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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   31952 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 22, 2023

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IME people who complain about their hobbies being "uncool" are actually just bad at talking about them and might just be bad conversationalists in general. I think there's a right way and a wrong way to introduce "low status" hobbies:

"So are you into board games or card games? You are? Nice, which games? Yeah, I like that one too. These days I mainly play MTG with friends, have you ever played? Oh really? We should play sometime, I could show you the ropes."

vs.

"Hobbies? Well, I'm really into Magic The Gathering. I was in a tournament last week. I usually play with control decks, usually blue/black, but I've been experimenting with some new deck types lately. I'm really excited for the March of the Machines. Do you like Magic?"

In the first example, the speaker gradually established that the other person was interested, while in the second example the speaker just sort of spaghetti'd all over the place with no concern for whether the other person was interested. Just this past week I got into a conversation with a normies female coworker about anime over drinks and I ended up talking about some really niche shows. The conversation was light-hearted and bidirectional, and she seemed to come away with an impression of me as "funny and quirky" rather than "creepy and nerdy."

It's all about how you steer the conversation and about whether you can laugh at yourself and handle little shit tests. For example if in the above MTG example, she were to say something like

"Magic? Ugh really? My dorky little brother plays that."

you could respond with

"I dunno, he sounds like a pretty cool guy to me. Maybe he'll let you borrow his deck so we can play. So what sort of games do you like?"

instead of getting flustered or embarrassed.

I’d agree to a point. But I think especially among nerds that it needs to be said that consumption is not a hobby. I include things like gaming, anime, sci-fi/fantasy series, collecting, and social media. Even in your example, you’re playing a multiplayer game with other people in the same room. But it’s different to sit in a room watching videos and playing games because it’s not creative or social. Drawing is a good hobby because it creates something. Playing D&D or Magic is social. Sitting around watching anime isn’t.

"So are you into board games or card games? You are? Nice, which games? Yeah, I like that one too. These days I mainly play MTG with friends, have you ever played? Oh really? We should play sometime, I could show you the ropes."

This sounds like a bot which has been beaten into submission RLHF'd into becoming so anodyne it's frustrating.

"Hobbies? Well, I'm really into Magic The Gathering. I was in a tournament last week. I usually play with control decks, usually blue/black, but I've been experimenting with some new deck types lately. I'm really excited for the March of the Machines. Do you like Magic?"

This sounds like an actual human being with a brain (yes, playing control decks specifically is a sign your brain works at a middling level at least).

As a fellow male, I agree. But most girls aren't interested in hearing your nerd flexes, they're trying to figure out whether you have basic social skills and whether or not you're a weirdo/loser.

Not that many males are either, if they don't share that specific interest. Or at least that's my experience, of being on both sides of conversations like that.

While I mostly agree with you (there are a couple of exclusions, like trains, or owning more than two cats) I think you're misjudging in that last example. She doesn't like mtg because she associates it with her brother, who she thinks less of. You would have more luck imo redeeming her image of her brother through mtg than the other way around. I'd go the hate the player not the game angle -

"Oh yeah, there are some... (move in closer conspiratorially) odd... people in the community, but the game itself is a lot of fun. I was lucky I suppose, in my small town all the dweebs joined the boy scouts, so it was just me and my friends playing mtg and we had a blast."

In the second example, I don't think she actually really has any particular strong feelings about MTG. She's just jabbing you a bit to see what you'll do. The correct response is to make a little joke and move on.

Your response IMO comes across as trying a bit too hard to convey "I'm totally not a dweeb!!" You're responding to directly to her little jab and "entering her frame," as they say. Plus you're calling her brother odd and she might think you're a dick for that (she's feels she's allowed to do that but you, a stranger, are not).

Ah, I read the scenario very differently. I assumed when she says "Magic? Ugh really? My dorky little brother plays that." she is visibly displeased. In my imagination that ugh is accompanied by her rearing back a bit, and curling her lip - not a full on disgust reaction, just the discomfort of someone taken aback by a marker of low status. So your response calling her brother cool sounds like either almost spilling your spaghetti or negging her, and a lot of women have hair triggers about negging these days.

And if you think my response would be trying too hard, then I assume you read my response as something like getting startled, my eyes going wide while I blurt out a stuttery "NAMTGPALT! Boy scouts are the real dweebs!" But I was aiming for jokey nonchalance too. That's why I went with odd - it's too benign to trigger that kind of reflexive defensiveness, and by playing at conspiratorial behaviour over such a benign criticism you make a joke of it. It also has the benefit of being critical and true without selling your hobby down the river, demonstrating both self awareness and self confidence.

I can see where you're coming from given that my text example above doesn't specify any of the body language or other nonverbal cues. I'd still lean towards my original response though, even if she was visibly disgusted. The comment about the brother should be said with some irony so that it's a little ambiguous whether you're serious or not. Being able to confidently ride the knife's edge between sincerity and irony demonstrates social savviness. The key is still to shrug off the insult with confidence.

a lot of women have hair triggers about negging these days

N=1, but when I stopped caring about whether a girl would get upset by what I said, relationships with the opposite sex became so much simpler. Some probably thought I came across as a bit overconfident and arrogant, but so what? A lot of women actually enjoy being gently teased. My wife would tell you she doesn't like it if asked directly, but literal everything else she does says otherwise. There are definitely women who will respond to this with "How dare you/You're an asshole!" but tbh I always wanted them to identify themselves ASAP so I could keep my distance. They're real buzzkills, both romantically and platonically.

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