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I've been playing Warhammer 40k and various CCGs for 11 years now (I'm 22 years old).

On my way through highschool, and a bit in college, I tended to avoid bringing it up to anyone who wasn't part of my gaming group. I also played soccer and Lacrosse, and I should be playing soccer at any one of a bunch of D1 schools who were set to offer me a scholarship before a very unfortunate car accident ended my career. So I guess I've been walking in both extremes (the sterotypical jock/athlete/preppy side, and the nerdy gamer side). I figured out very quickly that the people who are trying to be cool will thrash you relentlessly for it. This is unfortunate because the people trying to be cool and edgy tend to be the moron preppy kids featured on shows like the Real World, so society perpetuates it and there are always a few of these people in the "popular kids" social circles at schools. with people like that, it is very hard to find a positive reaction to something like this.

With anyone who has any sort of open mind and concept of individuality it is much different. Having been tossed in around the previous group of people for so long I'm still learning to be more open about the hobbies I have, but when I do tell people they tend to think that it is very cool and creative. I was working for a law firm a couple of years ago and one of the lawyers (a friend of mine and one of the people I always got along great with at the firm) saw me looking at the GW website on my break and asked me about it. I braced for impact as I explained it. He responded with "that is a very interesting and unique hobby and it sounds like it does well to condition your brain for critical thinking and problem solving skills." I was astonished at his response but he just laughed, punched me in the arm and walked away.

As for my girlfriend, I knew her for 2 years before we started dating so she already knew. I never really talked about it that much because I wasn't sure how she felt about it though, but one day she brought it up and said she wanted to start painting with me. I thought that was awesome, and thats where we are now. she always thought it was a cute quirk of mine to be so shy about the gaming stuff because I tend to be very open about everything else. One day she was even wearing some panties that said "I <3 Geeks" across the back. Needless to say, that was pretty awesome.

As time goes on, I definitely find myself caring a whole lot less about the opinions of people who will shoot gaming related hobbies down and call them stupid before they even know anything about them. I can't stand the type of BS social stereotyping I mentioned earlier in my post. Basically for me, the people who are judgmental and closed minded about things like this are not really worth bothering with, and they're the ones missing out. I'm not saying that everyone should play the games. I am saying that people should not belittile and debase others because they play the games.