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My friends, my fellow humans, in terms of history we're lucky to live in a relatively accepting time. People of other races intermingle. Crime is met with compassion rather than death. Even in social terms, formerly "weird" hobbies like video gaming are becoming more accepted.

Our hobby, however, still seems to rank somewhere between naked dance parties with members of the same gender and Khorne worship. (or his real world copycat, Stan or whatever). As a fairly average dude living without parental assistance since I left for college and working a steady part time job, I've always resented the low-to middlin' level of flak I get whenever the hobby comes up or god forbid I'm "caught" at a game store playing with a friend of mine. Through careful observation, I've looked into how other people at my FLGS respond to similar situations.

Response 1: the "man caught with illegal substances": "Oh hey, babe, I didn't know you'd be in the mall today. What? Oh, this. Mae I just came in here to check it out, I'm just standing in for some dude I sorta know from work. I think these are 'magic cards'. Check out these funky six sided things. Wild, huh?"

Response 2: the pre-emptive defensive blitz. "Yeah, yeah it's WARHAMMER, ok? Yeah, I guess I'm just a dork and you should give me a wedgie, you f----- Neanderthal b----!!! Go wathch your sports games and be a worthless corporate cog all your life, a------!

... God, moms, am I right?"

so my question to you, dakkaites, is... Have you found a more reasonable approach that, you know, works? Or should I just try and accept that despite my incredibly average circumstances I'm doomed to be ignoring people who think I'm some kind of social pariah for my chosen method of hanging with friends and relaxing in the evenings?

How to solve this problem:

1) Start attending more naked dance parties with members of the same gender.

2) Stop spending time around people who judge you for your hobbies.

Just play it cool. I always accepted its kind of dorky and if someone has a problem with it its their problem. Dont get defensive about it. Just claim it as it is and be proud.

Downplay it.

Don't wear WAAAAGH t-shirts to church.

Don't wear WS4 tshirts on a first date.

People that accept you don't give a crap about your "silly" hobbies.

People that do are people you shouldn't accept.

Graduated with the best possible result, got an active social life and two jobs - feth those guys if they wanna talk me down

You shouldn't show your mini collection to your crush though. It's not...that impressive.

I'm 32, I'm ok with being seen in public playing the game and such. I mean I have a job, I can use my money on what I want and not feel ashamed!

My only issue is when I go to GW stores to play a game or chat with people and I'm surrounded by 13 year olds and the look from parents thinking I'm some kind of pedophile.

Not enough larger comic type stores to play in around me (at least none that I know of) so I'm stuck going to GW stores.

I'm 6'4 and was 325lbs at my heaviest.

In highschool people didn't mock me for my interests.

The first time someone did I trolled him before "trolling" was a popculture phrase.

He lost his cool and took a swing. Then he spat on me. Then he snatched my glasses from my face.

3 strikes.

Next thing I see... His face. With my thumbs knuckle deep under his chin. His feet 18inches off the ground.

"Whoops, a little too angry" I think to myself. So I threw him about 10 feet into the football teams locker room.

If I hadn't regained control of myself I probably would have followed through with a few rib-breaking kicks.

After that incident, which happened infront of 2 classes of fellow students, no one made fun of my hobbies again.

I also got my first girlfriend shortly afterwards.

Violence, apparently, solves everything.

 Sigvatr wrote:
You shouldn't show your mini collection to your crush though. It's not...that impressive.

Of course you should. You're going to have to do it anyway, so you might as well filter out the people who would have a problem with it before you get too involved with them.

 DeffDred wrote:

Violence, apparently, solves everything.

This. Seriously. Had a similar problem at elementary...was overweight and people mocked me until I got fed up and broke one child's nose with a punch to the face. From this day on, people suddenly respected me.

Hooray for some good ol' bloody beating!

Don't go overboard talking about your hobby, but don't try to hide it either.

I've actually found that alot of people think its super cool, including hot women

Of course I'm going to a school on the fairly nerdy end of the spectrum so the demographic is probably favorable.

i like option one for some reason.....??? Oddly decadent.

Post 2012/09/26 17:33:48 Subject: Re:How do you approach the prejudice?
How to solve this problem:

1) Start attending more naked dance parties with members of the same gender.

2) Stop spending time around people who judge you for your hobbies.

This however, does bother me:

My only issue is when I go to GW stores to play a game or chat with people and I'm surrounded by 13 year olds and the look from parents thinking I'm some kind of pedophile.

having hit the 30 mark and just really getting into TT, I hate this look. Yeah I'm divorced and ride a motorcycle, play with toys, but I honestly don't want anything to do with your kids, unless they brought an army then I will crush them!

On being accused of bieng a 'nerd!'

If using my intelegence and imagination to take flight to fantastic worlds full of wonder and despair is being a nerd.
If experiancing the blood icing panic of close combat, and sheer exuberence of surviving makes me a nerd.
Knowing the soul crushing wieght of total victory AND total defeat makes me a nerd.
If finding a mirriad of ways to explore the human condition in depth and detail you have not the imagination to understand makes me a nerd.

Then in your eyes I am a nerd.But it pales in comparision to the pity I feel for your shallow existance.

(Round of applause from fellow gamers , and the slow and embarrased withdraw of the acuser.)

Rah rah rah

See, I'm not disconsolately wailing about why my misunderstood brilliance isn't thought of as the art that it truly is. My objective is, when approached with the question of "so where do you go every Sunday afternoon" how I can phrase "I bring my hand painted collection of small plastic men to a store and collaboratively imagine them battling with another person aided by six sided plastic cubes" in such a way that I get the default response of "oh." This response is the norm when you say things like "I put on tight pants and a helmet and hit other similarly clad men while trying to carry a melon across a line painted in the grass" and "I introduce mild depressants into my bloodstream until walking is difficult".

However, in my experience a large number of people respond to my explanation of my hobby with the blank stare usually reserved for "I don a felt suit depicting a cartoon animal and make sweet love to strangers"

How can I avoid this, is my real question.

"I enjoy hanging out and playing board games with friends."

the_scotsman wrote:
My objective is, when approached with the question of "so where do you go every Sunday afternoon" how I can phrase "I bring my hand painted collection of small plastic men to a store and collaboratively imagine them battling with another person aided by six sided plastic cubes" in such a way that I get the default response of "oh."

I play games. Like chess, but with more skulls.

That's more than enough to cover any kind of situation where you have to participate in the conversation (work, for example), and if you're looking for an excuse with your friends, well, you need to get some new friends.

This response is the norm when you say things like "I put on tight pants and a helmet and hit other similarly clad men while trying to carry a melon across a line painted in the grass"

See, here's the problem. Your response should be "I take off my tight pants and helmet and wrestle with a bunch of similarly non-clad men while attempting to "carry a melon across a line"". Which, now that I think about it, would be a much more entertaining sport...

However, in my experience a large number of people respond to my explanation of my hobby with the blank stare usually reserved for "I don a felt suit depicting a cartoon animal and make sweet love to strangers"

And, seriously this time, this is your problem. As soon as you start looking at your hobby as something to be ashamed of people will notice and agree with you that it's something to be ashamed of. On the other hand, if your answer is "I HAVE AWESOME FURRY SEX YOU LOSERS YOU JUST WISH YOU WERE AS COOL AS ME" then it's just another hobby.

Stop caring. Anyone who thinks your deal is weird probably has their own dirty little secrets or are incredibly boring. Tell them to FO and find new friends.

As my generation put it, let your freak flag fly.

I fail to see how any reasonable person would equate naked/lingerie football with playing with toy soldiers

I don't really care what people think of my gobies really. I have fun with them. Someone mentioned the t-shirts, I love them but it's even more funny because most people don't get them. My wife hates it when she doesn't get the joke. On a side not be carful were you wear mini wargamings "I'm primed in black shirt". It can be taken wrong. Had some lady rave at me for 5min about being racist. Told her it was a model t-shirt joke but she still didn't believe me, o well.

Generally i'm just honest, i have a fair few ammounts of friends, the kinds that go to gigs and clubs and wear cool tshirts and have lots of followers on Tumblr, and i'm similar, kinda indie go to gigs and whatnot

So when they find out i like to collect, model and paint warhammer, some can be a little bit weird about it, but i just explain that i find it really engaging, the painting is really relaxing and i enjoyed it as a kid so like the nostalga and most of them are like, fair enough. and the ones that arn't i don't care ha

 Grey Templar wrote:
I fail to see how any reasonable person would equate naked/lingerie football with playing with toy soldiers

Clearly you're not playing 40k correctly.

 DeffDred wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I fail to see how any reasonable person would equate naked/lingerie football with playing with toy soldiers

Clearly you're not playing 40k correctly.

obviously not.

From now on I shall play 40k and all wargames while dressed in either my Gollum or Elmo suit(I do the voices quite well actually)

 Grey Templar wrote:

 DeffDred wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I fail to see how any reasonable person would equate naked/lingerie football with playing with toy soldiers

Clearly you're not playing 40k correctly.

obviously not.

From now on I shall play 40k and all wargames while dressed in either my Gollum or Elmo suit(I do the voices quite well actually)

I do a great Meatwad.

Also, as a side note, if you're going to put stats on a tshirt why would you only give yourself WS4? Besides, that stat means hardly anything in Warhammer!

Maybe the people who'd judge you for that are merely worried that you're advertising that you have a 2/3 chance of punching them.

I don't really tell anybody about it, though I don't really hide it either. Though I'm probably still insecure about it so I kind of down play it a little.

For example, if someone asks me about it I will tell them about it. I kind of describe it in vague way though.

I agree violence works the Emprah prove sit so
and really WS 4 you need to make a WS8 shirt or a tau shirt saying You wanna see my greater wood
or a rubric t-shirt
or more slaneeshi parties

if people ask I talk about it I simply tell them about the hobby, I even had a 4 hour chat with a priest once about warhammer he was keen to learn about it.
I honestly don't think I have ever got a bad response from anyone I respected about it. who is asking you these questions ?

Considering this hobby generally attracts people with bad hygine and poor social skills I shrug my shoulders and say "Yeah its pretty dorky" and keep playing (with my nose covered)

I get stick nearly every day from the guys at my work, barring the fact that some are ignorant morons, the others aren't actually bad people but still enjoy ribbing me for it.

I simply ignore them or join in, either way it doesn't really bother me, the way I see it I could do a lot stupider or weirder things with my time.

At least I've got the guts to not hide what I do and take pride in it.

I just dont care. Like right now i'm in the student union building, where the magic players and yu-gi-oh player have settledown and play games all day long.
I dont get judged when i pull out a 40k book, sme if i go to the library and start watching paint vids.
Where i am we are accepting, I have noticed that anyone who really insults you is
1: A family Member
2: Trying to get a rise out of me
3: Sad and drinks alot.