I've been thinking for a while about gaming/nerd culture and why many people in it take everything so seriously to the point of effecting their personal lives and relationship with others. What kicked this off was hanging out with some friends (and friends of friends) we were just shooting the shit and playing around with emulators on the Ouya (don't laugh). Sonic came up and two dudes who never hung out with us before started arguing about various Sonic games, stuff like if Sonic was still relevant today and some obscure plot points in the games. It started out funny, but it went on for about an hour and their argument interrupted every other conversation in the room. We ended up kicking them out of our dorm because a) we were just annoyed by them and b) we started to get noise complaints and neither I nor our mutual friends talk to them much any more. Apparently, it was common for these dudes to just be angry about everything gaming and to pontificate their anger to others. Kind of like being a true-to-life Angry Joe. I kind of don't like being associated with game culture at all because many people I know only see this pseudo-Autistic side of gaming. I'm a part of a film group at my college and another dude will just drone on and on about JRPG's and how EA and BioWare are killing gaming forever and gaming YouTube personalities and will not stop despite our obvious disinterest. I bet this is more rare than I think, but is there something about video games that you think seems to strike some emotional core in people, or do I just have terrible mutual friends?
An important life skill is sorting out weirdo's and dealing with them. Don't let it get you worked up. There will be more along in a few minutes.
You apparently attract people that like to take hours of your time telling you about what drives them crazy- ever considered becoming a psychologist?
I think gaming is a fun and normal thing to do and I encourage it in my kids so they develop motor and computer skills. BUT... there are people who get obsessively involved in gaming because they have no other life. Part of the reason they have no other life is their lack of social skills. And so the vicious circle goes round.
Mr. Ted hits the nail on the head I believe. Social skills are just that, skills. These guys likely had poor parental modeling. I think that we'll likely see a bit more of this kind of thing if more parents begin relying upon gadgets as baby sitters and fewer and fewer schools require Phys Ed. The loss of physical education in our schools system in the US is *a big deal* - its one of the few places where-in groups of similarly aged children are forced to interact with each other - and therefore given an opportunity to develop. As others in this thread have also noted - don't waste another minute of your life worrying about the trouble makers, that's time you'll never get back and you've better things to do with it! I'll get off my soap box and move along....
