Geek Omerta: talk about gaming like it’s a normal pass time like golfing or quilting? Perish the thought! Gush effusively with other geeks? Of course!
Don’t even bother debating whether or not that’s what 98% of most gamers do. The questions are: “Why is that?” and “How does one get around it and put gaming in that ‘normal hobby’ category?” How do you frame it to the straights so you don’t some bugfuck or fringe-culty?
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“The Passtime That Dare Not Speak Its Name” …
Well, within the cult circles, golfers and quilters gush as effusively and idiosyncratically as gamers. It’s only with the straights that it’s an issue. “What did you guys do this weekend?” “Went golfing with friends.” “Had my quilting circle over.” “Played D&D.” Yeah, right. I usually say, if it comes up, “We had some friends over to play games.” If they ask the kind of games, I’ll mention D&D stuff.
But, then, folks know I collect comic books and work in IT, so they expect weird behavior.
In some ways, I treat it a bit like religion — I mention it in the background as just something about me. I don’t try to explicitly hide it (enough folks know about my blog that I’ve ceased to be surprised when someone runs across it, and I don’t hide the gaming stuff there), but I don’t trumpet it around either (though for somewhat different reasons).
I’ve been out of the dice closet, but I think all of my other idiosyncracies pretty much overshadow this one. In the meantime, I’m a pretty active advocate of getting people to “try it just once,” and doing comparisons of what they already do to gaming.