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« on: November 21, 2006, 05:03:30 PM »
You know how in that thread about gamer's hating gamers, I sorta groused about the sort of person who would come up to a complete stranger in a store, and invite themselves over to that stranger's house?
Well, after reading this, I'll gladly take Strange Pushy Self-Inviting Dude.
The worst case of Gaming Doofus that I've personally seen was back when a friend of mine was running a combo used bookstore/FLGS. There would be these two guys, probably somewhere around 18 or so, who would come in, in the stereotypical black trenchcoats and pour over the Mage and Vampire material, along with the various Lovecraft books.
The guys were bathed, weren't loud and obnoxious, or any of those things. They'd just quietly have these conversations between them about how all this stuff in these books was really true, how you could use the Necronomicon to summon demons and so forth. I believe that the pair came to be known to my friend as The Would-Be Necromancers.
Somehow, after reading about Publically Strokes Crotch and Star Wars Sissyboy Slap-Party, these dorks don't seem quite as laughable as they once were. Well, not entirely. There's still humor to be found there. I mean, black trenchcoats and White Wolf and no hint of irony?
I did notice a guy in a store the other day that was wearing a Wolverine t-shirt that was about three sizes too small for his Nero Wolfe-esque physique, and that needed a good soak in scalding water and soap. (Him and the t-shirt, come to think of it.) Oh, and to top it off, he was wearing one of those dumb plushy Tim the Enchanter hats. I have no idea if this guy was a gamer or not. I can't say that I went anywhere near him in the store to overhear what he was talking about. He was over in the CDs anyway.
All of this isn't to say that I haven't met some oddball people through gaming. It's just that they've never tended to be the Doesn't Bathe -- and if they didn't, there would be absolutely no chance that they'd be over at my place, anyway -- or Doesn't Understand Basics of Human Interaction types. And, thus, they're much less fun to tell stories about.
No, instead, I got the guy who constantly lectured us about cursing because: "Guys, there's a lady present." The sexist absurdity of this is compounded by the fact that the "lady" had the mouth of a syphilitic sailor on a three-day bender, and would quickly suggest a number of items this guy could insert into his choice of orifices. Didn't stop dude from making the statement at least once a gaming session, though.
I don't miss college. At all.