Today, while talking with several co-workers, I mentioned that I enjoy playing video games. This turned out to be a mistake. I was basically the butt of every joke for the next several minutes, and even subjected to statements such as “ugh, you’re a gamer?” and “your poor wife!” In the year 2011, I’m actually surprised this still happens, but it does.
As a nerd, I’m generally used to people teasing me a bit about my hobbies (heck, I’m making fun of myself for it more often than not), but I was pretty confused by the lengths that the conversation went in terms of putting down gaming as a whole. It makes sense to me that there’s a certain stigma attached to the guy that plays nothing but Call of Duty (or any game, not just singling out that series) for 30 hours a week, but I figured gaming is widespread enough these days that it’s just accepted.
For the most part, I let these comments slide off my back, but it did stir me to start a few conversations about it over the course of the day. I was curious if you guys ever still run into this kind of thing in your lives? Do people ever give you a hard time about playing video games?