Why do tabletop gamers hate me?

[evilhippo]

A question for the masses...

You work in a gaming store. The sort that sells puzzles, and dice, and D&D manuals. Obviously you don't expect the unenlightened to wander in and browse around, and you sit at your random card table with friends and play... something. But suppose some unenlightened girl with slightly wind-frazzled hair wanders in in her work clothes (that, with the addition of a visor, might make her look like an early 1900s accountant because she's subversive like that) and listens curiously while you outline your campaign to your compatriots, and is clearly trying to figure out what you're playing before she wanders off and continues her search for cosplay components. (I'm oh-for-five today on things I was looking for. Woes. Anyway...)

Do you:
A) Greet her?
B) Offer to help her?
C) Acknowledge her existence in any way?
D) Scowl at her?

Why is it that the answer (because this has happened to me more than once) is always D?! This... this is the reason I never got into tabletop gaming. Not because it didn't interest me, but because, since the moment I heard of the genre, I have been continually snubbed by the people who play them whenever I show the slightest curiosity. Maybe now they can sense that I already swore off tabletop gaming on principle, since it's been the source of more snubbing than anything else (up to, but not including, my current job), but that doesn't excuse the past many years of snubbing, and it doesn't excuse the elitist weirdos in the game shop that scowled at me today. Because it was today, and I was in a good mood. What gives, gamers? Do I have an aura of +10 You Don't Want Me To Play With You or something? Am I wearing the Shoes of Rejection? Do I get no saving throw in this matter? Am I just throwing random things together because I have no idea what I'm talking about, since I've been systematically denied years of tabletop gaming arcanery?

Comments

[sketchyheart.livejournal.com]

Tabletop gamers are Too Hardcore for us normal people. I'm sure the only reason I got to play with Bob and them was because Ashley was going out with Bob.

If I ever live close to you again, we can set up a Campaign of Awesome, which will probably disregard a majority of the 50billion million rules of the structured system.

[shichahn.livejournal.com]

Oh sad! D: I've only ever met really nice tabletoppers here, and as such have now played several different games and am currently running one of my own with Mandy. But I wonder if maybe there's some evil subset of powergaming tabletop players who growl at everything that does not give them a bonus or loot. ... That wouldn't surprise me, actually.

[windresistant.livejournal.com]

YOU CAN PLAY WITH MEEEEEE! :D

And I have no idea why they snub you. Its probably less snubbing, and more they think you are joking or scowling at them for being nerds. Since, you know, you are female.

[windresistant.livejournal.com]

Sanders, you would like the d10 system. I get to play it tomorrow with freindsfromwork who don't like rules either. Its way easier.

I'll stop spamming this thread now.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I am all for this. It would be epic.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's a regional thing. I've always felt like midwesterners are more... territorial with their geekdom. Could be because they feel threatened by the terrible midwesternness of the midwest. (-;

That, and I imagine, like all geek subsets, there is an evil coven of tabletoppers with glowing eyes and rabies that doesn't like invaders. But then the question would be why I run only into them, and not the nice ones without rabies.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Wooo!!

Maybe. I try not to look snubbing, but there's nothing I can do about the looking female part. Maybe I don't look as dorky as I think I do, but I was clearly wearing a vest and, I think, mismatched clock hand earrings. Even if it doesn't say geek, it at least says hipster, and hipsters tend to be... actually, hipsters are jerks, too. Nevermind. (-; Clearly I need more buttons. And a sign that says "I am a bonafide nerd, I promise I'm not judging you. Much."