."


----------



## Nisarg

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I guess now that I understand where you're going, I tend to agree more with you.  Cat piss man is a near mythical creature whereas folks who appear relatively normal (if somewhat nerdy) and who don't smell, yet who are incredibly socially immature and obnoxious are the bane of gamers in my opinion much moreso that a mythical loser who can't find work, can't stand the sun, can't leave his basement, can't find a shower, etc.  I mean, I agree with Nisarg too, but I don't think the problem is nearly as big as he makes it out to be, and in addition, I think it's pretentious to go about "cleaning up the hobby."  I don't do anything much "for the sake of the hobby."





Well, it could be that I've had more firsthand experiences with the CPM; but I can (and have, in this very thread) described encounters with them on many many occasions.   Those weren't just generalities: I really have seen guys intentionally hanging around FLGS trying to "freak the mundanes" or giving off a horrid funk, or screaming for no good reasons (said FLGS later had,unfairly, the problem of being labeled "unfriendly" because it had a policy of kicking out some of these people). I have really seen grossly overweight, literally dirt-encrusted guys hitting on a 16 year old girl at her first con (I would guess she won't be going to a second one, I wouldn't really blame her). At my university undergrad club there were at least 3 seperate CPM.  The guy who tried to join every game, didn't bathe and was overweight and unkempt.  The guy who was fat and had moderately questionable hygene and started screaming and throwing tantrums in games. And the guy who was thin, bad hygene, seemed to have no concept of appropriate sexual modesty in public, and tried to steal RPG books from the club library.

In my decades of gaming I have also had dozens of catpiss men try to get into my gaming groups, all of which have been promptly shown the door. 

The reasons for why I might have had more experience than others could have to do with regional issues (maybe western canada has a much higher degree of socially dysfunctional individuals joining RPG activities than other regions of north america?); or it could have to do with the mere fact that I've always made a point to be as active as possible in gaming at the local community level, and so I've been active in the places where CPM show up and become a problem (stores, clubs, and cons).

But remember, to me the fundamental problem is not the mere existence of the CPM, it is the way the CPM and our tolerance of them are allowed to become the poster-boys for role-playing as far as society and the popular media are concerned.    While we can do things regarding society, at the local level, or the media level, to try to change this awful stereotype of gamers, part of the responsibility is ours.  Part of why CPM is seen by TV shows, movies, news reports etc. as the face of roleplaying is because we in roleplaying all to often tolerate him to the extent that he is allowed to dictate the hobby's attitude and image overall. 

Its happened in other kinds of fandom, most notably in furry fandom, but in trekkie fandom and others too.

Nisarg


----------



## Desdichado

As always the disclaimer: "Individual experience may vary" applies.  However, if CPM were really _that_ common, more people would have experiences with him.


----------



## Crothian

I had one CPM try to jion my game once, I flat out told him no.  People have to realize this type of behavior is not accepted especially at convnetions and gather points like gaming stores.


----------



## Nisarg

Crothian said:
			
		

> I had one CPM try to jion my game once, I flat out told him no.  People have to realize this type of behavior is not accepted especially at convnetions and gather points like gaming stores.




The conventions are what draws bad media attention often, but in a local, gamer by gamer basis, the worst problem is with the FLGS.. some mom brings in her 13 year old son because he played a game of D&D and wants to buy his first book, and she sees a room full of catpiss-men, she can't be blamed for turning the kid around and doing her utmost to make sure he never ends up having anything to do with this hobby. 
Or some teenage girls are getting into comics or gaming, but when they go to the FLGS the CPMs freak them out/hit on them or what have you, and bingo, no new female gamers.

Nisarg


----------



## Numion

I read this thread and thought "Gee, I've been really lucky, gaming only with friends who are all pretty normal, never meeting these asocial and weird cases". We all have steady jobs, don't live home, have GFs (average age 25), half of the group owns their homes (FWIW, mentioned earlier in the thread). 

Soo .. to the point. That stirred a supressed memory. I was around 15, and an acquintance recommended a local RPG club for me and a friend. We go there, find a bunch of nerdy looking guys creating characters, most older than us by 2-10 years. Nothing wrong with that. There's a game opening, and we're free to join. Great. 

Then the guys start to gleefully explain about their characters. They had a theory going: no sane people would really start to be adventurers, with the risk of death and all that. Ok. The shocker is that in their mind insane really means sexually abnormal. Every damn single one of their characters was anything but a heterosexual. And deviant in some other way. 

So they're having a blast telling us about the intricasies of Ogre-Halfling breeding and completely miss that for us RPGs aren't really about that.

The experience really weirded us out. We never visited that club again, nor any other RPG club for that matter. And I can't understand why anyone normal would either. 

So I'm with Nisarg on this one. Way to get new people into gaming when the clubs are infested with scum like this.


----------



## Crothian

Nisarg said:
			
		

> The conventions are what draws bad media attention often, but in a local, gamer by gamer basis, the worst problem is with the FLGS.. some mom brings in her 13 year old son because he played a game of D&D and wants to buy his first book, and she sees a room full of catpiss-men, she can't be blamed for turning the kid around and doing her utmost to make sure he never ends up having anything to do with this hobby.
> Or some teenage girls are getting into comics or gaming, but when they go to the FLGS the CPMs freak them out/hit on them or what have you, and bingo, no new female gamers.
> 
> Nisarg




Then the people who own these stores need to take action or other people who shop there need to complain to the owners.  I've refused to shop at storeds who had bad customer service, and we've had threads here complaining about how bad customer service is not that uncommon.  Perhaps people need to ban together to help in this area.


----------



## Kalanyr

So if I have a fungal infection in my foot I should be shown the door so I don't degrade the image of the hobby ? 

As for a few of the other criteria used to judge the value of a gamer to the hobby, I fail to understand what being overweight has to do with anything at all.

If you don't want to game with people don't game with them. This however gives you no right to attempt to evict them from the hobby.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Meeting people like that can drive people away from the hobby but I wouldn't say the contrary is true. For example, maybe the club owners did exactly what you advise, they banned those customers, but since you never set foot in the club again, they haven't recovered you as a customer.
In my area, we built a fine roleplaying community organizing a lot of one-shot adventure tournaments, with simplified rules and pre-made characters, we asked for permission to LARP in our town streets, and often invited the media. A lot of would-be gamers thought that 4 hours of an adventure just to try it couldn't have hurt too much, and got hooked into the hobby. People appreciated the novelty of seeing boys and girls dressed in funny ways acting on the streets, and in more than one town the municipality offered roleplaying clubs a seat for a little price or even for free.
People got together, founded a society called '25th edition' that translates, prints and ships 3e-3.5e books all over the country, allowing so access to the hobby to non-english speaking players too - all of this from my city, that is hardly one of the biggest in Italy.
Sure it took a lot of work, but if you want to do something 'for the sake of the hobby' do something that matters.

BTW, Crothian, when you told your CPM he could not game with you, did you tell him why?


----------



## Crothian

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> BTW, Crothian, when you told your CPM he could not game with you, did you tell him why?




Yes I did.  I told him his hygene was bad and myself and my group just didn't want to be around with someone with that bad of hygene.  I told him in person and he just stodd there not saying anything so I walked away.


----------



## Crothian

Kalanyr said:
			
		

> So if I have a fungal infection in my foot I should be shown the door so I don't degrade the image of the hobby ?




Yes, that is exactly what we are saying.  When we say people who don't bathe and who's hygene is horrible what we really mean is a small fungal infenction on their foot.  

Actually, I'm talking about more extreme cases.  Now if you take you shoe and shock off to shove your infected foot in people's faces to show them, I'd have a problem with that.  But otherwise it'd be fine.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Good. I hope that shocked him enough to change his ways.
Poor CPM, for the rest of his life he'll have to think he could have been gaming with Crothian now.


----------



## Crothian

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Good. I hope that shocked him enough to change his ways.
> Poor CPM, for the rest of his life he'll have to think he could have been gaming with Crothian now.




Truthfully I doubt it did.  Hygene was not his biggest problem, but hopefully he was able to straighten out his life.


----------



## Kalanyr

Crothian said:
			
		

> Yes, that is exactly what we are saying.  When we say people who don't bathe and who's hygene is horrible what we really mean is a small fungal infenction on their foot.
> 
> Actually, I'm talking about more extreme cases.  Now if you take you shoe and shock off to shove your infected foot in people's faces to show them, I'd have a problem with that.  But otherwise it'd be fine.




This is fair enough. I'm just wondering how you tell Bad Hygeine apart from such things, since when I did have a fungal infection I really wasn't about to tell people about, the second paragraph in your answer illustrates why (and I seriously wouldn't blame anyone for a bad response to that).


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

snip


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> They may appear so, but they are speculative, not givens.
> 
> The divorce rate statistic is easily confirmed, but others, and your intepretations of them, are difficult, at best.  Americans value their children less than Italians?  I dunno; I find that claim outrageous.
> 
> True, but that's a consequence of the idea that kids move out when they reach adulthood, not a cause.  Throughout American history, I'd bet the average age of newlyweds has been increasing.  Not that I've looked up that to confirm, or anything.  But Americans, in relation to many other cultures I've seen, are much more mobile.
> 
> Yes and no.  You've found one counter example, but ignored examples that would have shown that Americans don't get married any earlier than many other cultures, and in fact much later in life than some.
> 
> Not moreso than anyone else, I'd wager.  I also don't see how your example of identifying with a particular neighborhood is indicative of the "fractiousness" of Americans anyway.
> 
> And here's where your reasoning really gets wonky; because there's a change in popular opinion and habits, there's a backlash creating the prejudice?  A prejudice that pre-existed the change?
> 
> Now, you're telling me that the real estate industry is driving cultural pressure for gamers to move out of their parents' basements or risk looking like losers?  We're moving into the realm of conspiracy theory here...




Actually, I think you have the flow of my argument somewhat confused.

The question I was responding to is why the idea of moving out of the house early as adults works for Americans.  Not why the idea came to be, so I wasn't looking to unearth a history so much as what the idea does and is supported by.

And I never argued that the real estate industry is funding people on these boards to attack live at homers, just that people moving out young is a pretty important factor in 

Americans probably value their own children as much as any human beings do, but it would be hard to walk down the street with a child in Italy and a child in America and claim that American culture as a whole values the presence of children as much as Italians do.  In Italy people carry candy around to give to children, such a reaction is much rarer in Americans and children are frequently complained about as an intrusion in the public sphere.

But that is niether here nor there, my point was particularly on Adult children in the home or even near the home.  That it seems is a given in this debate, and it is specifically what I was referring to me.

In terms of marriage, you also notice that I mentioned cohabitation.  Moving out of the house supports both patterns.  Even if there are other cultures that get married earlier, you cannot deny that leaving the parental home plays a huge part in most patterns of American courtship, whether it's getting married young as people do here or moving into a home with an SO and getting married late as people do elsewhere.  Or just having a crib you can mack down with a hottie at.  Any way you shake it, courtship is seen as hinging on a seperate home.

Again, not a case of how this came to be, just one part of the case of how this is.

In terms of the American parents, I might have been clearer there, I meant that American parents, as a group, are not as easy to good to live with as Italian parents.  Everyone seems to have agreed on that point.

You can certainly be a divorced set of parents and contribute to your childrens' lives and society very effectively, it would be difficult to argue, however, that you would be functional for creating an extended family in a single residence.

I worked very hard on the fractious point to state exactly what I meant.  Americans are not more fractious in that they have an inherently different human nature, they are more fractious in that they express the divisive aspect of human nature differently.  Sectarianism, for instance, is a very big deal in other nations, but American protestants switch churches with great frequency and little fuss.  I'm not saying it's not there, just that it is uniquely expressed.  Similarly, in America neighborhoods associate based on different principles than they do in other nations.  

Now, that difference is very intertwined with the way our real estate market works and I don't know that a strictly linear relationship between the market and the attitude can be defined.

But either way, the idea that coming to live in the Shady Oaks division says a lot about the values you hold certainly would contribute to the idea that making a choice for where you choose to live would be a part of the general adult decisions to pick your own values.

Mind you I would not deny that neighborhoods work differently in cities like Chicago, but even there choosing to live on the Gold Coast says a lot more about you than where your family is from, in fact it probably doesn't say where your family is from if you are above a certain age.  Which is the point.

You have my reasoning wrong on the wonky bit.  People were moving out of their parents homes at a fairly early age since WWII.  Earlier that and it's a good bit more complicated.

The universal, in so far as we've characterized it, negative reaction to people living with their parents comes a bit later.  Before 1950 I've heard or seen living at home referred to as a curiousity, but not as a sign of idiocy, though idiocy would certainly be an explanation.

As the reality of the difficulty of moving out increases, the behaviour of moving at home is going to attract more attention, and much of that attention is going to be negative.

If you're big into mimetism or even general rhetorical theory, you might argue that the idea is working to defend itself, but I'm not making that argument here.

I would point out that much popular wisdom is pretty wonky in it's own right, and that when the Gen Xer reputation for slacking was discussed it was often discussed in light of the fact that they had a higher rate of living at home.  The idea that the fact that more people were living at home might have something negative to say about the idea that slacking=living at home was not explored.

Very:
"You're a slacker because you are living at home, and you are living at home because you are a slacker."

Voila, circularity insues.

I hope this explanation explains some of what I was trying to do, though I might add that I was deliberatley ignoring explanations like, 'it's a part of the American dream,' or, 'cause of our pioneer heritage,' not because I think they are irrelevant, though that is possible, but because I thought a more material explanation would be more interesting to an audience that would ask such a question in the first place.

Plus, those explanations had already been discussed.

Personally, I do think that the living at home=slacker trope is pretty flawed, and that is because I have known Italians.  If you live at home and you are as gentle, gracious, and good natured as the Italians I have known and liked then you are welcome at my gaming table any day of the week.

Ditto with unemployment.  I got no call to be down on a person who is pleasant to game with just cause they don't make the money I do.  Same with someone who makes a lot more money than I do.

The problem with CPM is not that he lives at home or has no job, the problem is that he smells of cat urine and hits on 16 year olds.  

Or at least, those strike me as the real problems of the many that have been mentioned thus far.

Now whether moving away from home young is a good idea or not is a subject for another thread, but it does seem like an explanation of the behaviour is necessary for understanding how it entered this thread as unusual, much less a problem, in the first place.

Also, and this wasn't in the above post, but for the record, Turks are not Arabs, and Islam is a religion not a culture.  Using the marriage customs of a Lebannese population to comment on Turkish customs is like using Italian customs to comment on Mexican ones.  Yeah, they're both Catholic and their histories are intertwined way back when, but they live in completely different places and have very different societies.

It's not necessarily a relevant point, the argument wasn't meant to be one over Turkish religion just a demonstration of the way home owning and courtship can interact not a counter-example, but it's just something that's important to know.

And again, I didn't mean to comment on Parenting in Americans just the suitability of said parents, again as a general group, for encouraging people to live with them.  Mea culpa, mea culpa.


----------



## Nisarg

Crothian said:
			
		

> Then the people who own these stores need to take action or other people who shop there need to complain to the owners.  I've refused to shop at storeds who had bad customer service, and we've had threads here complaining about how bad customer service is not that uncommon.  Perhaps people need to ban together to help in this area.





Absolutely, and part of that banning together is not seeing the FLGS as "evil capitalists" for expecting and holding up certain rules of behaviour in their store. They aren't oppresive evil profiteerers just because they don't want you shouting about "raping everyone in the halfling village" in their retail space.

Nisarg


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> If you're big into mimetism or even general rhetorical theory, you might argue that the idea is working to defend itself, but I'm not making that argument here.



Please don't.  Mimetics makes my teeth itch.


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Canis said:
			
		

> Please don't.  Mimetics makes my teeth itch.




yeah, in general it's an odd sort of idea, but I do like Neal Stephenson books so it can't be all terrible.

It does strike me as pretty unnecessary given how well the humanities deal with these issues, but I suppose if you don't want the humanities you'd need something like this to cover the ground.

Back to Topic:

I agree that game stores should feel free to regulate the environment.  I, for one, am particularly appalled that anyone should think or be allowed to think that a gaming store is an appropriate environment for any sort of flirting.

I have to say that I prefer stores that keep the actual role-playing in a more out of the way corner.

Not that I think that it's a shameful activity, but it is sort of intimate, more so than chess or bridge, in that it requires a fairly high level of interaction between the people involved.

Having it out in front of the register, even the role-playing is respectable or interesting, creates this odd sort of social obstacle you have to work around to get any business done.

Card and board games present the same sort of, this is an active and fun - in a gamist sort of way - feel without making you feel like your intruding on people's attentions.

Though, I have to say one of my favorite raised eyebrow moments in a game store involved a session of illuminati and one of the players saying, "...and the lawngnomes will attempt to destroy Britain..."


----------



## Incenjucar

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> I agree that game stores should feel free to regulate the environment.  I, for one, am particularly appalled that anyone should think or be allowed to think that a gaming store is an appropriate environment for any sort of flirting.




...I'm assuming you mean obnoxious harrassment that would get you thrown out of anywhere else...?

If you catch someone looking you over and wink at them for it, I hardly see why that would be bad in a gaming store...


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> ...I'm assuming you mean obnoxious harrassment that would get you thrown out of anywhere else...?
> 
> If you catch someone looking you over and wink at them for it, I hardly see why that would be bad in a gaming store...




Well certainly for the first part, but for the second part...

...given that most stores feature all the romantic atmosphere of a cut rate libarary/cafeteria...

...I might wink, but only as a prelude to taking it outside.


----------



## Desdichado

Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> I agree that game stores should feel free to regulate the environment.  I, for one, am particularly appalled that anyone should think or be allowed to think that a gaming store is an appropriate environment for any sort of flirting.



Oddly enough, though, nobody has a problem with flirting at the video store, or at the restaurant, or pretty much any other store.  Why are game stores particularly inappropriate?


			
				Dr. Strangemonkey said:
			
		

> I have to say that I prefer stores that keep the actual role-playing in a more out of the way corner.
> 
> Not that I think that it's a shameful activity, but it is sort of intimate, more so than chess or bridge, in that it requires a fairly high level of interaction between the people involved.
> 
> Having it out in front of the register, even the role-playing is respectable or interesting, creates this odd sort of social obstacle you have to work around to get any business done.



Or, conversely, it can be a great marketing tool for anyone walking in.  It all depends on what's being done with it, I suppose.  In general, I agree with you personally, but I can see reasons for putting it in an area where people browsing can also see it.

I guess it also depends on who's playing.  If you have the "we rape everyone in the halfing village" kind of players, or the really noisy disruptive players, then you particularly do not want them up front, I'd think.  Otherwise, it may not be a bad idea.[/QUOTE]


----------



## WizarDru

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Oddly enough, though, nobody has a problem with flirting at the video store, or at the restaurant, or pretty much any other store. Why are game stores particularly inappropriate?



 Possibly because at the video store or restaurant, the male-to-female ratio is generally much more even, perhaps?  Moreover, it's a much more socially normalized situation, I think.  Everyone has eaten at a restaurant at some point, and the social contract is pretty straightforward and well-known.  In a gaming store (and to a lesser degree, comic store) it sometimes appears like neither potential customer nor employee fully grasp the implied contract when a woman or girl enters the place.



			
				Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Or, conversely, it can be a great marketing tool for anyone walking in. It all depends on what's being done with it, I suppose. In general, I agree with you personally, but I can see reasons for putting it in an area where people browsing can also see it.



 I agree.  It's a potential mixed-bag.  One way that my mother handled my getting into D&D was by letting us hold the games at my house, and she _watched_ them.  When you actually see people playing, it seems _much less_ mystical and threatening than what you might concieve of in a mental fantasy of it.  On the other hand, I've long held that Role-playing is *not* a spectator sport, for the exact same reason.  The minutiae of gameplay can be terribly tedious if you'r not involved.


----------



## WayneLigon

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Or, conversely, it can be a great marketing tool for anyone walking in. It all depends on what's being done with it, I suppose. In general, I agree with you personally, but I can see reasons for putting it in an area where people browsing can also see it.
> 
> I guess it also depends on who's playing. If you have the "we rape everyone in the halfing village" kind of players, or the really noisy disruptive players, then you particularly do not want them up front, I'd think. Otherwise, it may not be a bad idea.



Before the current gaming store, we had a large used bookstore that had a significant section devoted to RPG's and board games. The owner would let card and board games be played out in front, but not RPG's because the players apparently were either just too strange or they were more of the 'we kill everyone in the halfling village _then_ rape them' type. I have no idea if at one point they ever did let people play RPGs in the front area and there was an 'incident' or not. 

I still think it's a great marketing tool if you can find a group that will behave itself. Seeing people sitting around gaming is what got me into the hobby in the first place.


----------



## Desdichado

WizarDru said:
			
		

> Possibly because at the video store or restaurant, the male-to-female ratio is generally much more even, perhaps?  Moreover, it's a much more socially normalized situation, I think.  Everyone has eaten at a restaurant at some point, and the social contract is pretty straightforward and well-known.  In a gaming store (and to a lesser degree, comic store) it sometimes appears like neither potential customer nor employee fully grasp the implied contract when a woman or girl enters the place.



Forgive me if I seem to be putting words into your mouth that you don't mean to be saying, WizarDru, but this doesn't seem to be a complaint about the inappropriateness of the location as a meat market (relative to the local Blockbuster or Krogers, at least, not that any of those locations are the kinds of meat market I'd be interested in) so much as it is that the typical guy at this store is very poor at flirting and therefore is more likely to cause problems not because of what he's doing but because he's the one doing it, or because he doesn't grasp the intricacies of doing it appropriately.

In which case the argument has come full circle again, and we're back to saying, essentially, that cat piss man is hitting on the chicks in the gamestore, scaring them away.   :\  After all, if Vin Diesel were hanging around the game store hitting on chicks, we'd likely see a lot more of them suddenly interested in gaming.


----------



## WayneLigon

Another thing completely off topic: the word 'Cat Piss Man'. I first heard this term in an online comics journal article, Retail: The Wrath of Cat Piss Man.


----------



## Desdichado

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Another thing completely off topic: the word 'Cat Piss Man'. I first heard this term in an online comics journal article, Retail: The Wrath of Cat Piss Man.



Heh.  Great article.  Very funny.


----------



## WizarDru

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> In which case the argument has come full circle again, and we're back to saying, essentially, that cat piss man is hitting on the chicks in the gamestore, scaring them away. :\ After all, if Vin Diesel were hanging around the game store hitting on chicks, we'd likely see a lot more of them suddenly interested in gaming.



 Well, I was more pointing to the fact that the demographics are a little wonky, which might make someone more uncomfortable.  There was a cartoon done by a comic artist about some of the local stores in the Philly area, specifically about one of Philly's biggest stores, Fat Jack's Comics (original Fat Jack's Comic Crypt, or maybe it still is, I dunno).  Anywho, the comic opined the fact that any female who wandered into the store was a rarity, and an odd experience, since everyone assumed she'd wandered into the wrong store by accident.  

 But I get your point, and I think I agree.  I wonder though, what the ratio of flirting is per female customer in a game store versus those other venues.  That is, on average, how often does a woman in a supermarket or video store get hit on versus in a gaming store...hence the demographics I was aluding to.  Not that it's inappropriate, just that the frequency might be somewhat skewed.

 And my wife wouldn't really go for a Vin Diesel.  Now if Hugh Jackman was a gamer, well.....


----------



## Desdichado

WizarDru said:
			
		

> And my wife wouldn't really go for a Vin Diesel.  Now if Hugh Jackman was a gamer, well.....



Heh.  Mine neither.  I actually don't know who her current favorite is, oddly enough.


----------



## Incenjucar

Eh.  I figure flirting works just about anywhere if you know how to do it.

A little smile here or there can lead to chatting fairly quickly (like how I chatted up that young woman who was very proud of her groups habit of using chaotic neutral characters).  If gender ratio is an issue, then nobody would be able to flirt at college, considering there are twice as many women there as men.

...A mentality I condone, because it means I'll just have to pick up the slack.


----------



## Nisarg

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> Another thing completely off topic: the word 'Cat Piss Man'. I first heard this term in an online comics journal article, Retail: The Wrath of Cat Piss Man.





Brilliant article, and the guy expresses exactly what is my own point of view on the subject.

Nisarg


----------



## Taren Nighteyes

I can see why women would feel threatened in a LGS.  I mean, you have a combination of factors:

1.  Social retards (it seems most stores I've been in have some of these types of customers)

2.  Predominately male (almost exclusively in some stores)

3.  Hygenically challenged guys

etc.

What is boils down to, is that Ladies Who Game (which would make an EXCELLENT Playboy spread *wink*) go to gaming stores to check out the new stuff, buy comics, games, and chit chat about gaming.  Getting hit on when you are the only woman in the store (or nearly the only woman) can make a person feel threatened.

Food places, grocery stores, and most other places have a good mix of men to women and in the case of food places, people often eat with company.  Safety in numbers 

BTW - the Playboy comment was not intended to offend any women in general.  I just remember hearing about a "Women of Enron" issue and it clicked with what I was typing


----------



## trowizilla

Taren Nighteyes, that is precisely why I avoid my FLGS now. The last time I went in, there were around twenty guys, aged around 13 to late 40s, and I felt eyes on my back the entire time I was there. I wasn't wearing anything skimpy, or doing anything to solicit attention in any way: I walked in, bought some dice, and left. As I left, I noticed one middle-aged gamer actually staring with his mouth open through the window. It took a while for the prickly feeling on the back of my neck to go away, and from now on I'll be buying my rpg materials at other, more girl-friendly stores. 

Also. To the cat-piss-man who pinched my butt on the escalator at DragonCon: if that hand gets anywhere near me again, you're going to lose it.

I think women would be a great deal more likely to stay interested in gaming if they didn't have to run the gauntlet of inappropriate behavior, stares, whispers, and bad touching whenever they enter a gaming-centric area. One would think the cat-piss-man's acqauintences would "encourage" him to clean up, simply because he's keeping all the chicks away. Social awkwardness we can handle (after all, just as many of us are shy and weird around new people), outright unpleasantness, not so much.

Just curious: has anyone ever met a cat-piss-woman?


----------



## diaglo

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Heh.  Mine neither.  I actually don't know who her current favorite is, oddly enough.




my wife said she likes younger men so Pierce Brosnan came up.

she says he is looking better now with a touch of gray than he did before.

i told her i wouldn't die my hair anymore if that made her feel better.


----------



## WizarDru

trowizilla said:
			
		

> Just curious: has anyone ever met a cat-piss-woman?



 Yes, yes I have.

*[shudder]*

 She tried to invite herself to many games that I ran.  The only reason we didn't run her out on a rail sooner was her attachment with a _good_ player.  Once he hooked up with another one of the group and his feelings were in no danger of being hurt, we made it clear she was no longer welcome so fast, it should have been a Mutants&Masterminds Power Stunt. 

 Inappropriate clothing, blackened and yellowed teeth, bad B.O. and breath that smelled worse...oh, yes, cat-piss-woman most assuredly exists.

 Gah.  I _DID NOT_ need that memory re-awakened.


----------



## SteelDraco

trowizilla said:
			
		

> Just curious: has anyone ever met a cat-piss-woman?



Yeah, several of them. But then, I work in a LGS, so I get all kinds of gamers coming in. There a few pairs of CPM/CPW that have apparently found each other, and a few Cat Piss Women who come in on their own. I haven't gamed with any of them, though. 

I've generally only had a few problems with people at conventions, though, and most of those I solved by leaving and gaming with other people. The only real problem I've had was when an online friend we were staying with vouched for a CPM, and we ended up sharing a hotel room with him at GenCon a few years back. That was... unfortunate.


----------



## Desdichado

trowizilla said:
			
		

> Just curious: has anyone ever met a cat-piss-woman?



I'm sad to say I can confirm their existence.


----------



## Dravar

Just as a side-note, everyone needs to remember that you never know what the models questioned are like outside of this particular job.  I know one of the models who worked the White Wolf booth, and she is quite emotionally unstable with a tendency for exaggeration.


----------



## Incenjucar

trowizilla said:
			
		

> Just curious: has anyone ever met a cat-piss-woman?




...you've never heard of a 'cat lady' before...?  Heck, it's a popular enough stereotype that they had a villain of that nature on the "Kids Next Door" cartoon.


----------



## Prince of Happiness

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I'm sad to say I can confirm their existence.




Ugh, count me as another poor unfortunate as well. What was worse was that she was also fond of rose water. Rose water and cat piss. What grrrreeeeaaaaaat combo.


----------



## Wereserpent

It saddens me to see such hate for those who are people too.  Next time you run into a "Cat-piss man" why dont you try to talk to them and be nice.  Sure he may not smell the greatest, but he may actaully be a very nice guy.  If you actually make friends with him, then maybe you could eventually tell him to bathe cause it bothers you and the people around him as well.  Being nice and polite helps a lot.


----------



## Incenjucar

The trick with any altruistic act is to the weigh the total benefit.

While it's nice for someone who has tons of time on their hands and is in no possible danger of detrimenting their own life to go and try to rehibilitate someone, someone who has a busy life and only so much leeway does better to lead by example instead.

I, myself, used to be rather shut-in (I'm basically an anti-social person trying to force his way through recovery, and, thankfully, succeeding by leaps and bounds), and I can see it in others very easily (they tend to look down at the ground wherever they go, and stand apart from the crowd at all times -- a habit which I still have a bit of, admittedly).  I would love to help them move on with their lives like I have, but, trick is, I have my own life to keep improving.  I'm nowhere near my 'maximum possible happiness' state, so I've really got better things to do than to try and force happiness on someone else.


----------



## Serps

I disagree with you, Galeros. I think that people whose hygiene is bad enough to affect their relationship with other people show a lack of respect for those around them. I don't care what they look like or what their likes and dislikes are; if they interact with people to their detriment, I will let them know in no uncertain terms that their conduct is unacceptable. Whether they are nice people or not is immaterial; you can love a child yet still admonish him or her for bad behaviour.


----------



## Dr. Strangemonkey

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Oddly enough, though, nobody has a problem with flirting at the video store, or at the restaurant, or pretty much any other store.  Why are game stores particularly inappropriate?
> 
> Or, conversely, it can be a great marketing tool for anyone walking in.  It all depends on what's being done with it, I suppose.  In general, I agree with you personally, but I can see reasons for putting it in an area where people browsing can also see it.
> 
> I guess it also depends on who's playing.  If you have the "we rape everyone in the halfing village" kind of players, or the really noisy disruptive players, then you particularly do not want them up front, I'd think.  Otherwise, it may not be a bad idea.



[/QUOTE]

Hmm, I would say that there is a unique aspect to a gaming store, and to gaming in general, in that it is an involved, small group, casual activity.

And I think that makes the situation a little more delicate.  Certainly, flirting can be acceptable in any number of situations, but I think it certainly needs to be handled far more discreetely in a situation like a gaming store, or library, than it does in, say, a bar.  

For similar reasons, I prefer a card or board game up front, trying to talk around or to someone actively in character feels a little bit like interrupting a play.

Certainly, it's not a problem if it's both up front and out of the way, but at my local FGS I often have to talk over a group when I'm trying to talk to the clerk, or even respond to his greetings, and it feels unnecessarily rude.


----------



## Shining Dragon

Galeros said:
			
		

> It saddens me to see such hate for those who are people too.  Next time you run into a "Cat-piss man" why dont you try to talk to them and be nice.  Sure he may not smell the greatest, but he may actaully be a very nice guy.  If you actually make friends with him, then maybe you could eventually tell him to bathe cause it bothers you and the people around him as well.  Being nice and polite helps a lot.




Hate? Disgust maybe, but not hate.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Entering the fray LATE!  (BTW: that page 1 line about goats & kibble...LOL!)  And I loved that _Retail: The Wrath of Cat Piss Man_ article.

I have to agree- there are fringe types in any hobby.  But we seem to have an inordinately visible (smellable?) bunch in ours.

Personally, having learned from past experience, I no longer play with the radically socially maladroit gamers out there unless I think I can be a positive force in mainstreaming them.

I can find a new game group more easily than I can reconstruct my public or even private image.

Aesop's Fable of the stork and the crows is famous for the aphorism : "You are known by the company you keep."  And I simply refuse to be tarred by the same brush as these guys and girls who won't/don't/can't conform to civilized behavior.

Thus, I will _no longer_ game with those RPG hobbyists who (and these are all from past experience):

1) don't bathe regularly.  (Hey-you show up to game night sweaty from working as a house contractor in the hot Texas sun, that's one thing- but there's NO EXCUSE for similar odious scentage on a regular, repeated basis from someone who works a white-collar job in an air-conditioned room.)

P.S.: wearing a freaking PARKA (no, I'm not exagerating) in _Texas_ in _July_ won't help your B.O. either.

2) pick their noses with their fingers up to the last knuckle joint and flick the resultant produce across the table..._especially_ WHILE IN SOMEONE ELSE'S HOUSE!  (Not my house, thank God, but the host was incredibly patient!)

3) insist on wearing TV/Movie/ancient culture costumes to special occasions/official functions as if they were suits or military uniforms.  THEY AREN'T.  And, despite the brilliant recreation of a Samurai's garb, you are a _teenaged white guy in Texas_, not an actual Samurai, so removing your REPLICA Katana from its scabbard does NOT mean you have to draw blood- if you honestly think it does and you keep saying that, you'll be under arrest VERY soon, if only for a 24-hour psych evaluation.

4) run "deviant" campaigns.  As in, its OK to run a "villain" campaign, but when every PC/Player wallows in graphic detail of, say, "Hannibal Lecter-esque" behavior every session, for months on end...that bespeaks not roleplay, but disturbed individuals.  I'm sorry- I don't wan't any part of a campaign in which the "torture/kill-ressurect-repeat" tactic is the favored way of getting your XP.

5) don't realize that its BORING when they tell you of their screenplay/fanfic/favorite PC's life-history, line-by-line. For HOURS. Every time we talk. Regardless of the general flow of conversation.  RPGs and related hobbies are (for me, at least) a hobby, NOT a religion and NOT a way of life.

6) exhibit any other behavior that just generally creeps me out.  Hitting on the underaged definitely qualifies.  Regardless of sex or orientation.  That's not social, that's criminal.  So is illicit drug use.

Now, I'm no Vin Diesel, but I can walk into a room without causing stares...unless I wander into a KKK rally.  And I KNOW there are lots of good, relatively normal gamers out there who don't fit into any of the above groups- I game with 2 such groups right now.  Those listed above were all exceptions...but they were EXCEPTIONAL exceptions, to be sure, who will be forever etched into my mind until senility sets in.

So, if you want to game with CPM, knock yourself out.  You won't, however, find me at your table.

On the flip side, most of these poor people are beyond help, so your or my lack of approval won't do much to help OR hinder them.  They are what they are.


----------



## Desdichado

Galeros said:
			
		

> It saddens me to see such hate for those who are people too.  Next time you run into a "Cat-piss man" why dont you try to talk to them and be nice.  Sure he may not smell the greatest, but he may actaully be a very nice guy.  If you actually make friends with him, then maybe you could eventually tell him to bathe cause it bothers you and the people around him as well.  Being nice and polite helps a lot.



I don't hate CPM, I just hate being around him.  And you know what?  I was nice to Cat Piss Boy in High School.  About six months later after trying to scrape him off my leg, I was able to remove the parasite that he instantly became.

Oh, sure, I'll be polite to CPM.  I'm reasonably polite to most people anyway, especially when I first meet them.  But I'm not going to go there again.


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

trowizilla said:
			
		

> Just curious: has anyone ever met a cat-piss-woman?



Yep, me too.  She was everything that is wrong with the world rolled up into one psychotic, foul-smelling package.  She was also absolutely thrilled at being the only woman with whom most of the group ever interacted, so she tended to get defensive, and then physically violent, when another woman was around.

Luckily, I was only part of the group long enough to witness one of those incidents, though I'm told they were recurrent.  That was ever so much fun.  Incidentally, right after that was when I took a 5 year break from gaming.


----------



## jester47

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I don't hate CPM, I just hate being around him.  And you know what?  I was nice to Cat Piss Boy in High School.  About six months later after trying to scrape him off my leg, I was able to remove the parasite that he instantly became.
> 
> Oh, sure, I'll be polite to CPM.  I'm reasonably polite to most people anyway, especially when I first meet them.  But I'm not going to go there again.




Hey, it was only because that cat was darned sneaky!  

Heh.  But in truth I was simply a teenager with a neurotic cat who did not fold his cloths and put them away.  I was well adjusted enough to know that the neurotic cat was really crimping my style, and I took steps to fix it, it took a year to get to the point where I never smelled.  Largely cause Kubla was darned sneaky...   The problem was not because I had some anti-social upbringing problem.  Granted I was socially anti-social (i.e. a punk teenager) but that was more a symptom of teenage awkwardness than anything else.  

All joking and explanations aside Josh, I had the same experiences with some folks in Junior High.  You showed them kindness and a similar interest and boom, you are their new best friend.  It took me a while to learn.  On a different note the real cat piss boy shared my last name, which was mortifying.  But he was really just very, very obnoxious and rude rather than smelly.

Aaron


----------



## WizarDru

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I don't hate CPM, I just hate being around him. And you know what? I was nice to Cat Piss Boy in High School. About six months later after trying to scrape him off my leg, I was able to remove the parasite that he instantly became.
> 
> Oh, sure, I'll be polite to CPM. I'm reasonably polite to most people anyway, especially when I first meet them. But I'm not going to go there again.



 W0rd.

 Seriously, I try to be polite to most folks in general, as it benefits you more to be polite and cordial unless someone earns your ire.  That's just good manners.  But I don't have enough hours in the day to deal with cat-piss-anyone.  Never mind the whole parenting issues involved.


----------



## Desdichado

jester47 said:
			
		

> I had the same experiences with some folks in Junior High.  You showed them kindness and a similar interest and boom, you are their new best friend.  It took me a while to learn.  On a different note the real cat piss boy shared my last name, which was mortifying.  But he was really just very, very obnoxious and rude rather than smelly.



Well, yeah, that particular Cat Piss Boy ironically did everthing Cat Pissy except smell like cats.  I don't particularly remember him smelling at all, to be honest with you.  And I don't think his hygiene was particularly bad.  But all the other hallmarks of the CPM Syndrome he had nailed down perfectly.  He was a pretty disturbed individual.

But that's the thing; few people fits the stereotype perfectly on every front,  but the Syndrome still exists.  I had another guy; used to be a friend of mine as a kid, who later in life fit the stereotype perfectly except he was rail thin.  He didn't live in his parents basement only because nobody has basements in Texas; I think he still lives in the same bedroom he did as a child, though.  Ironically, he was the one who "introduced" me to RPGs.  I did play some Basic earlier with another kid who was more my type, but I was much more interested in playing with his Star Wars action figure collection, which was _quite_ extensive, than I was in listening to him blab on about 10x10 rooms and the like...


----------



## Nisarg

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> 3) insist on wearing TV/Movie/ancient culture costumes to special occasions/official functions as if they were suits or military uniforms.  THEY AREN'T.  And, despite the brilliant recreation of a Samurai's garb, you are a _teenaged white guy in Texas_, not an actual Samurai, so removing your REPLICA Katana from its scabbard does NOT mean you have to draw blood- if you honestly think it does and you keep saying that, you'll be under arrest VERY soon, if only for a 24-hour psych evaluation.




Ah yes.. nothing quite so pathetic as the guy who feels its his "duty" as a "starfleet officer" to wear his uniform to the museum opening, new years party, or private party. 

(its one thing to wear it at a con, then you're just a loser, but wearing it to public events unrelated to ST is truly dysfunctional)

But the furthest extremes of pathetic that I encountered was the guy who wore his starfleet uniform during Rememberance day (the Canadian equivalent of memorial day, for you yankees).  That went from pathetic to downright offensive: I'm not a great fan of the military-industrial complex, but those joes gained the RIGHT to wear their uniforms on that day because they were in life-threatening battles, whether fighting for something they believed in or because they were innocent dupes of the government war propaganda, but in either case they paid for it in blood. The pathetic mouth-breather who feels the need to sully that by wearing a FAKE uniform from a FICTIONAL series, and refer to himself as an officer, and pretend he knows how they feel because he's a "military man" too, is someone who merits a well-earned beating from the local Infantry Battalion. 

Nisarg


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

The worst I've seen down here in the USA was the one who went to jury duty in the Starfleet costume.

You may have seen that one on CNN...

The judge allowed the juror to serve for several days before dismissing him (or was it a her- I honestly don't recall) from service.

Had it been my courtroom, I would have yanked that one from box personally for a 24 hour evalutation, ESPECIALLY after the CNN interview in which the misguided soul stated that "this is my uniform, and since it is a uniform, it is appropriate to wear for all formal or dress occasions."

My entire game group groaned as we watched this.  Even the booger-flicker thought the guy was an embarrasment.


----------



## Desdichado

Dannyalcatraz said:
			
		

> Had it been my courtroom, I would have yanked that one from box personally for a 24 hour evalutation, ESPECIALLY after the CNN interview in which the misguided soul stated that "this is my uniform, and since it is a uniform, it is appropriate to wear for all formal or dress occasions."



Which was probably the point.  I'm sure it was all a clever ploy to get out of jury duty.  Too bad it didn't _exactly_ work.


----------



## Arnwyn

Nisarg said:
			
		

> The reasons for why I might have had more experience than others could have to do with regional issues (maybe western canada has a much higher degree of socially dysfunctional individuals joining RPG activities than other regions of north america?)



Not likely.


> or it could have to do with the mere fact that I've always made a point to be as active as possible in gaming at the local community level, and so I've been active in the places where CPM show up and become a problem (stores, clubs, and cons).



Much more likely. Reading through this entire thread and noting your many rather _absurd_ examples, I'd say it's more likely you (as in, you seem to have a penchant for hanging around places where these weirdos are likely to congregate, or you do something that attracts them). Star Fleet uniform at Remembrance Day? In Canada? Uh-huh.

Needless to say, I have never, ever, experienced anything you have.


----------



## Wereserpent

If they want to wear some costume in public then let them.  It is not like they are bothering you or anything and if if they enjoy doing that then there is nothing wrong with it.


----------



## jester47

Man, this thread is getting too big...

But anyways, 

Josh- actually I do not think that the woman that was featured on CNN in the jury duty thing was trying to get out of it.  She is also in the documentary Trekkies and in that she shows up at work in the uniform.  She makes people call her by her rank (commander) and apparently is a good manager of a print shop.  Now why does she think she has the right to wear this outfit and go by the name commander?  Well, apparently she is also the "commander" of the local chapter of some Star Trek fan club, which designates its chapters by ship number.  Apparently she takes it too seriously...

Galeros- Sure they can wear a costume in public, so long as it is appropriate.  When it becomes inappropritae is when it starts to bother other people.  And there are cases when they can wear a costume and it will bother people.  Like at jury duty.  Say I am a defendant or plaintif.  I see some nut in a starfleet uniform in the jury box.  It makes me worry cause I question her judgement.  I don't wear my rowing uniform to formal occasions.  Its a one piece spandex outfit.  Its only appropritate when I am in the boat.  Wearing it anywhere else will probably offend someone.  In that case I AM bothering them.  Walking to a con in your samurai costume is appropriate.  Going to the opening of a non-sci-fi meuseum, or the symphony in your Bobba Fett costume is not.  And that bothers people.  And depending on the context it does hurt people, in that people that associate with that person are treated like that person.  This is best seen in reactions to Leprosy.  CPM/costume mans presence causes a leper reaction from the rest of the population.  This reaction can be damaging: economicly (CPM and the game store) socially (trekker making a dubious jury) and physically (somtimes serious germs or fear of them).  While the fear may seem irrational, its rooted in the rational. Simply put bad smells and strange dress signify danger in the animal kingdom.  So how do you solve the problem?  Go and try to convice large ammounts of people that their evolutionary instincts are wrong?  Or convince CPM/costume man that his evolutionary instincts are right and he should listen to them?  One is a whole lot less then 7 billion or whatever we are at now. 

Aaron.


----------



## jester47

There is a fine line between clever and stupid.  Go to a con or costume party as the Fett, you rule.  Go to the symphony as the Fett, you suck.  The movie Don Juan De Marco points out that one will be much happier if one learns when to be romantic (wear the don juan costume) and when to be serious (convince the doctors the drugs are working).  Someone who is into it all the time is stale.  Its a matter of knowing when certain things are appropriate and when they are not.  

Aaron.


----------



## Wereserpent

I suppose I can see your point Jester.  I am just saying do not judge them for what they wear and enjoy.  Someone wearing a Boba Fett costume everywhere they go would not bother me, but I admit I do not let many things bother me.


----------



## WizarDru

Galeros said:
			
		

> I suppose I can see your point Jester. I am just saying do not judge them for what they wear and enjoy. Someone wearing a Boba Fett costume everywhere they go would not bother me, but I admit I do not let many things bother me.



 You're also not a defendant looking over at a jury that may be deciding about your future or your life or the prosecutor who's trying an important case, both of whom are thinking "can I trust this person, who may have trouble separating fantasy from reality, with judging a serious legal matter, possibly with lethal consequences?"  Or they may be thinking "even if I win, Star Trek Fan over there is going to be grounds for an appeal or dismisal, if only because she has the appearance of poor judgement or possibly even a delusional state."

 Imagine a funeral, where you've just buried your parents or your siblings, and in walks someone dressed like a celtic warrior with blue skin and runes...and you're of Chinese descent.  How would you feel?  Like maybe this moron was being disrespectful or even mocking the deceased?  I would.

 Some things are just not socially appropriate, IMHO.


----------



## jester47

Galeros said:
			
		

> I suppose I can see your point Jester.  I am just saying do not judge them for what they wear and enjoy.  Someone wearing a Boba Fett costume everywhere they go would not bother me, but I admit I do not let many things bother me.




Well, you might be able to get away with the Fett in a lot of places cause he looks cool and has the helmet covering the face, and lots of people know who it is.  If its a place you pass through, then they probably assume you are on the way to some appropriate event.  It also depends on the quality of the costume.  But a lot of people would find a Fett at the symphony disturbing.  Not because its some fan, but because it trips their warning lights in the back of thier minds.  However a star fleet uniform might slip by ok.  But but just even basicly wearing a costume around all the time, or to the high brow social functions, really does cheapen the costume experience...  Like I love wearing my italian suit.  It rocks! (I jokingly call it the assassin suit.).  Now, if I had to wear one every day... I think I might not appreciate it so much...  and there are certain places where a suit is not appropriate either.  Its all about knowing what is appropriate when.  

Aaron. 

Aaron.


----------



## Lichtenhart

jester47 said:
			
		

> Galeros- Sure they can wear a costume in public, so long as it is appropriate.  When it becomes inappropritae is when it starts to bother other people.  And there are cases when they can wear a costume and it will bother people.  Like at jury duty.  Say I am a defendant or plaintif.  I see some nut in a starfleet uniform in the jury box.  It makes me worry cause I question her judgement.  I don't wear my rowing uniform to formal occasions.  Its a one piece spandex outfit.  Its only appropritate when I am in the boat.  Wearing it anywhere else will probably offend someone.  In that case I AM bothering them.  Walking to a con in your samurai costume is appropriate.  Going to the opening of a non-sci-fi meuseum, or the symphony in your Bobba Fett costume is not.  And that bothers people.  And depending on the context it does hurt people, in that people that associate with that person are treated like that person.  This is best seen in reactions to Leprosy.  CPM/costume mans presence causes a leper reaction from the rest of the population.  This reaction can be damaging: economicly (CPM and the game store) socially (trekker making a dubious jury) and physically (somtimes serious germs or fear of them).  While the fear may seem irrational, its rooted in the rational. Simply put bad smells and strange dress signify danger in the animal kingdom.  So how do you solve the problem?  Go and try to convice large ammounts of people that their evolutionary instincts are wrong?  Or convince CPM/costume man that his evolutionary instincts are right and he should listen to them?  One is a whole lot less then 7 billion or whatever we are at now.
> 
> Aaron.




Ok I've had enough. I've seen this that was an interesting thread degenerate into a "I've met this nutcase..." "oh but I met this one other nutcase" contest, and I didn't say anything, but I can't stand things like this.

This is about freedom. People fought and died to defend the right to say, print, think and wear what they wanted, without having to pass someone elses' judgement of appropriateness.
There are laws that say when someone's dress offend someone and, for obvious reasons, they are all pretty much about nudity.
If what they wear is not against the law, you can find them pathetic, you can refuse to have anything to do with them, but you have to treat them like any other citizen.
If you're the defendant or the prosecutor and one of the jury comes in her starfleet uniform, you could ask her removed. But they probably did something you didn't do, they questioned her, while you judge her only based on how she dress. Maybe wearing her uniform simply reminds her that a future without crime, violence and corruption is possible, something that she wants to be reminded of while in jury duty, and even if she is a little weird, she is not clouded in her judgement.
I think americans still have a majority of people who are christians. What if tomorrow this majority deems inappropriate wearing hador, or the jewish hat (forgive me, I can't remember the actual name right now)?
This way freedom dies. I'd rather keep the weirdos in starfleet uniform and blue celtic paint, thanks.

I'm all with Galeros on this one.


----------



## Incenjucar

Clearly the nutcases who wear the Trek uniforms are in violation of the Prime Directive*, and are interfering with another culture by wearing their uniforms (remember, the away teams always play dress up if they deal with a backwards culture).  What would captain (X) do?

*I haven't watched Trek for ages, so I'm not sure if I remember this right.


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> This is about freedom. People fought and died to defend the right to say, print, think and wear what they wanted, without having to pass someone elses' judgement of appropriateness.
> There are laws that say when someone's dress offend someone and, for obvious reasons, they are all pretty much about nudity.
> If what they wear is not against the law, you can find them pathetic, you can refuse to have anything to do with them, but you have to treat them like any other citizen.
> ...
> This way freedom dies. I'd rather keep the weirdos in starfleet uniform and blue celtic paint, thanks.



This has nothing to do with laws and limiting freedoms.  This has to do with appropriate behavior and social expectation.  You're using a tactic that I've seen a lot of gamers/sci-fi fans/etc. use when told they were behaving inappropriately: you're assuming the role of victim and calling people who have normal social expectations oppressive.

That's a load.  Part of being an adult human being is having empathy for others and realizing when your behavior is inappropriate and/or damaging to the welfare of others.

Scenario: A wake.  Bob's grandfather just died, and the family has gathered for the viewing.  Everyone is dressed in the socially appropriate way, i.e. blacks and dark greys, modestly cut dresses and sober suits.  Bob's secretary arrives wearing a low-cut red dress and heavy make-up.  The widowed grandmother sees this and is mortified and offended at the audacity of this woman.  The woman is ostracized by the funeral guests, and Bob arranges to have her transfered, because he can no longer stand the sight of her every day.

Who's the "victim"?

There isn't one.  No one was assaulted, and anyone claiming to be victimized in this situation needs to grow up.  That said, the grieving funeral-goers expect (and are in need of) certain social and emotional support.  It is an accepted social norm that you show your grief, and therefore your solidarity with (and support for) the grieving, via your choice of garments for the occasion.  Breaking those unspoken social rules is wildly inappropriate, rude, and indicative of a lack of empathy.

The courtroom example is similar.  People are expected to show a certain level of professionalism, judgment, and tact.  Decisions are being made that will change the course of people's lives.  Your dress and demeanor are indications of your implicit understanding of the gravity of the situation.  If it is inappropriate to wear a clown suit, then it is inappropriate to wear a Starfleet uniform.  While it is reasonable to want to be "[reminded] that a future without crime, violence and corruption is possible" while in a jury, I would argue that anyone so completely unaware of the social situation surrounding her is, indeed, showing signs of clouded judgment.  What that uniform means to her, personally, is a lot less important in a courtroom than what it means to the people around her, especially the people whose futures are being decided.


----------



## Arnwyn

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> This is about freedom. People fought and died to defend the right to say, print, think and wear what they wanted, without having to pass someone elses' judgement of appropriateness.



Complete and utter nonsense. "People fought and died to defend the right to say, print, think and wear what they wanted" without the worry of _being imprisoned or killed_.

Freedom from the judgement of Joe Citizen? Not bloody likely.


----------



## Desdichado

arnwyn said:
			
		

> Complete and utter nonsense. "People fought and died to defend the right to say, print, think and wear what they wanted" without the worry of _being imprisoned or killed_.
> 
> Freedom from the judgement of Joe Citizen? Not bloody likely.



Not to mention the fact that a lecture to Americans on the sacrifices of their forefathers from an Italian is a bit odd...


----------



## Lichtenhart

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Not to mention the fact that a lecture to Americans on the sacrifices of their forefathers from an Italian is a bit odd...



Oh yeah, I forgot that only american forefathers died for freedom.... :\


----------



## Lichtenhart

Canis said:
			
		

> Who's the "victim"?



If you build your case this way, then there is no victim. But I could build a slightly different case where the red dress of the woman was very important to the deceased, and she thinks he would like to see her this way at his funeral. Then all the family of the deceased would be the insensitive ones.

Those unspoken social rules you speak about, are just that: unspoken. That means they could not be perfectly clear to everyone in the same way. what breaks them for you is not what breaks them for another. That is why our society is based on written rules.

If the people whose future is being decided finds a starfleet uniform offensive, they only have to ask their attorney to have her removed from the jury. And many people on jury duty could have much more clouded judgement than her, only they fall within your unspoken rules so you can't notice.

We live more and more in a multicultural society, in Italy and in the States alike. We are going to face more and more often people that we don't understand. We'd better adjust ourselves not to judge people so hastily, no good can come from this.


----------



## Desdichado

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Oh yeah, I forgot that only american forefathers died for freedom.... :\



Heh.  Not my implication there.  Still, it's a misplaced rant anyway as arnwyn and Canis showed; if you understand freedom to mean "I can act like a complete jerk and a moron and nobody will judge me poorly for it" then that's certainly not the freedom _my_ forefathers fought and died for.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Nope, that is not my idea of freedom. But 'I can judge people poorly, and act along with this judgement, because IMO they acted like complete jerks and morons' is not usually a good prelude.


----------



## Navar

Nisarg said:
			
		

> People who go to "fandom" conventions, whether it be Star Trek, Comics, RPGs, Furry, or just about any other sort of non-sport or car related hobby, will tend to be the MOST fanatic followers of the hobby. The average gamer guy with a few hundred bucks is going to buy some books at his FLGS, or to go to Paris or Hawaii or blow it on a stereo system, not go to Gencon.
> 
> Among those most fanatic of the fanatics will also almost undoubtedly be the most pathetic. That by no means is to say that everyone there will be pathetic, just that there will be a disproportionate number of socially marginalized individuals there, in a hobby that ALREADY has a disproportionate amount of the socially marginalized.
> 
> 
> Nisarg




There are other ways to be pathetic.  One can speak negatively about every product on the market and still buy them.  One can focus on words and their meaning and ignore the big picture of a setting.  One can try to troll an entire forum into speaking badly about a large publishing company. 

But back on topic.  In my gaming experience I have run into a large number of games that meet the pathetic stereotype.  And I think that Gaming being an indoor activity that caters to people who have large fantasy lives does mean that we have more than our fair share.  Can we be stereotyped to pathetic?  Sure, much better when we aren’t and surprise people.


----------



## BradfordFerguson

I don't think that most gamers are like that,  I doubt that it comes close to a third of gamers.  Some gamers I know don't like huge crowds, some people I know don't like huge crowds.  Also, convention situations can be wierd, leading to nervousness.  Young women are hired for their good looks to help a booth stand out against the rest, combine that with the often cramped nature of the floor where people may feel claustrophobic.

Anyhow, most gamers I know are well-adjusted and handle themselves very well in social situations. ...and Biggus Geekus cracks me up  

I think it's silly that some booth babes who are concerned about their looks and how people perceive them would judge a group of people by a couple of people who weren't comfortable.  Oh well, it happens everyday.

-----
Bradford Ferguson
"D20 Filtered"


----------



## Hida Bukkorosu

some of you people (you know who you are) sicken me.  i am a social misfit.  i'm 27, never had anything remotely resembling a relationship or date in my life, and yes, i still live off my parents.  i'm trying to be independent, but i'm pretty sure that as soon as i graduate i will fail spectacularly.  why?  why would someone hire me when they could hire someone who's equally smart and a non-misfit.  or just outsource the job to india or somewhere.

and you people, you want to rob those like me of the one thing that makes our lives something approaching tolerable for a few brief hours.  because we "bring down the public perception of the hobby".

i suppose from a darwinian point of view, this may be a good thing.  i mean, i'm already not reproducing, but i suppose it's best for the species if people like me aren't consuming resources, and giving us less things to numb the pain of life might be good if more of us kill ourselves.  i'm gonna kill myself when i turn 30 (or sooner, if my means of support dries up).

as far as hygeine, why should i bathe?  i've been bathing frequently for the last couple weeks and it hasn't made me any more attractive to girls, so why should i bother?  why should i bother doing anything?

why live?


----------



## Desdichado

BradfordFerguson said:
			
		

> Anyhow, most gamers I know are well-adjusted and handle themselves very well in social situations. ...and Biggus Geekus cracks me up



I can agree with that.  In fact, I have about three times already in this thread.   

For that matter, I think my biggest takeaway from this entire thread is that Incenjucar is regularly hit on my hot chicks that get mad at his pants for not coming off fast enough.


----------



## Desdichado

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> Nope, that is not my idea of freedom. But 'I can judge people poorly, and act along with this judgement, because IMO they acted like complete jerks and morons' is not usually a good prelude.



I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that.


----------



## Nisarg

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> some of you people (you know who you are) sicken me.  i am a social misfit.  i'm 27, never had anything remotely resembling a relationship or date in my life, and yes, i still live off my parents.  i'm trying to be independent, but i'm pretty sure that as soon as i graduate i will fail spectacularly.  why?  why would someone hire me when they could hire someone who's equally smart and a non-misfit.  or just outsource the job to india or somewhere.
> 
> and you people, you want to rob those like me of the one thing that makes our lives something approaching tolerable for a few brief hours.  because we "bring down the public perception of the hobby".
> 
> i suppose from a darwinian point of view, this may be a good thing.  i mean, i'm already not reproducing, but i suppose it's best for the species if people like me aren't consuming resources, and giving us less things to numb the pain of life might be good if more of us kill ourselves.  i'm gonna kill myself when i turn 30 (or sooner, if my means of support dries up).
> 
> as far as hygeine, why should i bathe?  i've been bathing frequently for the last couple weeks and it hasn't made me any more attractive to girls, so why should i bother?  why should i bother doing anything?
> 
> why live?





Wow, so now I'm supposed to feel sorry for you right? And feel bad for my position, because it makes you feel bad?

Well, I don't. You make yourself feel bad. Its not your "social misfit" status that is stopping you from succeeding in life, its YOU. Its your attitude, your feeling that you're a loser even before you start.   Being a social misfit is undoubtedly a product of that.

So shape up, take some responsibility for yourself and your life, or all I have to say to you is "yay darwin". 

Nisarg


----------



## Lichtenhart

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> some of you people (you know who you are) sicken me.  i am a social misfit.  i'm 27, never had anything remotely resembling a relationship or date in my life, and yes, i still live off my parents.  i'm trying to be independent, but i'm pretty sure that as soon as i graduate i will fail spectacularly.  why?  why would someone hire me when they could hire someone who's equally smart and a non-misfit.  or just outsource the job to india or somewhere.



Well, this is dangerously close to a self-fulfilling prophecy. What makes you so sure of that? To aswer to your question, because you may be in the right place at the right time, while the hypotetical more social person isn't. And I don't know what you're studying but not all jobs can be lightheartedly outsourced to India. And some employers out there have a conscience too. (At least I hope so ) 


> i suppose from a darwinian point of view, this may be a good thing.  i mean, i'm already not reproducing, but i suppose it's best for the species if people like me aren't consuming resources, and giving us less things to numb the pain of life might be good if more of us kill ourselves.



Nope. From a darwinian point of view, variety is good. It's best for the species if most fit (whatever 'fit' to survival is in our world) reproduce more, but without throwing out genes that could become useful should the world change.


> as far as hygeine, why should i bathe?  i've been bathing frequently for the last couple weeks and it hasn't made me any more attractive to girls, so why should i bother?  why should i bother doing anything?



Well, even the most social person can be out on the market for much more than two weeks.  I'd say bathing, dressing well and so on are more about being ready when the chance appears than a sure gain.


> i'm gonna kill myself when i turn 30 (or sooner, if my means of support dries up).
> ...
> why live?



I could say a lot of hypocrite things about this. I won't. I have no good answers for you. I have no good answers for myself either, for that kind of question. But I would rather keep trying. There are a lot of things to be missed in this world, only we don't usually notice them. I didn't either, but my father began to suffer from depression, and I have to constantly remind him of all the good things in life. It's an exercise that did a lot of good to me too.

And Bukkorosu, a true Crab never gives up.


----------



## jester47

I am not saying people can't wear whatever they want.  Legalities are out of the scope of what I am talking about.  I am simply saying that they need to be prepared to accept the consequnces of dressing a certain way at a certain time and place.  

How about this.  You can wear you KKK robes wherever you want, but don't come crying to me when you get you ass beat because you wore them in Harlem.  Don't wear your yamika to a neo-nazi rally.  Its the same social construct everywhere, just not as extreme.  How you dress, smell and behave has consequnces wheather you are prepared to accept them or not.  Wearing a business suit to play basketball is going to turn some heads. 

Freedom to do what you want does not mean freedom from the consequences of your actions.  This is what CPM/costume man miss.  They are selfish enough to put thier freedoms above everyone elses, and when they get called on it, their first defence is they have the right to do so.  

Sure they have the legal right to wear thier costume or smell bad or be obnoxious.  But its still inappropriate.  And there are still consequences.  And I still have the legal right to let them know that I think that, and I have the legal right to not be associated with them, and I have the legal right (If I am the owner of a store or in a similar position) to ask them to leave, and I have the legal right to make fun of them all I want.  And I am very glad someone put their life on the line to give me these rights.  It gives me the right to kick ass when  these cat piss smelling, costume wearing, morons try to make thier rights more important than mine. 

Thats a big broblem with a lot of people who have grown up in the US.  They think freedom is about not having consequences for their actions.  And I think that is why Nisarg does not see CPM where he is and why CPM is rare in Europe.  RPGs are a haven for people who want to be free of these consequnces, because in an RPG they can get away with the stuff that they clearly know would have consequnces in real life.  

Aaron.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that.



This, Joshua, is exactly what I mean. I doesn't even need my comment. Read it again.


			
				Nisarg said:
			
		

> Wow, so now I'm supposed to feel sorry for you right? And feel bad for my position, because it makes you feel bad?
> 
> Well, I don't. You make yourself feel bad. Its not your "social misfit" status that is stopping you from succeeding in life, its YOU. Its your attitude, your feeling that you're a loser even before you start.   Being a social misfit is undoubtedly a product of that.
> 
> So shape up, take some responsibility for yourself and your life, or all I have to say to you is "yay darwin".
> 
> Nisarg


----------



## Incenjucar

I'm a social mis-fit too, bucko.  I do, however, try to be respectful towards others, even if I don't care much for them.  I bathe (currently, I shower TWICE a day, due to my little workout routine -- man is my skin clear now) regularly, I manage my hair habitually (the "Queer Guys" got nothin' on me), and I've studied how people react enough to know when to smile if I want attention.

I'm a misfit.  I'm overweight.  I'm a nerd.  I'm a net-addict.  I was so shy I never even admitted that I -liked- girls until I was 18.  Hell, I'm an atheist, whose been in a Christian-laden area for five years or so.

Not a virgin though.

Because I got off my fat arse and made an effort.


----------



## Desdichado

jester47 said:
			
		

> Thats a big broblem with a lot of people who have grown up in the US.  They think freedom is about not having consequences for their actions.



Wise words, there.  Just the other day, in a political debate that I have no business explaining here, I came to the conclusion (and said as much) that in Western Civilization today, we actually have very few true adults.  We do, however, have a lot of self-serving, overgrown spoiled brats who don't understand that they _shouldn't_ really just do whatever the heck they feel like, or get bent out of shape when it doesn't work out for them to try whatever the heck they feel like.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Incenjucar said:
			
		

> I'm a social mis-fit too, bucko.  I do, however, try to be respectful towards others, even if I don't care much for them.  I bathe (currently, I shower TWICE a day, due to my little workout routine -- man is my skin clear now) regularly, I manage my hair habitually (the "Queer Guys" got nothin' on me), and I've studied how people react enough to know when to smile if I want attention.
> 
> I'm a misfit.  I'm overweight.  I'm a nerd.  I'm a net-addict.  I was so shy I never even admitted that I -liked- girls until I was 18.  Hell, I'm an atheist, whose been in a Christian-laden area for five years or so.
> 
> Not a virgin though.
> 
> Because I got off my fat arse and made an effort.




And before you took the decision to do that, how exactly did you react to people telling you 'get off your fat arse, bucko'?


----------



## Lichtenhart

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Wise words, there.  Just the other day, in a political debate that I have no business explaining here, I came to the conclusion (and said as much) that in Western Civilization today, we actually have very few true adults.  We do, however, have a lot of self-serving, overgrown spoiled brats who don't understand that they _shouldn't_ really just do whatever the heck they feel like, or get bent out of shape when it doesn't work out for them to try whatever the heck they feel like.




On this matter, I can agree wholly with both of you. But, after pointing out a problem, I like to look for solutions too. We can't simply wish for all this people to disappear, or grow up. I think that this happens because we (we as a society) don't educate people enough. So that's what I do with my free time. I work with children trying to make them understand these points, so they can be responsible adults when they grow up. You'd be surprised how many parents don't do that.


----------



## jester47

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> i'm trying to be independent




Thats all it takes.  Keep up the effort, check back in a year.  So increase your chances of getting hired, only be a misfit when its appropriate!



> and you people, you want to rob those like me of the one thing that makes our lives something approaching tolerable for a few brief hours.  because we "bring down the public perception of the hobby".




My wanting you to take a shower and have manners and not freak people out with constant costume wearing keeps you from playing D&D how?  If anything it will allow you to play more.

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life, your memories, your attachments. They (the devils) burn them all away. But they're not punishing you, he said. They're freeing your soul. So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth."

Its not about ostracism.  Its not about you leaving forever. Its about liberation.  Its about you learning to be socially acceptable in a game that is extremely social.  



> i suppose from a darwinian point of view, this may be a good thing.  i mean, i'm already not reproducing, but i suppose it's best for the species if people like me aren't consuming resources, and giving us less things to numb the pain of life might be good if more of us kill ourselves.  i'm gonna kill myself when i turn 30 (or sooner, if my means of support dries up).




If you keep trying to change, and adapt you will eventually kill the person you once were.  The one that replaces the person you once were will probably deserve the resources.  I want you to change, not die or go away.  



> as far as hygeine, why should i bathe?  i've been bathing frequently for the last couple weeks and it hasn't made me any more attractive to girls, so why should i bother?  why should i bother doing anything?
> 
> why live?




Why bathe?  You have to start somewhere.  Work from the outside in.  It takes people time to figure out that you have changed and that THE CHANGE HAS STUCK.  

The other problem with people in the US these days is this concept of instant gratification.  Things take time.  It takes time to change and it hurts, cause no one will believe you changed and they will still remember that memory of you.  You will remember it too.  however for you you know its what you were, and not what you have become.  And that which does not kill you only make you stronger.  

Remember, (if you read the rest of the thread) it took me a year to stop smelling like cat piss.  

Why live?  Cause you don't want to die.  You really want to disappear and see who misses you.  And trust me you will be missed by more people than you probably think, or can possibly even know.  

Aaron.


----------



## Dark Jezter

jester47 said:
			
		

> Thats a big broblem with a lot of people who have grown up in the US. They think freedom is about not having consequences for their actions.





			
				jester47 said:
			
		

> The other problem with people in the US these days is this concept of instant gratification.




Agreed, but those attitudes are hardly the exclusive domain of some Americans; I frequently see Canadians and Europeans displaying them as well.


----------



## Desdichado

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> You'd be surprised how many parents don't do that.



Sadly enough, I probably wouldn't be all that surprised after all...


----------



## jester47

Lichtenhart said:
			
		

> On this matter, I can agree wholly with both of you. But, after pointing out a problem, I like to look for solutions too. We can't simply wish for all this people to disappear, or grow up. I think that this happens because we (we as a society) don't educate people enough. So that's what I do with my free time. I work with children trying to make them understand these points, so they can be responsible adults when they grow up. You'd be surprised how many parents don't do that.




This brings up an off topic point.  I think education should include two things that are not done now:

1) Stuff you need to know to operate in the real world.  There is a lot of business related skills that the average person needs to know that are not taught at the HS level.  I think they need a curriculum for life skills.  Like how to buy a home, how to find out renters rights, how to invest, how a 401K plan works, how to save money, etc.

2) Social skills and why those skills are important.  The (not quite) newtonian physics of human social interaction.  And expanded PE programs that arn't just running around for 30 minutes but teach things about how to work out when you are busy and how to reduce stress.  How to get pumped up.  Basicly teaching people how to live so they have more options than TV and a couch. 

Aaron.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Just to clarify this:



> If the people whose future is being decided finds a starfleet uniform offensive, they only have to ask their attorney to have her removed from the jury. And many people on jury duty could have much more clouded judgement than her, only they fall within your unspoken rules so you can't notice.




Whether that person can be removed by the motion of an attorney depends on the laws of procedure of the court (Federal, particular state, country in question).

If the attorney has used all of his preremtory strikes or strikes for cause, he may not be able to have that Starfleet goob removed.  If I'm defending a black client who is accused of raping a white woman in Texas, I am, in all likelyhood, going to remove a LOT of people from the jury pool before I even CONSIDER removing the costume jockey, like past rape victims and current white supremacists.  And if my colleague at the prosecutors table similarly gets rid of the Nation of Islam types, we may find ourselves out of challenges with the Trekker still in the pool.

Which is, essentially, what happenened.

After that, the only way to remove the juror is if the juror does something that warrants removal...say, by acting whacky enough that the judge or one of the parties believes the juror is incapable of doing his or her duty.

Which is, essentially, what happenened.

Or, to put it another way, I have seen goths serve on juries without a problem, because, despite their attire, they took their responsibility seriously and didn't do anything to get booted.  But they weren't sitting there in court claiming that they actually WERE "Lords of Darkness," as opposed to this person who claimed to be a Star Fleet Commander.


----------



## Ralts Bloodthorne

Well, I figure I'll put my two cents in on this...

First, for those of you who don't know me, I'll give you a little background on myself, probably more than most of you who know me have actually heard...

I did 10 years in the US Army, actually as part of ChemCorps, and assigned to the United States Department of Defense. I served in a lot of hot zones, and my military career cost me 2 wives.

One divorce.

One died.

I was wounded several times on the battlefield, once spending two months in the hospital in a coma because of injuries.

I've been married for 12 years now, and have four children.

I was active in sports in high school, but not in social activities. Maladjusted? No. I was a textbook sociopath, with severe disassociation disorders. I played AD&D because it was easy for me.

I played AD&D in the military, with other soldiers.

I bathe regularly, wash my clothing after wearing it once, and prefer to were Stetson cologne _very_ lightly.

I have bad teeth, but that's because a cheap-ass dentist tore off the braces early, and ripped most of the frontal enamel off my teeth. Great. The braces were there to ensure that my teeth were in the correct position while my jaw healed around the plate that replaced a crushed portion of my jawbone.

I wear combat boots and a flannel shirt, and at a publisher's meeting, sat through the entire thing in a sling and refused my wife's urging to see a doctor due to a shoulder dislocation.

I'm somewhat reclusive nowdays, despite the fact that online I get along with Dana Jorgenson, Morrus, Hellhound, Anthony Valterra, Chris Johansen, JDWiker, Hildulf, and others, who might even hate my guts, but I'm still polite, treat them with respect, and have good manners with. Sure, I'm a recluse, but the internet keeps them at a distance, where I can handle them, since their epidermis is crawling with possibly infectious bacterial and viral substances. (For those of you that doubt that claim, see my "Recent Absence and Return" thread. The virus entered through a cut on my cheek where the nasty little illegal Russian immegrant SNEEZED ON ME. So you and your infectious crap stay the hell away from me and my phobias)

I'm mean, cruel, and perfectly willing to cash the checks my mouth writes.

Sure, I'm a social misfit, but AD&D didn't make me that way...

Life did.

Now, on to the topic...

Reading both posts, the arrogance in them by the writers and those interviewed, and the arrogance in this thread makes me laugh.

Oh, South American gamers are so great. /--EDITED OUT FOR INFLAMMATORY COMMENTS--/

Some of you advocate the ostracizing of "undesireable elements" in gaming groups. Hey, guess what, Cat-Piss Man isn't too bad. Smell flesh that has rotted in the desert sun for a week. Cat-Piss Man is an excellent roleplayer, and enhances the game. I'll just plug in a Glade Fresh'em and try to stay out of range of his breath....

For some people, particularly those with social disorders (such as myself. Crowds make my hands shake, my paranioa spike, and floods my system with combat chemicals. I overreact to the slightest stimulia and often react with violence. So, would you ostracize me from a gaming group, where I'm relaxed and calm because I can handle the number of people? Thanks, bigoted freak, remind me to wait in the parkinglot of your apartment complex with an axe-handle, ya friggin' bigot) gaming is the only social activity they have.

THIS GOES FOR GALS AS WELL AS GUYS!

Most women leave, not because of the shy geek who can't even look at them, and speaks in a mumble when talking to her, but because of the self-assurred "man's man" and socially adjusted buttmaster who hits on her, leers at her, and treats her as an inferior.

Reading the article on the booth-babes, I noticed two things...

Strippers are more honest than they are...

They make enough to pay thier rent, utilities and essential bills with ONE appearance, while the rest of us "socially maladjusted geeks" work for about 2 weeks to do that...

Yes, theft was listed, but it the article was definately heavy with a "gamers are geeks" bias. Guess what, I've studied some journalism at the Western Washington University and the University of Maryland (Yes, Ralts has an education beyond 4th grade, surprise surprise), and recognise a definate slant when I see one.

(Yes, I'm rambling, I'm relaxed, deal with it or move to the next post... Personaly, I don't care either way. Here's your post summary: Stereotypes bad, gaming community a good subculture)

The last time I went to a major convention (8 years ago, when I was attending college and was asked by several people in charge of the convention to run a Ravenloft game) I did notice that some gamers didn't bathe, didn't brush thier teeth (a pet peeve of mine. My teeth may be bad, but I still brush, even though I'm spitting blood and chips of enamel for 20 minutes afterwards, even though my dentist told me to quit doing it), were socially ackward or even socially retarded. Guess what? Somebody jacked all four tires on my car, stole my battery, broke my window and stole my car stereo, the baby's car seat, and my middle daughter's booster seat. A guy dressed a lot like Dr. Frankenfurter gave me his spare tire, a guy dressed in a squirrel suit with "89 BONK POINTS" written on his chest let me use his battery since he lived in the dorms, a goth chick gave me her spare tire, a guy reaking of cat-crap and unwashed human body, with stained clothing that looked as if they hadn't been washed in months gave me not only his spare tire, but his front passenger tire. A woman drove home, dropped off her kids, and lent me her car seat and her booster seat...

Enabling me and my family to drive 50 miles home. I've been broken down on the side of I-5, with a flat-tire, and had to DODGE people trying to run me down for sport in California.

Whose the social misfits? The guys in the hot cars who tried to run me down, or the possible furry who helped me out?

Personally, I'd rather claim the possible furry as my friend, even if he walked around town with a screaming teddy-bear taped to his crotch.

So some people look down on these people? These are the guys and gals that will stop at 2 AM to help some poor guy walking down the street in the rain. Who will stop and help a minority change thier tire. Who will help someone else, even if it means doing without something they wanted.

Sure, we should ostracize them. Tell you what, after Cat-Piss Man, how about we round up the guys who game that are disabled! You know, the ones in a wheelchair, the blind guys, the deaf players, or even guy who walks with a limp.

I know a guy with one eye who walks with a limp and whose voice changes pitch due to damage to his throat. Let's ostracize him, then maybe send him to an island! He's DIFFERENT!

Get off your high horse...

Gamers are primarily geeks. Sure, I'm a geek, but in a lot of ways, I'm in the minority as far as the way I act and dress and look and what I've done (I left home at 15, got a job at Centralia Meat Packing Plant [as seen on TV] to support my girlfriend and myself, etc etc etc) but I'm still a gamer geek.

Could it be that d20 is solidifying everyone's mind and opinions? Finally, the rules lawyers and mechanics nazi's are the overlords of gaming. People who couldn't handle the rough and tumble give and take of AD&D are now swarming into d20, and everyone is getting a high and noble opinion of gaming, even advocating ostracizing members of the community...

Get down from the cross, there, Gaming Jesus, someone else is cold, and could use the wood... You're hobby is safe, even if Cat-Piss Man is still playing it somewhere. Thanks to you, he's playing with other Cat-Piss Men, in thier own Cat-Piss Men Only Roleplaying Group. Way to further ostracize someone.

See, you guys who advocate ostracizing irritate me for a BIG reason. For a lot of these guys, gaming is thier only social activity, and other gamers are thier only "friends". Ostracizing them can lead to suicide. Not because of D&D, but because the people they trusted, that they thought were thier friends turned thier backs on them, and now they are truly alone.

But then, I'm just a broken down, malfunctioning cyborg, and you don't need to pay attention to anything I said. Despite the fact that I could justify looking down on many of you. Yup, I can. Like it or not, scream to yourself that I can't, that you bathe, that you don't live with mommy and daddy, that you are married, that you have friends...

If I look hard enough, I'm sure I can find something...

Just like your looking down on the part of our little society that only has our little culture for thier social life.

Personally? I hope that your overinflated ego ruptures and kills you in the explosion.

--Timothy Willard, resident loudmouth, arrogant bastard, and cruel guy all around.

PS-Yes, I knew it was dislocated, and no, I didn't care. Next time we have a meeting, and you want to say something, grow a spine and interrupt the jerk who tries to shout down everyone.


----------



## Plane Sailing

This seems to have wandered a long way from "general RPG discussion" so it goes to "Off Topic Discussion"

*whoosh* 


BTW, Supporting people is great, please make sure that that everything stays friendly and there isn't any sniping, eh?

Cheers,
Plane Sailing
(Mod)


----------



## Ralts Bloodthorne

*Sniper...*

"Target spotted..."

"Can you confirm?"

"Target confirmed."

"Engage at will."

"Engaged..."

"Target down."

"Continue mission..."


----------



## Nisarg

Warlord Ralts said:
			
		

> I did 10 years in the US Army, actually as part of ChemCorps, and assigned to the United States Department of Defense.
> I was wounded several times on the battlefield, once spending two months in the hospital in a coma because of injuries.




Wow, how exciting and impressive you must be.. what does this have to do with the topic though?



> I was active in sports in high school, but not in social activities. Maladjusted? No. I was a textbook sociopath, with severe disassociation disorders.




Really? Sociopaths in the US military? I'd never have guessed...



> Oh, South American gamers are so great. This from countries that would probably be are bankrupt if it wasn't for drugs or donations/exports with other countries because of First World nations exploiting them and holding them economically hostage, and American military forces overthrowing their legitimate governments and installing puppet dictatorships that brutally repress their own people.




Fixed your typos.

Again, though, what does any of that have to do with the topic at hand?

Later on you go on to post some valid, if rambling points related to the thread.. but why the need to tell us your life story and flawed opinions on international politics?

Nisarg


----------



## Ralts Bloodthorne

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Wow, how exciting and impressive you must be.. what does this have to do with the topic though?



Demonstration that I had an active life, and am not living in a basement or under a bridge somewhere.


> Fixed your typos.



Thanks. What I said was uncalled for.


> Again, though, what does any of that have to do with the topic at hand?
> 
> Later on you go on to post some valid, if rambling points related to the thread.. but why the need to tell us your life story and flawed opinions on international politics?
> Nisarg




Actually, it wasn't my life story. It was pointing out that I'm not exactly your stereotypical gamer...

As far as the rest, eh, I like to ramble.


----------



## LiKral

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> some of you people (you know who you are) sicken me.  i am a social misfit.  i'm 27, never had anything remotely resembling a relationship or date in my life, and yes, i still live off my parents.  i'm trying to be independent, but i'm pretty sure that as soon as i graduate i will fail spectacularly.  why?  why would someone hire me when they could hire someone who's equally smart and a non-misfit.



You sound like you are depressed.  You should go and see a doctor. 
Misfits get hired all the time, don't worry about that! I got hired and I am a real misfit. 
When I was in school I did not think anyone would ever like me, but all it took in the end was talking to people and making them feel that I was interested in them. If you assume that people are not liking you because you are wierd, you may come accross as too high and mighty to talk to anyone.


> as far as hygeine, why should i bathe?  i've been bathing frequently for the last couple weeks and it hasn't made me any more attractive to girls, so why should i bother?  why should i bother doing anything?
> 
> why live?



2 whole weeks?  You have to sustain a change like that for a fair while for anyone to notice. Keep clean and tidy and get some counselling or attend a support group for your low self esteem and things will surprise you by getting better eventually. 
But you have to be patient. Things won't happen like magic, they will get better gradually if you keep trying and don't give up hope. Maybe your happiest years will be in your 60's and you just don't know it yet?


----------



## Dinkeldog

I don't want to build toys.  I want to be a dentist.


----------



## Lichtenhart

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Later on you go on to post some valid, if rambling points related to the thread.. but why the need to tell us your life story and flawed opinions on international politics?




Then why the need to address all BUT his valid points?


----------



## Faerl'Elghinn

I think that's entirely a misconception based on the way that gamers are portrayed in the media.  I've had several gamer friends who are very successful with attractive women.  Personally, I've had several very attractive girlfriends, despite the fact that I was ridiculed in school for my high intelligence.  The main problem for me was finding an attractive woman intelligent enough to hold my interest for any amount of time.  Fortunately, I've found the perfect one, and have been married to her for the last 6 years.  We now have three wonderful children, and I really couldn't care less how I'm perceived by the general population.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Just the other day, Kurt Schilling was pitching a great game against the Texas Rangers (baseball, if you're unfamiliar).  Schilling is a MAJOR sci-fi fan and amateur historian who heads and/or participates in several different sci-fi organizations and is behind a particular sci-fi publishing company (I forget which one).

This was noted in the broadcast because there was a HUGE sci-fi convention being held in the hotel in which the announcers were staying.

They noted that, despite the immense number of "interesting" people, the overall experience was pleasant, because they were much better behaved than most conventioneers they had encountered.

They also noted that a particular "older gentleman in an interesting costume" had had no luck finding women at the con.

So, it was kind of a wash, publicity wise: we are well behaved, but we aren't exactly "chick magnets." (Or perhaps they were describing the paucity of women attendees- that much was unclear.)


----------



## Hida Bukkorosu

LiKral said:
			
		

> You sound like you are depressed.  You should go and see a doctor.
> Misfits get hired all the time, don't worry about that! I got hired and I am a real misfit.
> When I was in school I did not think anyone would ever like me, but all it took in the end was talking to people and making them feel that I was interested in them. If you assume that people are not liking you because you are wierd, you may come accross as too high and mighty to talk to anyone.
> 
> 2 whole weeks?  You have to sustain a change like that for a fair while for anyone to notice. Keep clean and tidy and get some counselling or attend a support group for your low self esteem and things will surprise you by getting better eventually.
> But you have to be patient. Things won't happen like magic, they will get better gradually if you keep trying and don't give up hope. Maybe your happiest years will be in your 60's and you just don't know it yet?




i'm not going through 30+ more years of pain on the hope of being happy in my 60s.  besides, if family history is anything to go by, i'll probably have a heart attack when im 60 anyway.

as far as seeing a doctor i tried that, it didn't help much.  as far as the bathing change, the point was it wasn't so people would notice, i don't know anyone on campus anyway.  see the first 2 weeks of school i really made an effort to shower and shave before going to campus and the same amount of chicks showed interest in me as show interest when i don't bother.  zero.

obviously the only way i'm ever gonna get laid in my life is if i pay for the privlege.

the happiest years of my life were when i was in single digit ages.  i don't understand why people feel it's all tragic and sad when kids die.  kids who die before the age of 10 are the luckiest people in the world, they don't have to deal with all the crap of puberty or caring about whether the opposite sex likes them, they never have to face all the cruel realities of a horrible world, they never have to have responsibility or any of the other things that make life suck.


----------



## WizarDru

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> the happiest years of my life were when i was in single digit ages. i don't understand why people feel it's all tragic and sad when kids die. kids who die before the age of 10 are the luckiest people in the world, they don't have to deal with all the crap of puberty or caring about whether the opposite sex likes them, they never have to face all the cruel realities of a horrible world, they never have to have responsibility or any of the other things that make life suck.



 Hida, seriously, seek professional medical help.  If the first doctor didn't help you, seek a different one.  This is a cry for help, if I've ever heard one.  As a father of two, I can assure you that there is no thought more horrific to me than seeing harm or death befall my children.  Your experience is *not normal*, and sounds more like clinical depression or the depressive end of a manic/depressive state.  There is truth in the phrase , "Where there is life, there is hope".  Things can and do change for the  better.  

 Just this weekend, I met with a friend I hadn't seen in twenty years (literally).  He apologized for his behavior from then, explaining how manic depression had driven him away from everyone.  I told him no apologies were necessary, I was just sad for the time lost.  Some of the biggest 'losers' I knew from my high school days are now some of the most stable married folk or families I know.  You can join their ranks....it may take time, but it can and does happen, regularly.


----------



## Jeremy Ackerman-Yost

Joshua Dyal said:
			
		

> Wise words, there.  Just the other day, in a political debate that I have no business explaining here, I came to the conclusion (and said as much) that in Western Civilization today, we actually have very few true adults.  We do, however, have a lot of self-serving, overgrown spoiled brats who don't understand that they _shouldn't_ really just do whatever the heck they feel like, or get bent out of shape when it doesn't work out for them to try whatever the heck they feel like.



Indeed.  Sounds like it was a fun discussion.

I would argue that complete lack of psychologically significant rites of passage and the aforementioned refusal of parents to allow their children independence are among the proximate causes.

Nothing irks me more than bad parenting, and the world is rife with it.  I'm terrified of that responsibility, not least because I run the risk of becoming a big, fat hypocrite.


----------



## LiKral

Hida Bukkorosu

Remember that 2 weeks is a very short time. Dating is a complex topic and many books have been written on it. There is no simple way of getting the opposite gender to like you. You won't get far in romance if you are smelly and untidy, but conversely, neat and clean people are not guaranteed love. 

It sounds like you need to sort your life out a little before you start seriously looking for anyone. Dating involves rejection, even for the most popular people. It sounds like you would find rejection hard to take. You need to get your self-esteem and depression sorted out before taking a big ego risk I think.

As I said before, see a different doctor and tell him what you told this group. Tell him that you are so depressed that you are not sure if you want to live, and he will probably give you medication or counselling. Take the pills for a good long while and if they don't work, don't just give up, but return to the doctor and explain that they don't work. Different medication works for different people and you will probably need to try more than one before you get one that works.

One of the main symptoms of depression is not believing anything can help, that everything is pointless, and will never get better. Don't listen to it. It is part of the illness.

Try reading up on depression on the internet. Here is a website to start you, but there are probably lots better ones:
http://health.yahoo.com/health/centers/depression/index.html

It sounds like you need someone to talk to about the problems in your life. Email me at LiKral@hotmail.com if you are comfortable with that.


----------



## Hida Bukkorosu

yeah, and how am i supposed to pay for all this medication?  plus, time is running out.  its probably already too late.  see i read this book about guys like me, guys like me, if we don't get any by 30, we probably never will.

see, it isnt a chemical problem.  it's circumstancial.  i'm depressed because i have a reason to be depressed, the fact that it's not likely ill ever get laid.  im depressed because the one thing i want so desperately, that i've wanted desperately since i was about 15, i'll never have.  i'm a victim of decisions made in the past, that cost me certain vital experiences in my youth, decisions which made sense at the time but ultimately culminated in the sad pathetic life i live today.

i suppose a lot of it is my own "fault", as much as anything is anyone's "fault" (really, we just do what our inborn personalities predetermine us to do in reaction to circumstances based on information at hand) for wasting those cruicial youthful years on r******n, which creeped in through the cracks in my self-esteem inflicted by middle school and proceeded to convince me i was utterly worthless and the only point in living was to look forward to the a*******e.

is there any fix that doesn't involve spending obscene amounts of money on therapy or medication?  or r*******n, i've tried that, it only served to heap guilt on me and make me more depressed.


----------



## WizarDru

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> yeah, and how am i supposed to pay for all this medication? plus, time is running out. its probably already too late. see i read this book about guys like me, guys like me, if we don't get any by 30, we probably never will.



 Assuming you have no medical insurance, there are plenty of free support groups that can help.  A simple google of the health and human services in your area should help.

 Maybe part of the problem here is the goal.  It sounds like you're not looking for a relationship, you're thinking purely in terms of sex.  That's fine, but understand that if what you're really looking for is a shallow encounter for physical gratification, the rules change.  People looking for one-night-stands put pure emphasis on the physical.  You need to start getting regular exercise, regular hygiene, dressing clean and neat and working on social skills.  

 Your theory appears to be: "why bother, when no one notices when I DO take care of these things?"  The fact is, those aren't guarantees...they're the cost of admission into the game.  If you really desire companionship so desperately, pursue the goals aggresively.  I recently decided to stop drinking soda, as part of my goal to lose weight.  I started attending a gym.  It wasn't always easy, but I did it.  I haven't lost much weight, yet, but I'm getting there.

 If it's not a chemical imbalance, then it can be done, if you put your mind to it.


----------



## Wereserpent

Well this thread certainly has taken an interesting direction. I do not really see the big deal about having to have a girlfriend or even be married by a certain age is, I myself never plan to get married or even really have a girlfriend.  Granted this is just me, and I am a bit weird.

Hida, I do reccommend you see another doctor about your problem, I admit I am terrible at giving advice, but please do so soon.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hida, have you considered other people you could talk to?

I don't know your age or your religious preferences, but I have occasionally turned to my priest to discuss things with, even things like you're talking about in this thread.

You might ask yourself what a priest would know about "real life."

You might be surprised.  Many priests have done things you or I will never do.  One I have known for 20 years was a sergeant in the Hungarian Army in the 1950's when the Russians rolled in and decided to stay.  He knows a thing or two about "real life."

And priests don't cost money!


----------



## LiKral

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> yeah, and how am i supposed to pay for all this medication?  plus, time is running out.  its probably already too late.  see i read this book about guys like me, guys like me, if we don't get any by 30, we probably never will.



You know that is not true, lots of people lose their virginity when they are older. They just don't admit to it! Would you? 



			
				Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> see, it isnt a chemical problem.  it's circumstancial.  i'm depressed because i have a reason to be depressed, the fact that it's not likely ill ever get laid.  im depressed because the one thing i want so desperately, that i've wanted desperately since i was about 15, i'll never have.  i'm a victim of decisions made in the past, that cost me certain vital experiences in my youth, decisions which made sense at the time but ultimately culminated in the sad pathetic life i live today.
> 
> is there any fix that doesn't involve spending obscene amounts of money on therapy or medication?  or r*******n, i've tried that, it only served to heap guilt on me and make me more depressed.




WizardDru is right. Dress well (clean clothes, no holes, no geeky logos). Keep in shape (jogging and sit-ups cost nothing) and wash regularly. Get a haircut that suits you. Not only will this attract girls, it will give you confidence in your own attractiveness.

I think you are looking for excuses to fail, because you are so used to failing that you are scared of success. Try reading confidence boosting self-help books (Get them from the library). They are cheesy but often inspiring. They show you that people can change. 

Other options:

Join a group for people with low self-confidence. See your university counseller. He should be able to point you towards an appropriate group.

Join a sports society with women in it. Not only will this get you in shape, but it will also help you meet girls better than the RPG society.

And above all remember to talk to girls. Don't sit in the corner staring at your drink. Get out there and chat to girls. Even if they are not interested, this will give you valuable experience in interacting with females.


----------



## Faerl'Elghinn

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> the happiest years of my life were when i was in single digit ages.  i don't understand why people feel it's all tragic and sad when kids die.  kids who die before the age of 10 are the luckiest people in the world, they don't have to deal with all the crap of puberty or caring about whether the opposite sex likes them, they never have to face all the cruel realities of a horrible world, they never have to have responsibility or any of the other things that make life suck.




Hey, man- I've felt like that before.  I'm on an SSRI, but I still have recursions of those feelings sometimes.  Let me clue you in on a little secret: even people who have _had_ success with the opposite sex look at other guys and say, "Oh, woe is me- I'm not as attractive and interesting as that other guy.  Why do I always get the short end of the stick?"  

As a child, I was somewhat of a prodigy.  I learned to read fluently at the age of three, by which time I spoke in clear, concise English, and had a complete understanding of many advanced concepts.  At four, I was chosen from among several candidates to attend a special education preschool as a teacher's aid, to help tutor mentally handicapped children.  When it was time for me to go to school, many of the top local private schools were vying for my attendance.  By the end of Kindergarten, I had finished my fourth grade Phonics book, and was several years ahead of all of the other children in all areas.

Amidst all this glory, I discovered the seedy underbelly of reality.  Although I was a friendly, attractive, intelligent child, some of the other children went to great lengths to humiliate me at every opportunity.  I was suffering constant abuse and ridicule which often met the _approval_ of my teachers.  What was worse, I began to exhibit signs of dyslexia and ADD, but because I was able to compensate for them through sheer intellect, these problems went entirely overlooked, and I was often held to a higher standard than the other children, one up to which I could not always live due to my developing disorders.

By the fourth grade, I was at a loss.  I couldn't focus long enough to perform many of my assignments, and my grades began to decline.  By the sixth grade, I was failing classes, smoking cigarettes, and using drugs and alcohol to try and alleviate some of the adversity from my classmates.  I began using terms such as "ain't", as well as a nearly constant stream of expletives to mask the fact that I was different.  

Through all this, I occasionally showed a glimmer of my former brilliance through outstanding and virtually unmatched academic performance.  When I went to take the entrance exams for the local private high schools, I scored high enough to merit an academic scholarship, despite the fact that I had never learned much of the material presented.  As a freshman, I rarely completed a homework assignment, as my OCD (a new development) and ADD prevented me from maintaining focus when left to my own devices.  The assignments I _did_ complete, however, were often scored higher than anyone else's.  My test scores were virtually always at the top of the curve, allowing me to maintain passing grades in most of my classes, despite the fact that I rarely completed my homework or even bothered to learn much of the material.

I had once had a dream that I was a shining star, but one day I woke up and realized that I had become a clinging piece of poop in the butt hair of the world.  By the age of sixteen, I was a virtual dropout, attending home school somewhat halfheartedly, maintaining a full-time job in a restaurant, and drinking until I vomited on a daily basis.  I used any drug I could find, including but not limited to crack, paint, and LSD.  I rarely ate, often failed to report home, and was involved in several violent confrontations with my father, twice resulting in his hospitalization and once resulting in my indictment.  

Yes, I had a few very attractive girlfriends.  I had long hair, was fairly handsome although very thin, played guitar, wrote poetry, and had a beautiful singing voice (reminiscent of Daniel Johns of Silverchair, although I could emulate various others almost perfectly, such as Chris Cornell, Maynard James Keenan, and James Taylor.  Yeah, I'm _that_ good).  The trouble was, I wasn't socially assertive enough to pursue my musical interests with any great success.  Whenever I underwent a breakup (which was inevitable in those days, due to my complete lack of self esteem), I withdrew from society for months at a time, writing endless streams of dismal poetry and contemplating suicide.

Anyway, to make a long story short, I nearly partied myself to death, but chanced upon a wonderful woman who has now borne me three children (son Sebastian Alexander Spitzig born 8/20/04!!) and been my wife for the last six years.  She has helped me through many of my issues (including but not limited to manic depression [borderline schizophrenia], agoraphobia, and xenophobia), and I am now well on my way to recovery, although I still need to take the plunge into psychiatric care.  I work in a factory under a man who can barely spell his own name, much less understand many of the complexities of lithograph printing, which is what I do.  Oh, yeah, and I've been a hardcore D&Der for the last 13 years.  

My advice to you is this: Look down at your feet.  Now reach down and grab your proverbial bootstraps, and yank as hard as you can.  If you need a friend, drop me a line.  If you have one, talk to him and tell him that you need some support to get your life in order.  Maybe there's even a woman out there for you, but she sure as hell isn't interested in a guy who doesn't seem to care about himself at all.  If not, well- women aren't always all they're cracked up to be...  Get up right now, and go and take a look in the mirror.  Smile, even if it makes you want to cry (that's what it used to do to me).  Think to yourself _"That's what I'd look like if I were happy.  I want to look like that."_  Above all, remember that somebody _does_ care about what happens to you.  It's me.

*Edit: corrected spelling of "remeniscent" to "reminiscent".*


----------



## Hida Bukkorosu

LiKral said:
			
		

> You know that is not true, lots of people lose their virginity when they are older. They just don't admit to it! Would you?




yeah, but i'm talking specifically about shy people like me.



> WizardDru is right. Dress well (clean clothes, no holes, no geeky logos). Keep in shape (jogging and sit-ups cost nothing) and wash regularly. Get a haircut that suits you. Not only will this attract girls, it will give you confidence in your own attractiveness.




as far as how i dress, i want someone who wants the real me, not some fake person i'm pretending to be.  what it seems is that the real me is someone who girls aren't attracted to, at least not the kind of girls i'm attracted to.

as far as jogging and situps, they cost time spent doing something i don't enjoy as well as more importantly, discomfort.  in order to make myself do something like that and stick to it for more than like a day or two, i would need some kind of IMMEDIATE gain to make it feel worth the effort.

i guess that's in general how i see life.  too much work for too little reward.  life requires way too much effort, and there's not enough good things about life to make it feel like it's worth all the work.



> I think you are looking for excuses to fail, because you are so used to failing that you are scared of success. Try reading confidence boosting self-help books (Get them from the library). They are cheesy but often inspiring. They show you that people can change.






> Other options:
> 
> Join a group for people with low self-confidence. See your university counseller. He should be able to point you towards an appropriate group.




that might be an option if i can find something like that.



> Join a sports society with women in it. Not only will this get you in shape, but it will also help you meet girls better than the RPG society.




but i'm not into sports.



> And above all remember to talk to girls. Don't sit in the corner staring at your drink. Get out there and chat to girls. Even if they are not interested, this will give you valuable experience in interacting with females.




i can't just go up and start talking to some strange girl, no matter how much i'd like to... i'm just too afraid...

as far as talking to a priest/preacher/whatever, i'm not going to go into why that wouldn't work for me because i'm pretty sure it would count as religious discussion.

as far as looking in the mirror and smiling, my forced smiles look terrible. 

i suppose, from an objective viewpoint, it's best for the world (other than myself) that someone like me has their self-esteem crushed.  i mean, if I was truly able to realise my childhood dreams, I'd be bringing much suffering upon the world under my despotic regime.  there'd be all sorts of suffering and death because of my wars of conquest.  but because i have no self-confidence, i can't realise my desires.  i think they recognised this and that's why everyone from teachers on down to students conspired to destroy me.  because i was a threat, my intelligence combined with my resistance to conformity made me dangerous.  but my emotional instability made me an easy target.


----------



## aurance

Warlord Ralts said:
			
		

> Demonstration that I had an active life, and am not living in a basement or under a bridge somewhere.
> 
> Thanks. What I said was uncalled for.
> 
> 
> Actually, it wasn't my life story. It was pointing out that I'm not exactly your stereotypical gamer...
> 
> As far as the rest, eh, I like to ramble.




I respect you. Not because of your points (I've no opinion on this entire subject), but because of the way you handle criticism.


----------



## Sado

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> i guess that's in general how i see life.  too much work for too little reward.  life requires way too much effort, and there's not enough good things about life to make it feel like it's worth all the work.




Wow, you have put into words what has been an underlying source of irritation and frustration to me for years.  I don't have any solid advice on dealing with it, but thanks for helping spell it out at least.

Of course for me its not so bad, since I'm happiest when I have something to complain about (don't ask me...).


----------



## WizarDru

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> as far as how i dress, i want someone who wants the real me, not some fake person i'm pretending to be. what it seems is that the real me is someone who girls aren't attracted to, at least not the kind of girls i'm attracted to.
> 
> as far as jogging and situps, they cost time spent doing something i don't enjoy as well as more importantly, discomfort. in order to make myself do something like that and stick to it for more than like a day or two, i would need some kind of IMMEDIATE gain to make it feel worth the effort.
> 
> i guess that's in general how i see life. too much work for too little reward. life requires way too much effort, and there's not enough good things about life to make it feel like it's worth all the work.



 So you don't intend to work for a living, then? Because I've yet to meet a legal employer who pays you immediately for work you do. You're setting yourself up for failure. You didn't get overweight overnight, and you don't shed pounds any faster. You'll find your energy increases fairly quickly from regular exercise...and you don't need to exercise so heavily that you experience discomfort. The 'no pain, no gain' philosophy is something hardcore weightlifters ascribe to...those interested in simply improving their health don't have to. Simply taking a long walk EVERY DAY and reducing your food intake will do wonders. And here's a bulletin...when you get older, you're going to find that you're going to suffer further health problems if you don't correct those problems. 

 As for dressing 'fake'...well, is your personal identity entirely defined by wearing a specific set of clothes? No one's saying to wear different clothes, necessarily...but if you wear the same shirt three days in a row, and wash it once a month, don't be suprised if people don't want to hang around you. Your choice of clothes can also broadcast things about you. If you always look like you just tossed something on that you found lying under your bed, you project an image and you make a statement about yourself. That's your choice: but I think it's more than a little unfair to claim that the world has a conspiracy against you, just because you don't like the realities of human interaction.

 Look at it this way: you don't want to be someone who you aren't...but right now, who you are is a fundementally unhappy person who's depressed, overweight, feels ostracized and alone.  No one's saying to act falsely or not be yourself...but I think you need to consider that you need to change parts of your life, if you want to improve your overall situation.


----------



## Dannyalcatraz

Hidu- a confession of my own.

I, too, am a virgin, and I'm going to be 37 in a month.  A friend of mine who works for a famous "men's magazine" didn't lose hers until she was in her 30's.

My reasons have are multifold-  I am excruciatingly shy, so I know how you feel.  I also have a bit of a weight problem.  My bad luck for asking out women who are either lesbians or have boyfreinds is LEGENDARY in my social circle.  Part of it has to do with my faith (Catholic).

However, I've also had some opportunities that I passed up because I have a modicum of self-respect.

As for my friend, her decision was ALL about personal choice.

I say all of this because I'm trying to let you know that being a virgin isn't a death sentence or cause for depression.

But the big picture comes down to this- if you are unhappy about the way you are, you must either change yourself or change your surroundings to find those who accept you for who you are.  Otherwise, NOTHING will change for you and you will continue to be unhappy.

And those changes will take time.


----------



## Rel

Here's the thing (Ok, maybe not THE thing, but A thing anyway, and an important one):  If you are a basically decent human being then I figure that you deserve to be loved.  There are all sorts of scumbags out there who manage to find people to love them.  So if you're above the level of the average scumbag, you probably deserve love too.

Now you may not think you deserve to be loved by someone, but you're wrong.  You know there are good things about you that somebody might like to share in and be a part of.  And you have the capacity to love those good things in them.  But the kicker is, as Clint Eastwood once said in a movie, "'Deserve' ain't got nothin' to do with it."

So that brings us to this:  You can't win the game of love if you don't play.  You may not play well.  You may not play often.  You may not play long.  I have known people who did not play well, often or long.  They found people to love and to love them.  But if you don't play at all, then you ain't gonna' win.  Period.

You think it is painful to go up and talk to someone?  Or ask them to dance?  Or see if they want a cup of coffee?  Of course it is.  The world is absolutely stacked to the ceiling with people who do it all the time and it sucks when they get rejected.  It hurts and they feel terrible and for a while they hate that they feel like they have to play the game at all.  Then they go do it again.

And the reason is very very simple.  It is because love is the best thing in the world.  And when you find it, you'll thank whatever powers you believe in that you found the strength to go through the sucky pain of rejection all those times because it is just that great.  Nothing in this world is more worth living for than love.  

You'll never be sorry that you went after it and you'll always be sorry if you don't.

Good luck.


----------



## WizarDru

Rel said:
			
		

> And the reason is very very simple.  It is because love is the best thing in the world.  And when you find it, you'll thank whatever powers you believe in that you found the strength to go through the sucky pain of rejection all those times because it is just that great.  Nothing in this world is more worth living for than love.




W0rd.


----------



## Hida Bukkorosu

well, here's another problem that comes up...

i make the effort to shave and bathe and all that stuff... but then by the time i finish, it's too late to go to class, so i don't end up being around girls at all that day... plus i miss class...

as far as the risk, my big fear is that the girl will think i'm some kind of a creepy psycho or something and sue me for sexual harassment.  so there's a lot more at stake than just embarrasment...


----------



## Rel

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> well, here's another problem that comes up...
> 
> i make the effort to shave and bathe and all that stuff... but then by the time i finish, it's too late to go to class, so i don't end up being around girls at all that day... plus i miss class...
> 
> as far as the risk, my big fear is that the girl will think i'm some kind of a creepy psycho or something and sue me for sexual harassment.  so there's a lot more at stake than just embarrasment...




If you want to find reasons NOT to put yourself out there in contact with the opposite sex, I think you can probably do better than those.  You're a gamer, man.  Get creative.

How about, "Well, she might be a Doppelganger or Succubus in disguise and just be waiting to bite off my junk and stuff."

I mean seriously, "it's too late to go to class?"  Does your alarm clock not have a setting that's an extra half hour (at the most) earlier?  And the sexual harassment thing is easily circumvented by simply walking away the first time a girl says she's not interested.

I'm not trying to piss you off or anything, but these are WEAK excuses.

Let me tell you a quick little story about a guy I went to high school with.  We'll call him Steve (cause that's his name).  One day at lunch, I heard a girl I knew saying to a friend that Steve had asked her out.  The friend replied something along the lines of "Ew."  Steve was not regarded as a great catch by the majority of the females I went to high school with.

A couple days later, I heard another girl say to a friend that Steve had asked her out.  The friend replied incredulously, "You're kidding!  He asked me out too just yesterday!  What a loser!"  I couldn't agree more at the time.  What a collossal jackass he was for taking this shotgun approach to getting a date.  Over the next few days I heard of at least three more girls that Steve had asked out within two weeks time.  Loooozuuuur!

Except you know who the real loser was?  Me.  Because I was sitting around dateless for months at a time because I was too scared to ask a girl out unless I was ABSOLUTELY sure she would say yes.  I would tap-dance around the issue for weeks before asking and she'd say, "Sure.  I've been waiting forever for you to ask."  When I think back on all the dates I could have had if only I'd asked, well, it's enough to make a grown man cry.

Steve had himself a girlfriend within a month or so.  She wasn't the prettiest girl in school (although she was a lot nicer looking that I'd have thought he could have landed) but she really liked him.  They were constantly all over each other and they dated through the rest of high school.  Hell, they may be married now for all I know.

Steve may have been the smartest person in our whole graduating class.  Because he "got it".  He understood the quintessential truth of dating for guys and it is this:  Life is short and so is the period of humiliation that follows the word "No" escaping the lips of a woman.

It's your choice.  But just stop pretending that anything besides you is holding you back.  And so what if you fail.  You think that everybody who is posting in this thread that's happily married with 2.4 kids got told "yes, I'd love to" the first time they asked somebody out?  I failed MANY times.  Sometimes spectacularly.  Sometimes LEGENDARILY (do me a favor and DON'T ask my friends about the "Tector Incident").  But I was still proud that I made the attempt and that the failure didn't destroy me.

As the lovely Allison Krause sings, "The next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing."

PLAY!


----------



## Bagpuss

Rel said:
			
		

> And the reason is very very simple.  It is because love is the best thing in the world.  And when you find it, you'll thank whatever powers you believe in that you found the strength to go through the sucky pain of rejection all those times because it is just that great.  Nothing in this world is more worth living for than love.




Until the thing you love dumps you, and sleeps with your best friend (Not necessary in that order).


----------



## FLA

A lot of people that were described here could possibly have Asperger's Syndrome-a condition were their intelectual capabilites are heightened at the cost of social skills.That's why some nerd who were the brightest students find themselfs working at McDonalds-they just aren't able to get to know social norms present social groups as well as typical people.


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## WizarDru

Asperger's Sydrome is a lot more than just having problems with social skills.  My nephew has it, and while he is extremely bright in some areas (his reading comprehension at 5 was equal to that of a 2nd-grader, at least), he lags in other capacities, such as comprehension of certain math and relational concepts.  His biggest problem is not understanding the concept of personal space.  However, there are lots of ways to deal with Asperger's syndrome these days, both chemical and behavioral.


----------



## Rel

Bagpuss said:
			
		

> Until the thing you love dumps you, and sleeps with your best friend (Not necessary in that order).




Having been through this precise situation (albeit when I was 16 and relationships being a little less serious), I still say "Better to have loved and lost..."


----------



## Ace

maddman75 said:
			
		

> Yes - though there are plenty of perfectly normal gamers, it is an escapist, intellectual hobby.  Therefore it naturally attracts people only interested in intellectual pursuits or who really want to escape life.  Also many people fall into the Geek Social Fallacies and allow these folks to not develop their social skills.  And meeting one Cat Piss Man will make the typical person (or Booth Babe) forget about the last hundred normal gamers they meet.




Yep.

Also because gaming is a social hobby we come into closer contact with the socially challenged gamers than we would in some other hobbies

If the guy way in the back of the baseball stadium was a foul smelling social reject with the charm of a dead marmot you would never know 

OTOH if you just spent a few hours tossing dice with the guy ....


----------



## LiKral

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> well, here's another problem that comes up...
> 
> i make the effort to shave and bathe and all that stuff... but then by the time i finish, it's too late to go to class, so i don't end up being around girls at all that day... plus i miss class...
> 
> as far as the risk, my big fear is that the girl will think i'm some kind of a creepy psycho or something and sue me for sexual harassment.  so there's a lot more at stake than just embarrasment...




If you want to date the pretty girls, you have to dress like one of the cute guys. Simple. It is the same as if you were going for a job interview - a suit may not be 'you' but the alternative is not getting the job you want. Everyone puts on a bit of a mask to deal with the world. 
(When I say that you have to dress well, I don't mean "change your personal style" - just make sure your clothes are clean, fit you, and don't have holes in.)

It seems as if you have a few separate problems that add up to lack of date. 
1) You are not willing to sacrifice any time to improve your personal appearance. As Heinlein said, "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch." If you did not do any work would you expect good grades? You have to put in time and effort to get the things you want in life. You will just have to get up a little earlier in the morning. If you would not get up 20 minutes earlier to get your heart's desire, maybe you should ask yourself whether it really is your heart's desire? It might not be.
2) You are so afraid of rejection that you will not approach the girls you like. That way you will only get dates with telepathic ladies. ASK THEM!Say "Would you like to go for coffee after class?" or something nice and safe like that. The worst you can get is "no thanks". 
3) You want instant gratification. It just doesn't work like that. You won't get your degree in only 6 weeks either, no matter how bright you are!

Oh and - if you take 'no' for an answer, no one will think you are a stalker. It is just the guys who ask the same girl for a date 27 times that seem creepy.

Good luck and keep at it!


----------



## Dakkareth

Well, 'gamer' is probably the wrong word to describe me, but 'nerd' fits well enough being the more general term . The matter with me is mostly, that I'm more than just a little shy and unsecure in situations, where I do not know/understand the various relations and social rules governing behaviour and its perception. Also in my eighteen years of life I've thought friendship and love to be something important to me only for half a year - I guess, that makes me somewhat of a late-comer to this 'social life' thing. Before that I was content to have books, games and the internet. I like to think, that with time I will develop a better ability to find social contact, but I'm not entirely sure about that. Counting people I consider good friends I come up with three and among the more distant friends girls are scarce. Due to my problems described above I'm simply bad at making contact with others. Oh well, maybe the problem will solve itself once I get away from home (and my parents) to study somewhere. I sure like to think so .

Now of course the interesting part would be, how I came to be like that. Psychological self-analysis being chronically unreliable my answers are probably more or less off spot, but still ... factors contributing would be 1. the situation in high-school(-equivalent) and 2. the relationship to my parents. When I came to high-school, all of my elementary school friends were gone, while in the rest of the class there were still old cliques of friends. A little shy as I was then already, it was all the harder to find contacts. Being somewhat of an outsider and subject to on and off mobbing through several years hasn't helped either. As for the second reason I have recently realized, that I've been perceiving (rightly to some extent, I'm sure) my mothers as a very controlling and judgemental influence making home a place I wouldn't want an 'outsider' like a visiting friend to come into and making leaving a thing often avoided as I'd have to tell, where I was going, to whom, why, etc. This is, my analysis anyway.

Now my being aware of this and my classmates having grown up a bit, the situation is better. We'll see, what comes of it. Why I write this then? Well, it makes me kinda feel better to talk about it and order my thoughts by writing them out. Make of this, what you will.


----------



## iblis

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> as far as how i dress, i want someone who wants the real me, not some fake person i'm pretending to be.  what it seems is that the real me is someone who girls aren't attracted to, at least not the kind of girls i'm attracted to.




Um, yet another (quite possibly annoying) person stepping up and commenting blithely on your personal life here. Hi!


You want someone who wants the real you? Congratulations - in all sincerity, that is. Goddamn, if there was only _more_ of that in the world, not less. Hang on a sec - maybe it's just that I empathise with your feelings there. I'll try to be less associative, and no doubt fail.

"Not some fake person I'm pretending to be"? Yeh, I hear that. But, we are all fake people when in public, _of necessity_. Without some kind of buffer between what each of us actually thinks and feels, and every other person with their own (frequently irreconcilable) thoughts and feelings, things would be, well...abundantly more horrible than they may already be, let's just say.

Clothes absolutely _do not_ make the man, or woman. Ridiculous to assume that they ever could or could have. But they do operate in a similar manner to flags, say. I think that many people who might appear to be 'image-obsessed' or 'shallow' in this area are in fact just utilising those flags effectively, knowing full well that none of it truly means a thing, but happier nonetheless to use the resources available to them, than not to. It's not everyone's choice, but quite honestly I believe that a lot of those 'playing the game' are lucidly aware of the fact that they are doing precisely that. The _real_ them? Someone not so shallow, quite often. In most places on Earth, you have to wear clothes. So, from there, it's a simple inevitable matter of deciding either what you want to wear, or what you least dislike wearing, according to your outlook. Any people out there who'll form opinions on who you really are based on your _clothing_ are a waste of your time, clearly - vapid puppets and such.

So what 'kind' of girls _are_ you attracted to (aiming for a positive rather than a double negative)? No, I don't need to know, but you may or may not. Taking people on a case-by-case basis rather than categorising, that's the key, IMO. Common ground usually helps a bit. Maybe try looking in the same places you'd like someone to find you at (possibly places you feel 'at home'/'yourself'). It worked for me, though accidentally - I met my current longtime girlfriend (and she is _definitely_ 'the one') in an atypical place, and the meeting was completely unforeseen - and slightly awkward, also mutually nervewracking - but here we are; point being, if I'd thought of that back then, I could've actually sought that situation out actively. It works for others too, from time to time. It might work for you also.





			
				Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> i guess that's in general how i see life.  too much work for too little reward.  life requires way too much effort, and there's not enough good things about life to make it feel like it's worth all the work.




Foresight and hindsight are prerequisites for making sense of anything much. Being a roleplayer (I assume), you'd be even more than usually capable of 'seeing into the future', should you wish to. Your future self will forever be in a state of disappointment and disapproval toward your past i.e. present self if you don't take worthwhile opportunities and also create some for yourself.




			
				Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> i can't just go up and start talking to some strange girl, no matter how much i'd like to... i'm just too afraid...




You and how many others? You'd be surprised. It sucks, but it's how it is. Anything unknown tends to be like that. Anything with a real chance of humiliation, even more so. Someone told me years ago, some disposable platitude like "FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY!". Heh, I thought. Sure. You first - I'll observe and make my own mind up on the matter...and so, a significant time later I did (make up my mind)...waddayaknow...who woulda thunk it...good advice, as it so happens.




			
				Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> as far as looking in the mirror and smiling, my forced smiles look terrible.




Nearly everyone looks more crap in mirrors, especially with certain lighting. Same goes for photos, same goes for the sound of your speaking voice in recordings, you name it. And I really wouldn't bother with forced smiles except where strictly required for the fending off of disastrous situations. At least as many people respond negatively to them as positively, IME. And the kinds of people who respond negatively, might well be of more interest to you (as someone who is less concerned with trite conformism than truths, no?)




			
				Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> i suppose, from an objective viewpoint, it's best for the world (other than myself) that someone like me has their self-esteem crushed.  i mean, if I was truly able to realise my childhood dreams, I'd be bringing much suffering upon the world under my despotic regime.  there'd be all sorts of suffering and death because of my wars of conquest.  but because i have no self-confidence, i can't realise my desires.  i think they recognised this and that's why everyone from teachers on down to students conspired to destroy me.  because i was a threat, my intelligence combined with my resistance to conformity made me dangerous.  but my emotional instability made me an easy target.




It's worse for the world (including, of course, the individual in question) whenever anyone is partially crushed (kind of a euphemism, you might say), because it perpetuates and fuels that same small-minded idiocy elsewhere. And that's my best rendition of an 'objective viewpoint' (though no such thing exists - the term itself is an oxymoron).

Some people conspired to destroy you? I've been there. I was also precocious (a common enough trait among roleplayers, seemingly). I was also resistant to conformity (ditto). On a few occasions I was considered dangerous. I've been emotionally unstable at times. And while I'm not presuming to speak on behalf of others here (only to give unsolicited advice of debatable merit ), I would hazard a guess that a _lot_ of people could truthfully say the same.

At present, you haven't been destroyed. From this point on, it's up to you whether you faithfully carry on the work of said small-minded idiots in your past and actually succeed at their previously attempted destruction of your good self, or...make your own way. I've been through stuff, and I know people who've been through worse stuff than I have. They've come through it - not unscathed, but whole - with the influences of bloodyminded willpower and good people. Identify the good people in your life. They won't let you down. With a bit of support from them, you'll be able to be whatever it is you aspire to be.

my 2c. I hope even a fraction of it might prove helpful in some way, and if it doesn't, I hope it's forgivable and forgettable garbage.


----------



## Hida Bukkorosu

well, the other day i read in the police blotter in the campus newspaper:

"a female reported that a male approached her asking to be tutored in english.  an incident report was filed."

how can i ask a girl out when girls will report guys to the police just for asking for help with their english?


----------



## LiKral

I think you are still looking for excuses. 
The incident with the homework was doubtless more complex than it sounds. Maybe the guy had been stalking her for weeks, or asked her when she was alone in a park at 3AM. You can't plan ahead for unlikely things like that. Have you planned for the possibility that your first girlfriend will turn out to be a mad poisoner? Most girls are flattered to be asked out, as long as the guy doesn't press the issue if they say 'no'

So what type of girl are you looking for anyway? Anyone in particular in mind? Tell us more!


----------



## WizarDru

Hida Bukkorosu said:
			
		

> well, the other day i read in the police blotter in the campus newspaper:
> 
> "a female reported that a male approached her asking to be tutored in english.  an incident report was filed."
> 
> how can i ask a girl out when girls will report guys to the police just for asking for help with their english?




LiKral's right...you're making excuses, now.  That write-up is so vague as to be meaningless.  It conveys nothing of context.  As LiKral pointed out, there are plenty of mitigating factors.  Do you seriously think that every girl who gets asked out reports an incident with the campus police?  Consider: the girl obviously felt threatened.  More than likely, this wasn't a '_Pardon me, I don't normally do this, but if you're not busy, would you like to get som coffee?_', but a "_Hello, pretty legs! How to you are coming with me to my place and teaching me English.  Much am I wanting to learn from american girl with such nice body._"  No imagine the the latter occured with someone who clearly was not a student, but was on campus grounds.  He may have been physically threatening and violated the girl's person space, or she just may have been skittish.

Men ask women (and vice-versa, and men ask other men) all the time, every day.  Don't latch on to this as a lame reason to validate your fears.  The fact is this: YOU WILL GET TURNED DOWN.  Deal with it.  Anticipate it.  Prepare for it.  JUST DON'T DESIRE IT.  Being rejected is not the hardest thing in the world, once you mentally adjust for it.  I can't guarantee you success off the bat, but I can guarantee you failure if you don't even try.


----------



## SmokestackJones

Hey there,

Arise, yon thread of old!  Arise!  Come forth from the dead to wreak havoc!  Arise, I say!!

Mua hahahahahaha!  


_Ain't I a stinker?_ 

*-SJ*


----------



## diaglo

SmokestackJones said:
			
		

> _Ain't I a stinker?_
> 
> *-SJ*




a little bit a soap wouldn't hurt. yanno.


----------



## Dimwhit

diaglo said:
			
		

> a little bit a soap wouldn't hurt. yanno.



 And diaglo would know about soap. From his distant memories when his mom used to make him use it as a child.

Pathetic gamer...


----------



## SmokestackJones

diaglo said:
			
		

> a little bit a soap wouldn't hurt. yanno.




Hey! What do I look like?  A gamer??

Waitaminute...

*-SJ*


----------



## Dimwhit

Damn, I forgot diaglo has me on ignore...


----------



## Dark Jezter

SmokestackJones said:
			
		

> Hey there,
> 
> Arise, yon thread of old!  Arise!  Come forth from the dead to wreak havoc!  Arise, I say!!
> 
> Mua hahahahahaha!
> 
> 
> _Ain't I a stinker?_
> 
> *-SJ*



 Some threads are just too good to fade into obscurity.


----------



## WayneLigon

SmokestackJones said:
			
		

> Hey! What do I look like?  A gamer??
> Waitaminute...
> *-SJ*




*hoses SJ down with Lysol*


----------



## rgard

Nisarg said:
			
		

> Well, no that's not a good point at all actually.. unless you're saying gamers have all the emotional and social maturity development of a 12 year old child?
> 
> The fact is that the average gamer is older than that, and should be held to higher standards of maturity.
> 
> The fact is also, sadly, gamers in north america tend to tolerate a much higher level of the socially retarded than is healthy for the hobby and the hobby's perception in the world at large.  The socially unfit shouldn't be allowed to continue to be socially unfit in the gaming community, and thus become our "poster boys" to the world.
> 
> Interestingly, I've found down here in South America that this is not tolerated at all, and there are some interesting results:
> 1. You have no terminally antisocial or sociopathic people in gaming groups, which you do have in gaming in North America.
> 
> 2. Most people down here live up to the social norms, in terms of standards for their age group (unlike in North America where in one gaming group I played in I was the ONLY one who had a job and was living independantly outside of his parent's house, when this was a group of 25 year old men.. I was also the only one who'd had a long-term relationship with a woman).
> 
> 3. There are far more female gamers down here, I'd say about three or four times as many. This might be because they feel safe about coming to a gaming club knowing they won't be harassed by mouth-breathing social imbeciles that haven't bathed in a week, don't have a job, and live with their mom.
> 
> The gaming community needs to make a choice. Do we want more well-adjusted people, and more women, in our community; or do we want to hand over the entire hobby to the cat-piss men?  Because we can't do both. And the longer we tolerate this sort of social retardation at our gaming tables the more socially functional people will associate that attitude with gaming and will leave the hobby.  Its the industry equivalent of a death spiral, it happened to furry fandom and it could happen to us.
> 
> Nisarg




Nisarg, so you've played in every game store and gaming club in South America?  You make a sweeping claim that the negative aspects mentioned in the article don't happen in South America so I can only assume you personally know every gamer in South America.

Ok, sarcasm aside.  

Many kids get introduced to gaming in their pre and early teens.  For many human beings this is an awkward time in life as we make the transition from child to young adult; so it's no surprise we get have the occurance of the gaming geek.

On a general note, I really wish people would lighten up and cut their fellow gamers (fellow people) some slack.  We all have our quirks.  

Thanks,
Rich


----------



## nerfherder

Dimwhit said:
			
		

> Damn, I forgot diaglo has me on ignore...



diaglo has _everyone_ on ignore.  To him, this thread is only 3 posts long...

Cheers,
Liam


----------



## VoidDragon

This thread is before my time, but I read through a sizeable amount before it went terribly off-topic. Did we ever come to a consensus on how 'pathetic' gamers are?


----------



## reanjr

Quasqueton said:
			
		

> Are so many gamers *really* so pathetically socially withdrawn that the first time they've touched a girl would be a booth babe at a gaming convention? Or are the guys these women are referring to 13 year-olds? Is that situation so exciting as to make gamer guys shake?




Or perhaps, option number C: gamers like that are drawn to conventions at much higher rates than people with lives outside gaming.


----------



## Piratecat

rgard, Nisarg would have an easier time answering if we hadn't banned him almost two years ago.  

Old thread!


----------



## SmokestackJones

WayneLigon said:
			
		

> *hoses SJ down with Lysol*




*cough cough cough* HAY!  Knock it off!  You're neutralizing the car freshener I have in my back pocket!

*-SJ*


----------



## Quasqueton

Wow, this really is an old thread. The opening post says I'm 37 years old; I'm now 39. Yowza.

Quasqueton


----------



## sniffles

Gosh, you're old, Quas!   
(she remarks loftily from a perch 6 years ahead of you)   

I can't remember if I ever looked at this thread before. I think I did, but don't recall if I posted and don't feel like checking back through the whole thing to find out.   

I used to have the opinion that many people seem to have that gamers are hygiene-challenged and socially inept. When I attended a SF&F convention each year I avoided the gaming room as if it contained radioactive waste, at least until my fiancee and all his buddies started obsessively playing Magic: The Gathering. 

Oddly, at the time I was behaving this way, I was also a gamer. I played every week. Sometimes 3 or 4 times a week. It's so easy to get into that 'us' vs. 'them' mindset.

In my experience, gamers aren't any more or less socially inept or lacking in personal hygeine than the rest of the society in which they live. There are people with poor social skills in every social group. It's just that human beings remember people who make an impression on us, and bad things tend to make more vivid impressions than good things. If someone makes a bad impression by behaving strangely or being physically offensive, we're more likely to recall that than we are to recall meeting 5 nice ordinary people. 

Some people look at me a bit oddly when I tell them I attend a science fiction convention every year. They assume it must be a really weird place full of weird people. And it is. But they're mostly nice  weird people who are fun to be with. And I always try to tell the curious that when I used to attend conventions of the Society for Photographic Education (an organization of photographers and teachers), I met the same kind of people and did the same kind of things - just not while wearing elf ears or a Klingon costume.


----------



## Dimwhit

nerfherder said:
			
		

> diaglo has _everyone_ on ignore.  To him, this thread is only 3 posts long...
> 
> Cheers,
> Liam



 That must be why he's such a sad, lonely old man.


----------



## Mr. Draco

Edit - moved this to a new thread.


----------

