Gaming Guts
Once upon a time, in college, I started hanging out with a fairly cool group of guys. I’d just gotten out of a kinda stifling relationship with a guy who only watched the occasional Bugs Bunny cartoon and disdained video games, so my geek muscles were weak and flabby. These guys, however, had tons of video games in their dorm room, and several systems. I could walk in and they could be playing anything from a Final Fantasy to Samba de Amigo. They also had anime. Lots of anime. And comic books everywhere. And they were social!!
It was a revelation. I started to relax, and remember my geek roots. Then, disaster! I had picked up a game- I don’t even remember which one. It was an RPG of some sort, and I had just named my character, cheerfully enjoying my newfound freedom to play. One of the guys got home from classes and stopped to watch me for a moment, when he spoke.
“You’re not naming him that are you? That’s not a guy’s name.”
The casual scorn stung. I’m sure he was just teasing in his own way. I got to know him better later, and realized his dry delivery was just how he was, but that one comment had been enough. I stopped playing where anyone but my nearest and dearest could see.
In hindsight I should have probably just laughed it off, and played on, but my courage was so new that it was fragile and I let it fail. Even now, I have a tough time playing with others, but I know now that either they aren’t worth my energy worrying about, or they’re merely jealous. Either way, I feel that my Adult Wisdom has begun to serve me well, to allow me to simply be who I am, and it is telling me to play more video games.
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September 3rd, 2007 at 1:33 am
You know what? Forget him.
People come up with the strangest names for their characters in games, and I’m sure that his are just as weird, if not weirder, than yours were.
And in a world where we have unisex names as is, who cares? Names are what we want them to be.
I have a stock of names I always use in RPGs, and they rarely change. And I get flack for it.
“Richard”? “Richard” isn’t a fantasy name.
No, but it’s an RPG. And *I* want to be there hero.
So once again, forget those people. Enjoy your game.
September 6th, 2007 at 4:46 am
I had a very similar experience, at least with how it made me feel and how I reacted. Most of my friends, and in particular my two roommates, are super geeky guys, which is awesome, because between everyone we probably have hundreds of games on multiple platforms (not to mention about seven computers). That being said, I did not get to start playing videogames til I was a senior in highschool, because as a child my parents didn’t see the point in buying a videogame system for an only child that was a girl. I’ve been trying ever since to catch up and compete with friends who have been playing for much, much longer, so I’ve developed a mental block for playing in groups because of a (real or imagined) deficiency in overall ability… Luckily I’ve been slowly getting over this, but I’m still very self-concious.
September 8th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
I’m slowly coming back out of my gaming-in-private-only shell. I actually let someone watch me play Super Paper Mario last month. And Mario Party somethingorother on the Wii. I am very proud of myself!
Really, the fact is I am too shy for my own good. Games is just the most recently discussed facet of this.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I always name my RPG characters “You.” First it totally combusts the grammar in the game, second I’m utterly and completely craptacularly bad at naming characters, and lastly–but not leastly–anyone who would complain just grabs their face and shakes their head.
Just an opinion of a trickster.
P.S. examples:
“YOU’s ”
“YOU, you …”
“… and we/I will never forget YOU”