For me, growing up, I was around people who saw games as useless and a waste of time, but I loved them

I’ve always been into computers and tech and was called techy and a gamer and each time, it was said with a sort of disgust from the person saying it.

It made me feel like I shouldn’t be friends with the few people like me, and I spent a lot of my childhood staying away from people, and making sure that people didn’t learn that I played games

Even now, I get slightly uncomfortable being called a gamer or techy or any synonym even though people don’t really think that anymore around here.

Anyone else have something similar?

  • Voran@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Someone said I would be a good wife…I felt powerless and degraded. How did I manage to come off as so brainless and lacking in self respect that I’d have nothing better to do than be someone’s wife?

    • GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee
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      29 days ago

      How did I manage to come off as so brainless and lacking in self respect that I’d have nothing better to do than be someone’s wife?

      genuinely curious, how did “you’d be a good wife” turn into “you’d be brainless and lacking in self respect, and would be nothing more than a spouse”?

      • Voran@lemmy.world
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        29 days ago

        Because what they clearly meant is that I came across as being nothing but help staff.

      • Voran@lemmy.world
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        28 days ago

        I think it just bothers me that people shove the idea of being this cuddly nurturer at me and don’t give a shit if it’s what I want.

        A chess improvement company once wrote an article about me and although I was deeply grateful for the opportunity I am also very glad I saw the first draft because the reporter invented a whole imaginary child. While cutting a lot of my thoughts about annihilation and how it’s a fairly staple tactical skill.

        To his credit he removed it when I asked but…ugh. Can people not stay on topic ever? I swear to God I could be in the middle of defusing a bomb and someone would mention husbands or children.

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    None of my friends knew that I played World of Warcraft. They wondered why I started sometimes going no contact and not going out with them on a weekend evening. It’s because I was doing arena, or raiding. They didn’t find out that me and my wife got very into WoW until several years later. I’m a dirt bike rider, a martial artist, and an athlete. The whole gamer nerd persona didn’t sit right with me, so I hid it.

    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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      1 month ago

      Doesn’t that just mean without a well defined form? Used to grade pearls. Says more about the person saying it (I don’t understand you).

      • uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        30 days ago

        He was referring to the era from which my methods appeared in integration, which is to say there are more modern tricks that I don’t fully understand.

        Years later, xkcd would be reassuring that it wasn’t just me. But it killed my ability to get a comsci degree.

  • Call me Lenny/Leni@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    A lot of people seem to hold us asexuals as worthless because we don’t want families or don’t want traditional families, and many of these people speak their minds to me all the time, especially when they perceive an inconsistency in me applying the label to myself that isn’t really an inconsistency as much as a technicality.

  • insaneinthemembrane@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    When I was much younger, someone older said I’d grow up to be a heartbreaker. I was like… What? No. I’m nice, I’m not going to break hearts, what?.. Long after I realised it was a compliment on how I might look when I grew up. I still don’t think it’s a good compliment though.

  • Illuminostro@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    When my overgrown 15 year old blowhard loudmouth father called me a “Readin’ Queer” because I didn’t want to watch every boxing match or any sporting event with him.

  • Gnome Kat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 month ago

    Basically any and all compliments make me feel like shit, it’s not a good quality of mine but its the truth

    Before I transitioned being called handsome hurt, I didn’t want that. Since I transitioned I have been called beautiful and sexy. I still feel bad, I don’t believe them. It’s odd because… I can kinda see what they mean? Like I personally like how I look sooo much better now it’s insane, but from other people it feels like a lie. Or else it makes me feel like I’m just an object to them, like an exotic sex thing, not a person.

    I work as a gpu/graphics programmer, and people say I’m smart and talented. I never believe it, ever. When I was young I did not do well in school, like special ed classes. That early life experience is still internalized. It’s why I push myself really hard at the detriment of my own health. I truly believe I am not a smart person despite recognizing why people think I am.

    Last year I was diagnosed autistic with Persistent Demand Avoidance sub type. I have read online that PDA people often struggle with compliments. Its super fucked tbh, I can never feel good about any accomplishment, nothing is enough, and I feel unlovable.

    • Deez@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Do you know any one else that has gone through all you have and ended up where you are?

  • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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    1 month ago

    My teacher said I had an “apple face”, apparently it’s supposed to be a compliment but kid me got pissed and felt insulted.

    • thefactthat@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Oof yeah, my teacher used me as an example of someone with a round face in art class when I was about 10 and I still feel self-conscious about my face shape sometimes.

  • bysmuth@lemmy.ml
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    1 month ago

    I feel patronized whenever someone calls me smart or funny. As if they call me that because they think i’m insecure and i need a compliment. As if they call me smart like one would call a dog smart. I generally have a self-esteem problem that makes it difficult to take any compliments at all, but these in particular are bad because as a kid people used these as a euphemisms to talk about my awful social skills

  • AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    Not so much a verbal thing, but just the general first glance demeanor on a blind date or an internet date…tough to forget.

    Also, growing up I was always told I’d never amount to anything spending so much time on computers and that I needed to do something with my life. Well, I made over $500k last year in software engineering consulting…so…yeah.