Some others I know have been doing the Gaming WISH questions, and, being ever the trend-following in such things, I’m going to slowly play catch-up on them, starting with this one, No. 9. For those who don’t do RPGs, move along, nothing to see here …
Have you ever gotten a significant other into gaming? Those of you in “mixed marriages”, where one spouse is a gamer and the other isn’t, how did you work this out?
I didn’t get into gaming until I’d hit college. I introduced my first wife to it, and she joined in, though, for various reasons that I needn’t go into, that didn’t always work out real well, role-playing being something of a problem for her.
I actually met Margie in a game in college. It took me another fifteen years (and rolling up a new character, so to speak) to actually turn her into a spouse. She’s been a major player in games I’ve run while she’s lived in the same state as I have, and one of these days I’m going to talk her into actually running something.
When I look around at my active circle of friends, nearly every single one I met through gaming, or through friends who I gamed with (and a substantial proportion of those I’ve gamed at one point or another).
Of course, there’s a lot more to my friendships than just that (just as there’s a lot more to my marriage than our playing RPGs), in both interests and activities. But it’s an interesting (and vaguely disturbing, I suppose) tidbit of info.
Our parents socialized via bridge.* My circle socializes via RPGs.
*Actually, my parents socialize through chamber music. But that just explains where I got my geekiness from.