It may sound strange to say in this day and age since it seems like "Geek Culture" is in now but depending on how your social circles overlap, it could still be common to be in a situation where you may feel like you should hide your hobbies for the possibility of getting made fun of or ridiculed etc. Don't be ashamed!
Before we get started, this isn't another one of those "you're a special little snowflake" article that encourages you to not fear for anything "because you are awesome!". Don't get me wrong. I'm not putting those down. They have their place but I don't feel that they are overly realistic at times (especially when you don't feel very awesome and people are going out of their way to reinforce that) But, if they help even one person pick themselves up and move through a shitty day, GREAT! If they help the overall mental health of someone, great!
So, now that's been said, what is this article about? Simple. Something cool happened to me the other day and I thought I'd share. In retrospect little things like this have been happening to me more and more lately but this one stood out.
I'm sitting at work and there are 4 of us in one good size office - people I've been friends with for years. One has been my best friend for about 20 years, another we both met that later came to work with us and another that has been in our office for only a couple years. None of my coworkers are gamers. My best friend sees games as a waste of time for people that cant "F or fight" but he's an artist and despite his bravado, people's quirks, hobbies and obsessions intrigue and amuse him in a mostly nonjudgmental way. My next oldest friend likes to "laugh with people". That is her kind of guilty way of justifying making fun of people she doesn't understand. Even though I tend to be one of those people, I know that she has a heart of gold so I usually easily dismiss it, take a dig back at her and move on. I bet by now you're still wondering where this is all going...
Time to time, she sees a group of LARPers at a public park near her mother's house. This usually causes laughter from my coworkers. They'll look at me and ask me what my costume is even though they know I don't LARP but they do know I tried D&D way back in the day and usually slip into the stereotypical jokes about it. My best friend looks at me and asks completely seriously. "you only played once or twice back in the day but you play now right?"
My answer was simple... "Yup". Unapologetic, unfazed and so matter of fact that there were no jokes, and I didn't get made fun of. Instead they looked at me, paused and asked a couple serious questions about what it actually was. How it was played etc... Now they aren't angels and we were listening to "Hello from the Magic Tavern" (it was an accent heavy episode) and the jokester did chuckle and ask me if we talked like that. (fair enough) I explained that my group is pretty new to it so no, no one is doing voices yet, not sure if anyone will. She said "oh.", the conversation ended and we went about our business.
Even at my age and my increasingly I really don't give a fuck what someone thinks about me attitude, old social insecurities and feeling still sneak in but it was nice to have this one go as it should because I simply owned something, made no apologies for something I really enjoy and in the end, because of that, didn't allow them to make me or one of my hobbies a farce.
If you do something, anything... Own it! No one can take that from you. If they try, just handling it that way on your side will make you more resolute and not really care. It's kinda nice.
Stay Awesome!
-TND
