My Gaming History, Part Three

"Come on, man, this is weird. And probably stupid," I said.

Still, I wasn't not going to go, it was the only thing in town that I felt comfortable going to (because my friends were playing). It was my first LARP.

Fact: Only recently have I wanted to roleplay anything that made me feel uncomfortable, and I still won't do that with people I don't know first.

My LARPing experience is one of the three or four impetuses (impetii?) I can think of that caused me to drop out of college*. My LARPing was a narcotic. I drove all over the state to play and gather players, I found ways to my LARP all over the place. I made really ... fucked up relationship choices ... and I think it was mostly to do with a warping of my idea of the way society worked from my LARPing. This is not hyperbole. My LARPing (and I call it my LARPing because others' LARPing could have been different - some of this was truly internalized, all me) was an outgrowth and mutation of bad mojo, immature (immature as in a bud is an immature flower) reckoning of how people are supposed to interact with each other, and the worst possible fandom. My LARPing did one and only one thing that I appreciate and employ today.

Fact: My LARPing allows me to go and talk to people without (undue) social anxiety. This is as little as asking for help in stores and as big as joining Meetups in other cities.

I'd love to give specific examples of how my LARPing occurred and what I did and didn't do. But I'm not prepared for that, really. Not yet, sorry.

Finally, after dropping out of college, I got a job. I got a girlfriend. Right after Claire and I got together I formed/joined a gaming group that has lasted as a group since then and still meets on Sundays. This is the same time I found the Forge.

Fact: The only reason I went to the Forge, and the only reason I am frustrated with gaming today is that I want to try new things and game with groups that want to have fun the entire time (and aren't content with long periods of not having fun).

I game at least once a month with some new friends, and have begun to bring my wife with me. I'm having the best, most fun, most socially functional gaming of my life. The End?

* (Note: I honestly don't feel bad about dropping out of college. I'm currently back in night school at Wesleyan, and I should be done by either Spring of 2007 or 2008. Dropping out forced all the real-world reality I needed to get the funk out from between my ears and start being responsible and happy.)