Those here who know me best are aware that I have sort of a double or triple life going on where I am extremely careful to prevent overlap on. To put it bluntly I am a huge nerd who pretty much takes joy in every hobby in existence which the general public thinks is odd. I don't know why it turned out that way, it wasn't a conscious decision on my part to do so.
- I'm a gamer who likes RPGs, strategy, point n' click adventure games and the like who wont touch the manly acceptable first person shooters like Halo and "battlefield modern call of black ops duty with warfare 8".
- I play miniature based wargames like warhammer40k and lord of the rings
- I play the ocarina in my spare time for the express purpose of learning video game and anime songs
- I watch anime, and worse the less popular stuff so that even among anime nerds I'm a nerd
(People look at me funny when I yawn at the thought of death note)
- I play pen and paper roleplaying games (Yes thats right, dungeons and dragons.... shut up! ) I'll even do it online via chat window and scripts with friends of mine elsewhere on the continent.
- I have a group of online friends I've known for about 8 years now that I'd probably trust over my own family, and my family is pretty trustworthy.
- I was tearing apart computers in my spare time to see how they worked when I was a kid and have been obsessed with them ever since. I live my life on a computer and firmly believe that it is what drives me away from a normal life, not that I use the computer to avoid said normal life.
- I've flown across the US to visit said online friends and to go to anime conventions (the latter being something I did when I was a lot younger, not so much now) and I am considering hitting up the worlds largest LAN party in Sweden next year if I get the chance.
Anyway, my family, my coworkers and anyone who I associate with on a day to day basis knows NOTHING about any of this. I keep the two lives as separate as I can, as I know others will think less of me for doing these things, or at the very least be uninterested. I'm not just saying this as a sort of gesture of uneasiness, I have literally seen these people make fun of the stuff if they ever hear about from any outside source. Verbally expressing an absolute loathing of people who enjoy those sorts of things.
... To which I respond by raising my beer and going "Don't know much about any of that, can't make an opinion on it one way or another" and then shooting the pool cue while my brain yells at me for playing pool in the first place since it's ******* boring.
It's strange because these aren't mean people, or rather you wouldn't think it from any other dealings you would have with them. But God help you if you aren't meeting that minimum social requirement of not enjoying those things. A fact that I wouldn't even have known about them had it not come up for one reason or another. As a result most people I know like me or at the very least don't think anything bad, and I find myself invited to their social events and am treated nicely by them. Meanwhile I am bored out of my skull, and wonder if I am the only person that likes to do these things. It could be that there are more people out there like me, but we all know to keep our mouths shut about it so we never meet.
I was at a best buy when visiting my sister and I noticed a greasy, pimply faced, overweight teenager in sweat pants and a stained T-shirt playing the opening to an anime called "Angel Beats" on a demo keyboard they had set up in the corner. While looking at a sound system beside it, I casually mention "I liked that anime, but was never able to figure out how to play the tune". He looked me up and down, saw me standing there with my average figure, clean haircut, and workplace casual clothing and just gave me a look of utter shock as he responded with. "But... you look normal, how do you know about this song?"
I didn't really know what to say to that, so I just shrugged and said I was a closet case, then left to go to my sisters house.
Girlfriends that I have had have accused me of being too much of a closed book, and wonder what that glassy eyed stare is I have when I am visiting their mother, shopping with them for clothes or when playing poker with "the guys". In my head I'm thinking about how to beat the next level of an RPG, how to make friends with the dragon in my d&d game next week, and what sort of army arrangement I should set up for my jetpack orks so they can get the advantage over imperial space marines. I tell everyone I was thinking about work when they ask.
The double life is starting to get to me. I don't think I could "come out of the closet" so to speak anytime soon, as I know it will effect my workplace relations and by extension chances for promotion and the like. (Say what you will, but how you fit in socially does affect this, even if on paper they say it wont). What's worse is, I have now been a member of a forum for lonely people for about a year now, and I am deathly afraid of my online fellow nerds of finding out I go here! So I create another wall of separation with an alias I use nowhere else and have created the proverbial triple life. :S
The fluffy answers seem to be to be honest with myself and not care what others think, and that I'll find people like myself while succeeding at the rat race in the long run. I'm not convinced that that is how it works, and the stakes are pretty high in exchange for the payoff of additional comfort and comradeship.
Thoughts?
Edit: Here's a song I love that I hold very close to me (One comment minty and I will UN you forever) (d)
[video=youtube]
- I'm a gamer who likes RPGs, strategy, point n' click adventure games and the like who wont touch the manly acceptable first person shooters like Halo and "battlefield modern call of black ops duty with warfare 8".
- I play miniature based wargames like warhammer40k and lord of the rings
- I play the ocarina in my spare time for the express purpose of learning video game and anime songs
- I watch anime, and worse the less popular stuff so that even among anime nerds I'm a nerd
(People look at me funny when I yawn at the thought of death note)- I play pen and paper roleplaying games (Yes thats right, dungeons and dragons.... shut up!
) I'll even do it online via chat window and scripts with friends of mine elsewhere on the continent.- I have a group of online friends I've known for about 8 years now that I'd probably trust over my own family, and my family is pretty trustworthy.
- I was tearing apart computers in my spare time to see how they worked when I was a kid and have been obsessed with them ever since. I live my life on a computer and firmly believe that it is what drives me away from a normal life, not that I use the computer to avoid said normal life.
- I've flown across the US to visit said online friends and to go to anime conventions (the latter being something I did when I was a lot younger, not so much now) and I am considering hitting up the worlds largest LAN party in Sweden next year if I get the chance.
Anyway, my family, my coworkers and anyone who I associate with on a day to day basis knows NOTHING about any of this. I keep the two lives as separate as I can, as I know others will think less of me for doing these things, or at the very least be uninterested. I'm not just saying this as a sort of gesture of uneasiness, I have literally seen these people make fun of the stuff if they ever hear about from any outside source. Verbally expressing an absolute loathing of people who enjoy those sorts of things.
... To which I respond by raising my beer and going "Don't know much about any of that, can't make an opinion on it one way or another" and then shooting the pool cue while my brain yells at me for playing pool in the first place since it's ******* boring.
It's strange because these aren't mean people, or rather you wouldn't think it from any other dealings you would have with them. But God help you if you aren't meeting that minimum social requirement of not enjoying those things. A fact that I wouldn't even have known about them had it not come up for one reason or another. As a result most people I know like me or at the very least don't think anything bad, and I find myself invited to their social events and am treated nicely by them. Meanwhile I am bored out of my skull, and wonder if I am the only person that likes to do these things. It could be that there are more people out there like me, but we all know to keep our mouths shut about it so we never meet.
I was at a best buy when visiting my sister and I noticed a greasy, pimply faced, overweight teenager in sweat pants and a stained T-shirt playing the opening to an anime called "Angel Beats" on a demo keyboard they had set up in the corner. While looking at a sound system beside it, I casually mention "I liked that anime, but was never able to figure out how to play the tune". He looked me up and down, saw me standing there with my average figure, clean haircut, and workplace casual clothing and just gave me a look of utter shock as he responded with. "But... you look normal, how do you know about this song?"
I didn't really know what to say to that, so I just shrugged and said I was a closet case, then left to go to my sisters house.
Girlfriends that I have had have accused me of being too much of a closed book, and wonder what that glassy eyed stare is I have when I am visiting their mother, shopping with them for clothes or when playing poker with "the guys". In my head I'm thinking about how to beat the next level of an RPG, how to make friends with the dragon in my d&d game next week, and what sort of army arrangement I should set up for my jetpack orks so they can get the advantage over imperial space marines. I tell everyone I was thinking about work when they ask.
The double life is starting to get to me. I don't think I could "come out of the closet" so to speak anytime soon, as I know it will effect my workplace relations and by extension chances for promotion and the like. (Say what you will, but how you fit in socially does affect this, even if on paper they say it wont). What's worse is, I have now been a member of a forum for lonely people for about a year now, and I am deathly afraid of my online fellow nerds of finding out I go here! So I create another wall of separation with an alias I use nowhere else and have created the proverbial triple life. :S
The fluffy answers seem to be to be honest with myself and not care what others think, and that I'll find people like myself while succeeding at the rat race in the long run. I'm not convinced that that is how it works, and the stakes are pretty high in exchange for the payoff of additional comfort and comradeship.
Thoughts?
Edit: Here's a song I love that I hold very close to me
(One comment minty and I will UN you forever) (d)[video=youtube]
