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A few people laughed and mocked, but never anything serious. Plus some of the people who laughed came up to me and my friends afterwards asking about it and started playing themselves funnily enough.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=527575260620144&set=t.100000281233450&type=3&theater

I'm 6'3" 220lbs.... So if they insist...

Two of these boys are mine and the rest are their friends and none them suffer any backlash at school but then again we are in a very rural area which tends to be less "clickish" then some areas.. :-) Love the game and ignore the rest...

Maybe it's just my particular gaming group, but nobody is really a neckbeard in this group. We've got a 6'4 head of security for a well-to-do security company in the area, a tattooed long-haired engineer who does a lot of crossfit, a guy whose other hobbies including hunting, reloading ammunition, and brewing beer, a Marine/student, and an IDF combat vet/student.

As long as your life is in order, it really isn't anybody's business. I do think that the usual "gamer crowd" (i.e., "neckbeards") aren't teased because they play 40k - they're teased because they're neckbeards.

I get a few comments about my "nerdy" hobbies, then they find out about my main hobby and most people go running.

When you tell people that you keep and breed constrictors, they can get rather nervous.

CloudRider wrote:
Currently going through it...
To be honest... This is going to sound really geeky...
But I wanted a space marine drop pod to come flying down from the sky... Crush half the female dogs group and then some SternGuard veterans popped out and pumped a few Dragon-Fire bolts in the survivors heads... But not me

@Phosis T'kar jr. I know that feel bro... I know that feel...

That's okay.

My dad often has fantasies about hand grenades and artillery when he's in a crowded shopping mall.

When he told his psychiatrist, first thing she asked was whether he had access to hand grenades.

(He doesn't.)

As for the subject at hand, I can't remember ever getting any negative comments about my wargaming.

It's possible I did, but normal high school ended for me in 2004, and my memories before mid-2005 are very hazy and sparse. And since then, I haven't gotten a job, don't go to school, and by and large just sit at home all day playing videogames, watching TV, and going on Internet forums.

That said, I am a total neckbeard. I even have an actual, honest-to-the-God-Emperor neckbeard which I often neglect to trim or shave for weeks if not months at a time. I go long enough between showers that the smell gets to be noticeable (though I have improved significantly since the bad days), I wear the same clothes for weeks on end, only changing them when they get too many stains or start to smell or become inappropriate for the season. I'm also significantly overweight - about 5 feet, 8-9 inches or so and 228lbs, little of it is muscle, and I carry most of that weight around my midsection. I can't even be bothered to clean my glasses regularly, I just let the dust build up until it starts to impede my reading abilities.

I went through it at my first high school. It was fairly awful, and I'm sure contributed plenty to my self confidence problems I had in my early adult life.

I literally see two people from there anymore. One is my cousin, one is a friend who also still plays. So if anyone is going through this, just remember - you probably won't see any of them ever again. As long as it doesn't get physical, just let it go. It's not worth getting worked up about.

At my second high school I was on a break from it, but I met one of my best friends (and still most regular opponent) there when our history teacher told us to bring in plastic army men to re-enact a WWII battle, and he brought his Catachan army in.

I have a few people say its all geeky and that and being playing since I was a young kid. I then explain to them due to warhammer I got really into statistics / probability and maths. Which I became very good at and now an off shore accountant.. Whilst they have a gakky min wage job. Then they shut up ^_^

Bassline wrote:
I then explain to them due to warhammer I got really into statics/ probability and maths.

That's a good selling point. And not just the math, there's also the fact you have to be able to read the English in the rulebooks. My little brother would never have been as good at it as he is now if he didn't start gaming with us and wanted to know what the rules actually said.

Spetulhu wrote:

Bassline wrote:
I then explain to them due to warhammer I got really into statics/ probability and maths.[ /quote]

That's a good selling point. And not just the math, there's also the fact you have to be able to read the English in the rulebooks. My little brother would never have been as good at it as he is now if he didn't start gaming with us and wanted to know what the rules actually said.

End of the day if you can bring some of your love for a hobby into the working world. You can become very successful. My hobbies are programming, warhammer and kite surfing. I have been able to use my skills gained from programming and warhammer into the working world. Which has made my life so much easier money wise. But also in a job which I enjoy because it is based off of my hobbies.

You then have these people who go oh Sports sports sports if you do not like sports your gay etc (Nothing wrong with sports I do enjoy NBA and football my self) but very little of those people can put what they enjoy into a working environment and most of them will never enjoy their job as much as I do because it is not based on something they are passionate about.

Meh, don't care. People know I play travel/club Soccer in my free time. So as long as I get outside some I've got nothing to be ashamed of.

Experiment 626 wrote:
When I was making a drink run up to the food court for myself and my fellow GW staffers, a gaggle of girls saw my red shirt and the fattest one then started to tease me about playing with boys toys & wanting to be a boy and asking me how does it feel to be a girl-boy and other crap like that...

I simply turned to her and asked her how did she like having to pay her boyfriend just to touch her.

The number of people pointing and laughing at her afterwards made me smile!


Basically, if someone wants to be donkeycave and try to throw humiliating/degrading insults at me, well, I just throw better ones right back at them and leave them the ones who are crying.

Haha what you said to that girl just made my day... I take my hat off to you sir

I was out with a group once where someone who knew I painted miniatures told his girl friend I was an artist. He did this to try to get me to tell her I play with what he called my Barbies.
The girl, who was fairly cute, asked me if that was true.
I just went to myself, dig it, and went into full bs mode and said yes, I am an artist and I work in several mediums.
I went on to tell her of a photographic exibition I currently had on display that bewailed man's rape of nature, but that I was also a painter in search of a model and would she be interested.
She said yes, so I had her tell me about herself and her inner desires and dreams. All the while, her boyfriend was sitting back with a gak eating grin on his face, thinking I was going to slip up and make a fool of myself.
We got to a theatre, and I told her I also did performance art and as part of her interview process I would like to see how much she was willing to give of herself to art.
The piece I told her we were going to perform was "The Lovers Reunited."
Before her boyfriend realized how far things were going to go, his girlfriend was putting the old make hard to me in the theatre lobby. He was no longer smiling, because he was in a position where his girlfriend would kick his ass for setting her up.
Moral of the story, a good story, some measure of acting ability, and the balls to carry it out smooth a lot of ways.

Simple answer to someone.

"My hobby is the art of finding an opponents weakness, strategically planning the most efficient ways to kill and torture my enemies, so keep pushing

I've never really experienced it to be honest. It's not something I really advertise but I'm not hiding it either. If people come over and see my painting stuff all set up they are usually more curious than anything else.

No one said much to my face. It was generally considered bad for yer health if you peeved off the giant guy in the trench coat, even if he was playing with toys in his spare time

But some of my friends have, so you just brush it off and get on with life

Von Chogg

I played in middle and high school and stopped playing while I was away at college (military academy, didn't have the time or money!) Now I've got both and have started playing again. In high school, I waited before I told my then girlfriend, and she laughed and laughed at the thought of me slaving away painting "little army men", but realized I was a nerd at heart. People are still surprised when they find out I play or did back in high school. I played football, rugby, loved working out, and still play rugby. It's not like I would sack the QB, rip off his helmet, then stand up and scream "For the Emperor!"
Like others have said, if you carry yourself like "Yeah, I play Warhammer, so what?" Most people won't care. Do what you enjoy and you'll be much happier in the long run.

Edit: Plus, high school's stupid as hell (that's where it seems the majority of flak comes from). Life even 5 years after high school is so much different. Like I already said, do what makes you happy, dude! I've been picked on for plenty of things besides 40k, but I embraced it. Everybody's got a little weird in them!

A few people in my family don't get it, or think it's juvenile. Some of my friends think the same, but they know I'm a nerd. But when I show them a fully painted miniature, and show them a sprue and explain that I assembled it, cleaned up mold lines, base coated it, painted details, used a toothpick to paint the dot in the eyes...they are usually fascinated or impressed.

The best thing ever is playing a game at my local game store and my beautiful girlfriend popping in to bring me snacks. People tend to stop and stare, they're not used to seeing a pretty girl in those stores, LOL. And the fact that she knows something about 40K is incredibly impressive to them for some reason. So that tends to boost my ego, and any rude comments or teasing just slides right off.