Geekshy

It always smells like shoes.

I don’t know why, but O’Hare to me always smells like the Keds I had when I was five. It’s not a horrible smell – not smelly socks. It’s the smell of well work rubber soles and stretched canvas. It’s oddly comforting. I find a seat at the bar of the Red Carpet Club. I fire up my laptop, prepared to waste an hour deleting email and consuming random information which I will quickly forget.

I nod to the gentleman at the end of the bar. He’s perhaps 50, with the sandy brown hair and carefully shaven face of a terminal businessman. His laptop is open, but his eyes aren’t fixed in the glaze of information consumption. They’re darting around the screen. I look at his hands. His right hand on a small, silver Microsoft Optical mouse. The movements are minimal – there’s no rapidfire clicking. His left hand hovers in a claw over the WASD keys. Fingers dart methodically to the function keys at the top of the cramped Lenovo keyboard.

I’m sure of it. He’s playing World of Warcraft.

Until my early 30’s I was shy in public. I’d be loud, gregarious, even egomaniacal with friends. But in a bar, at a party, or at a business function, I would be reserved – the first one back to my room, making excuses to avoid the after-dinner drink. As I headed towards the ridiculous age of 40 I started realizing I had nobody left to impress, and decided to be someone else. I decided to become my friend Jason. Jason has always been aggressively cordial. He shakes everyone’s hand, tells everyone a story, and smiles at dogs. He knows everyone’s kids birthdays and seems completely immune to self doubt.

And so at times like this, at the bar, sitting next to a stranger, any natural inclination to hide stayed hidden underneath layers of Jason-inspired bravado.

“What server?” I ask.

The man’s eyes dart up from the screen. His eyebrows pinch in, and he pulls the laptop screen to half mast. “I’m sorry?”

“You’re playing WoW right?” I ask. “What server? I’m on Blackhand.” I haven’t actually seen his screen, so it’s possible I’m mistaken. But now I’ve flown the flag. I just have to wait and see if he salutes.

His eyes relax. A touch of red hits is cheeks. “Oh, umm, yeah. Cenarion Circle.”

“I have an old Tauren on Cenarion Circle,” I say.

Part one of the secret handshake has been successfully made: we've established the first point of common ground. “How long have you been playing?” I ask. This is not-so-subtle code for “what’s an old guy like you doing playing WoW?”

“My Son got me into it,” he says. “He’s at college and thought it would be fun to play together.” He chuckles under his breath. “And here I am in the airport playing by myself over a beer.”

“Yeah I know, it’s pretty addictive,” I say.

Secret handshake part two: we have both acknowledge the intensity of our common ground.

“That’s cool though, that you play with your son. My daughter will sit and watch but I haven’t gotten her hooked yet.”

“How old’s your daughter?” he asks.

"Eight."

"Great age." "Great age" is code among parents for "thank god I've got those years behind me."

The handshake is complete. We’ve established the common ground of gamer. We've acknowledged our self-aware and possibly indefensible love for the state-of-being that is geek. And now we have, like newcomers to a 12-step program, acknowledged that there is a power greater than ourselves: our children.

We spend the next half hour talking about games. He’s a secret junkie – nobody he knows plays games other than his son. His wife doesn’t particularly approve. She feels it’s childish. And yet, here he is in the bar, gaming in plain sight, albeit with a bit of embarrassment. I tell him about my not-so-secret addictions, about turning a hobby into a career, about my commitment to mainstreaming the medium. He’s paternally amused.

He looks at his watch. “Oops, I’ve got to run, plane’s boarding.” He closes the lid of his laptop, slams the last of his beer and starts reassembling the bits and pieces of his road warrior armament: laptop, mouse, power cord, blackberry, glasses, headphones. Each item disappears into a designated compartment of his black leather Tumi case. He extends a hand.
“It was nice meeting you,” he says. I shake his hand – for real this time.

“Pleasure’s mine,” I reply. “Stop by the site some time.”

“Sure thing,” he says, turning and walking out through the maze of haphazardly deposited luggage and tan leather chairs.

He won’t. Somehow, I know that he will go back to playing in his carefully constructed home office. His wife will be at her bridge group, his son won’t be online, but he’ll still be grinding his Human Priest. To break from the game and visit a gaming website would be to admit to himself that he’s playing the game for reasons other than paternity. It is, I fear, one step too far for him right now.

Perhaps when he retires, he’ll have his own “What Would Jason Do” moment. He’ll let go of the geekshy and just decide to embrace it, realizing he has nothing left to lose. Perhaps he’ll say “What Would Julian Do?”

Comments

WoW has been the only MMO I've never been hesitant to admit I play in public. I guess it's because of how many subscribers it has -- you never quite know who you're going to get into a conversation about it with, because the player base of WoW doesn't exactly fit the "normal" MMO player base.

Amen, Brutha!

Being the head of a Gaming department at a large art school, I can't really hide my passion so I let the geek flag fly.

I did have a moment that went a bit too far, though.

Someone had written "Quizatch Haderach" In our freight elevator. I didn't know what was geekier: That I knew what it meant, or that I knew it was misspelled.

Sephirotic wrote:

Amen, Brutha!

Being the head of a Gaming department at a large art school, I can't really hide my passion so I let the geek flag fly.

I did have a moment that went a bit too far, though.

Someone had written "Quizatch Haderach" In our freight elevator. I didn't know what was geekier: That I knew what it meant, or that I knew it was misspelled.

I think its the misspelling, but I would do the same thing. Herbert forever.

I guess this doesn't apply to me as I'm at college on an all male floor. Being a gamer here is almost a mark of pride. Wow is often looked down upon as a time waster by most of the people here(I feel so to at times as I grind my 52 Orc Rogue). On my floor, Civ4 and FPS reign supreme. We brag over the turn based Civ4 games we play with each other in lecture classes, discussing what to do against the CPU opponents.
The two people next to me in government views themselves as co-creators of our mighty Ottoman empire.
College must be the anamoly, or this whole secret handshake thing must be changing with generations.

So tempting to register a fresh account and start a nice round of "I am Spartacus!"...

Awesome article.

Great writing Julian thanks for the story. Glad to know there is still a bright ray of sunshine to look for every now and then.

Crampt? Is that a word?

I've just started letting my geek flag fly, admittedly I'm a nobody, I work in telecommunications and I spend my spare time playing my Xbox or talking with my wife about WoW (she plays I don't). At 34 I've got nothing to lose, I've been married for 10 years, so there are no women to impress, my kids love that I play games and my wife works at GameStop, so I have nothing to fear from her either. Because of this realization I've decided I'm going to do video blogs at blogtv where I'll be reviewing games and calling myself The 40 Year Old Gamer even though I have a few years before I reach that milestone.

It all started because I'd get harassed on XBL or Bungie.net or blogtv as being too old for gaming, my response was always the same "I bought the system why should my kids get more time on it?", so they'd say "what are you like 40 living with your Mom in her basement?", kids today know nothing of respect. I'm still in the demographic for the games what do these young punks know about gaming, until you've spent hours playing pong, joust or the original Leisure Suit Larry you have no idea what the gaming industry has gone through to reach the technological greatness that it has become. Oh yes I worship at the idol of gaming and I do it proudly now, forget hiding in the darkened corners of my basement one hand on the mouse, the other on the WASD keys. From here on out I will wear my RockBand t-shirt in public and I will decry my love for all things gaming related.

Welcome Mr. Bones! Can't wait to see them.

I have two cousins, twins, who are 12 this year, and there are about 14 years between us, so since I've been around I've been a "grown-up" to them, and have always been a gamer. Since they got a PS2 when they were 5-ish, they've been playing video games. Every other adult they know doesn't play regularly, or doesn't have any understanding of gaming, but they've always been fascinated with me, even when I display little patience for them, since I'm the only adult they know who actually plays games.

Now, they have their own 360, and both have a PSP. Their friends all have some console or another. They even do a little PC gaming. When I went to Texas last year, I noticed just about every kid in the airport about the same age as my cousins had a DS or PSP, gaming away, waiting for their flight. I was a little embarrassed to pull out my DS and pass the time in the same way. And I've been a gamer my whole life, starting on the Commodore 64. I guess I can understand this guy's apprehension.

The way the MSM treats it, gaming is still for kids. Stories like this one, though, will become exceedingly rare as time passes. When my cousins are in their 20's, it won't be too surprising to see other people my age gaming in public. I look forward to those days.

Thats a really good article man. I have run into situations like that too and it really brought me back.

I thought this was going to be my boss you were talking to. I know he flew out of O'Hare the other day.

He lives about an hour and a half from the office and the driving bothers his back, so he'll get a hotel room in the area one or two nights/week. Those nights I'll walk into his office as I'm leaving and he'll be chatting on voice chat or doing battlegrounds. I find it highly amusing.

Great article. I had a very similar experience while picking up some takeout at a local Mexican joint downtown. The manager was rockin' out some Terokar Forest quests on his laptop. I stuck up a conversation and learned that WoW is very popular with the downtown dining and entertainment community. They all play on the same server, and are members of the same guild!

As for being geek shy, it depends on who I'm talking with. I run in a couple of social circles. My work for example, is devoid of gamer geeks so I keep it under my hat. But here at GWJ, and with old college buddies, I let it all hang out.

Yes, it's a very different world for us older gamers. I'm (almost) 50 and get a good number of strange reactions from people on-line when they find out how old I am; enough that a lot of the time I find myself lying about it. My wife has said more than once that she wonders when I will "grow up" and stop spending so much time on gaming. There are a couple of friends of mine who are old-school pen-and-paper RPGers and we get together a couple of times a year to game still, but none of them have any real interest in computer/video gaming.

I started a blog one time about being an older gamer but, like most blogs, it didn't last that long. It's here if anyone cares.

(As a side note, I am always amazed and impressed by the prolific writers and bloggers here and elsewhere. How do you manage to keep finding interesting and thought provoking things to write about day after day and week after week?)

Anyway, great article as always. Thanks for sharing.

tanstaafl wrote:

Yes, it's a very different world for us older gamers.

A friend and I were playing some 4v4 Halo2 on Live a while back. We'd hooked up with another pair and were teamed up through a few matches. Between games, they started talking about their social lives.

Kid1: "...and I might get to kiss her tomorrow!"
Kid2: "Dude, I've kissed, like, 3 girls"
Me: *chuckle*
qBaz: *chuckle*
Kid1: "What?"
Me: "Well, I think I'd kissed 3 girls before you were even born."
Kid1: "..."
Kid2: "Wow. How old _are_ you guys?"
Me: "35"
Kid2: "..."
Kid1: "What are you doing playing Halo?"

Oh, snap.

Great article! Hopefully I'll eventually be an older gamer if WoW induced Carpel Tunnel doesn't get the best of me.

Yeah, well written. Age should not really affect how you enjoy popular entertainment. If you can appreciate a popular hollywood film, you can appreciate a well crafted game, no matter who was president when you were born. If it's good it's good.

ignore

Great read! This reminds me of an incident about a week ago.

I recently got a new job. Im head of logistics for an import company.

One day last week my friend starts emailing me about how he's trying to make the final push to get his Horde rogue into Outland for the first time in World of Warcraft and any help I could give him would be appreciated. I look at the clock and its around lunchtime. Im skeptical to go online to browse around, I dont want to abuse any internet policies the new job may have. But I figure its lunch, lets see what I can dig up.

So I grabbed a sandwich and strolled around the web a bit and decided to send him a link on good areas to level for Horde in his range. I hit send and this weird feeling came over me. Did I put that link in the reply email to my friend or in the logistics email I was working on to send to a distribution warehouse??

I check my sent box and my worst fears came true. I sent the email to one of our largest distributers. A guy I had just been introduced to a week ago who I was trying to make good impressions with. I scour through all the options in Lotus Notes, which I am unfamiliar with, to try and recall the message but I can't find a single way to do this. I swallow my pride and send the gentleman an email. I apologize for sending him information not pertaining to work, it was an accident and all that good stuff.

I get an email back less than 1 minute later. He says:
"Thats okay, I play Alliance anyway"

Completely turned my day around at that point!!

Bean wrote:

I get an email back less than 1 minute later. He says:
"Thats okay, I play Alliance anyway"

Awesome!

I came to terms with my inner geek when I was about 20. I'm 30 now, a father, husband, have a good job and so on, so I really don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks of the fact that I play games.

The weird thing is the reaction of people who don't expect you to be a gamer. About a month ago, I was sitting in the prosecutors' room at court one lunchtime when a barrister comes in, and to my surprise, pulls out his PSP. We started talking about games. At some point, I got my DS out when a defence solicitor comes in and, frankly, he would only have been more surprised if we had been naked and getting down to it on the table. He just couldn't believe that two 30 something lawyers would be playing "kid's games".

That afternoon, he had clearly been spreading the exciting news, as several people mentioned it to me. Most seemed to expect me to be embarrassed about the whole thing, and one or two seemed quite annoyed that I wasn't!

I'm still working down my list of "people whose arses I'm kicking around court at the earliest opportunity for trying to belittle me for being a gamer."

spider_j wrote:

I came to terms with my inner geek when I was about 20. I'm 30 now, a father, husband, have a good job and so on, so I really don't give a rat's ass what anyone thinks of the fact that I play games.

What he said. I also went through a sea-change when I realised that as much as I love alcohol and loud music, I a) would rather not pay more than liquor-store prices and b) I'd like to choose the music, thanks very much. I went from going out partying four nights a week to staying home and playing Fallout. Best decision I ever made.

These days, my wife and I play WoW together or she sews while I play Forza or I fire up Super Mario for my 2.5yr-old son to run in circles with. Tonight, we are going across the road to our also middle-aged, en-children-ed neighbours - we're going to play some Magic and Catan.

I've never understood the people who hide their interests and hobbies just because they feel they're not socially acceptable. Be happy.

I may have just been lucky, but I can't remember being in a situation where I was hesitant to let people know I was a gamer. In undergrad where I met my wife, I had an extended circle of friends where several of them were gamers (either Apple IIe or Nintendo), in grad school I knew enough gamers that we could have lan matches of Starcraft late at night.

My first job out of school on one of the first days on the job I heard someone behind me say something about "demons" so I turned around and said "hey are you a gamer?" and the rest of the day I could hear him saying in a mocking voice "hey are you a gamer?" - but it turns out a group of 5 or 6 were playing a turn based web game and he ended up becoming one of my closest friends and gaming buddies. Every job I've had has had consoles and/or stand up arcade games to play on the premises. And every job I've had has had a group of gamers my age and with similar experiences playing games to talk to.

Sephirotic wrote:

Someone had written "Quizatch Haderach" In our freight elevator. I didn't know what was geekier: That I knew what it meant, or that I knew it was misspelled.

That made me laugh. I had a similar experience. Except it was in line for Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring. Some guy in front of us was singing a really bad, obviously self-composed song at his S.O. in what he hoped was Sindarin but was more like the Elven version of Engrish. Think Tiny Tim singing Enya through Babelfish.

I'm still not sure which of us was worst off - him for doing it, her for at least pretending to enjoy it, or me and my friends for critiqing and mocking his pronunciation and juvenile notions of scansion.

"Thats okay, I play Alliance anyway"

Ice Cream with Hot Awesome.

This article really has touched me. I know that this is outside the scope of your intention. But WoW has been a great gateway to get my younger brother interested in a new PC and using it for more than a way to get music on his iPod and watch porn. He and I both put our accounts on hold to pursue other things(that thing is such a timesink). He in law school, me thinking about going back, and all that.

But he is excited about a new PC(looks like I am going to give him my "old" one and then proceed to make myself a new one). But he is waiting for more info on Mythos, and is happy to go forward in WoW.

The idea that the gift of game can be given, just warms my heart. It gives me hope that I might get my dad on more than card and board games on a laptop.

Great story, well told. Thank you.

I am twenty, but I always find that when I am playing Halo, COD, or TF2, that I would much rather be playing with, well, you old guys. I find that it is much better than the screaming children or annoying teens. So game on!!!!!!!

I am 24 motherf*cker.

RonShatMyCarl wrote:

I am twenty, but I always find that when I am playing Halo, COD, or TF2, that I would much rather be playing with, well, you old guys. I find that it is much better than the screaming children or annoying teens. So game on!!!!!!!

KingGorilla wrote:

I am 24 motherf*cker.

I'm not offended, I've been a old guy since I was younger than RonShatMyCarl.