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"Coming out" as a roleplayer


Sadrienne
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I've been a roleplayer for the better part of my life. I started on forums when I still had to lie about my age on the registration form, and this year I'll be turning 31. Even when I did move away from forum-based RP, I never did stop. 

 

I started running forums when I was about fifteen, and at nineteen I opened Tallygarunga. Tally is---and always was---one of the things I am most proud of. The level of work that went into maintaining the game, advertising, community, all that---Tally is part of who I am. Roleplaying is a huge part of who I am.

 

... and my family is not aware.

 

I don't know what to do about this, or if I should do anything at all. Part of me wants them to know -- I want to scream from the rooftops about how much I love my awesome nerds, share things on Facebook, and talk their heads off about the crazy plots we've got. 

 

Part of me is weirdly ashamed of the whole thing.

 

And then, in a way, it's like I've kept a child a secret from my parents all these years. I'm an extremely private person and my poor Mum is always lamenting that I "don't share enough" of my life with her. Here I am, unable to talk about one of the biggest and best parts of my life, it feels like a lie of omission that I've been keeping for over a decade. 

 

I am very conflicted. I have a good relationship with my family, and drunkMe managed to tell me sister-in-law ALL ABOUT IT at a family wedding. I just... don't know how to talk about it with my parents?

 

Will they think it ridiculous? Blame Tally for my "internet problem" (yes, I spend a lot of time inside/on computer. I don't like outside. Without the internet, I have a "book problem" or "sitting daydreaming problem" -- deal with it)? 

 

Worse: will they get super excited and decide to jump on Tally and READ EVERYTHING? This is less of a concern to me now that we've got a fresh board (young me wrote some pretty weird stuff), but the idea still makes  me uncomfortable. Also I had a dream the other night that my family found out about Tally and were so disgusted by everything they saw that Mum wouldn't look at me and Dad disowned me.

 

WHAT DO? 

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My family knows that I'm a writer.

 

They know I write with other people.

 

And they know I do it online.

 

They also know I run communities of writers and make it a collaborative thing. 

 

Summing it up for what it is is a lot less... Creepy, I guess, than saying "Yeah, I roleplay!" because that has sexual connotations to those that don't know otherwise.

 

I've never had anyone in my family ask to read anything on my boards or even want to know. However, you could always offer to print some threads off if that does come up. Or do the "I'd have to ask the other people involved if they're okay with it..." And hope it never comes up again. 

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Okay, as a person that has seen people hide and being a person that has NEVER hidden their love for roleplaying I don't have a lot to say on this.

 

My honest answer is tell them. The best and easiest way that I've determined to tell people "what" roleplaying is (as a lot of people think of kink roleplaying) is that it's online, ongoing collaborative writing. This way it makes sense to people that don't understand that there are "non-kinky" roleplaying things. Another way is "it's DnD without dice".

 

I've never seen a reason to be ashamed of it but some people are.

 

Honestly if you want to scream it from the rooftops fucking scream it to the rooftops. People often see the Internet as a "problem" because they believe in the Internet tropes of being "unsocial" or "anti-social" which for us roleplayer people, is wholly untrue.

 

My biggest recommendation for it, ease them into it.

 

Start with explaining what it is and answer their questions and then next time tell them about a cool plot that came up.

 

As far as the fear of reading your stuff? Honestly tell them if you want them to or not. For the most part, the people that I talk to about roleplaying that aren't "into" roleplaying don't actually enjoy reading roleplay.

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I think it should come naturally in a conversation, not as a big revelation.

 

Most people whom I regularly talk to know. It's just one hobby like many others. And most people knew already that I was writing for a lifetime. I am a little looked as a weirdo for this, and a little with admiration that I have the patience to write a coherent story (both alone, in my mother tongue, and in English, with others).

Both my parents knew (my father died a few years ago, but he understood. My mother is against it but she knows. In her opinion I am losing my time and talking online with unknown persons is dangerous). My halfsister and her children know. 

My husband has helped me with ideas, especially about fights, and with anniversary movies.His children know too, his daughter helped me once in choosing among 3 playbys or 3 photos of the same playby. My stepgrandson, when he was young and still came to visit us (I haven't seen him for 3-4 years, he's in Germany with his parents now), he used to look over my shoulder and ask me the stories. He had already favourite characters and wanted updates about their stories.

My friends, my former work colleagues, my local NaNo group know too. Some helped me with votes in topsites, many years ago when it was a norm. My work colleagues who had been active police force helped me with fight ideas. Some work colleagues, when I wanted to write a post at work, helped me experiment if what I was writing was possible. (I remember something about 2-3 years ago which involved 2 of my colleagues grasping my wrists and me trying to get free).

 

As a funny story, many people confounded it with video games somehow when I explained them about the interactive writing on the computer. I had several people disappointed after they asked to see how my ships are battling and they saw merely a story in English (that they weren't even as fluent in as to understand it in details). They expected to see sailors boarding and ships gunning down their opponent.

Edited by Elena
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"Collaborative writing community."

 

So much better than "I roleplay with strangers online."  Holy freaking heck, what does that even mean?  DID I NOT RAISE YOU RIGHT??!?

 

But when you tell people that you're writing, and it's collaborative (big positive professional word), then it's something different entirely.

 

My family was so incredibly dismissive of roleplaying that it was . . . kind of hurtful.  I'd like to share stories about it, but they'd just be like, "Why don't you actually do something with your life?"  Granted, this was about 10 years ago before the internet was as big as it is now where people literally call up strangers on the internet to give them a lift around town and you willingly gave all of your personal information to a corporation that tracks your every move.  Society has become a lot more accepting of things done online.  But it was still a bummer that they outright shunned my activity, which I adored greatly, because it wasn't "real" enough.  I let it go, and I haven't talked to them about RP in years, so who knows if they know I still do it.

 

The only people I talk to about RP are an older sibling and my SO.  Even then I don't get into it too much.  It's kind of like trying to explain a joke, and then you have to settle for, "I guess you'd have to have been there. . . ."

 

I do like the "privacy" of not having my family online reading my stuff.  I've written some weird shit.  Weird shit. Like the day before yesterday, I was cleaning my room and I came across a thread that I had printed out because I was oddly proud of it at the time.  I nearly screamed in horror, and I rushed directly to the shredder to dispose of it.  (Okay, it's not that weird, but it was poorly written romance.  Very poorly written.  And also between relatives.)

 

Obviously, I don't know your family, so I can't say for certain, but I don't think that they'd freak out about it as much as you anticipate, especially if you are very casual about it when you introduce it.  "Sometimes I write collaboratively online" is very different than, "So I've been writing online secretly for 10+ years and hiding it from you because I was embarrassed."  If they want a sample of your writing and you're willing to share, you can literally copy and paste it into a word document, print it out, and hand it to them.  No need to reveal your URL until you're ready to do so.  Family or not, you decide when to share that with them, and how much to share.

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I personally feel no need to tell people in my "real life" what I do online. I've told my brother, in as far as I've told him "Oh I can't play a game tonight, I'm RPing/working on posts/doing admin shit" (and at the latter he jokes about me shattering peoples' dreams because I've mentioned reading/denying character apps to him), but he doesn't care and doesn't read or anything. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm just a very private person, myself, but I doubt anyone would be interested, and talking about it would be annoying and unwelcome.

 

I do occasionally mention my D&D games to my dad, mostly because "Oh I have a game tonight so dinner HAS to be done by 7", but while I do sometimes talk about the mechanics aspect of it, I never talk about the RP aspect. I feel like that's private. It's mine and like most things that mean a lot to me, I don't want to share it.

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When people ask me what my hobbies are, I tell them I enjoy creative writing but mostly I like writing collaborative stories with other people. When they ask me what kind, I say mostly stories that are in the Harry Potter world. I get raised eyebrows sometimes, but most people just say cool and that's that. If they want to know more, I'll go into detail about it, but most of the time they are satisfied by then. I've learned that the word roleplay tends to bring one of two things to people's minds these days: "grown men playing in the woods" and sex play. Fan fiction is a close third, but LARPing seems to be edging all the other first reactions out. My family doesn't give two flying flips what I do in my spare time. To them, it is all just a form of gaming. 

 

In middle school I got made fun of when I asked someone who I thought was a friend if they wanted to rp with me. I just stopped asking people I know if they wanted to join, but I never really hid it from people either. If I can let random strangers and search bots read it, I'm not scared of my mom, who has seen far worse from me, reading my posts. She isn't interested though. I've tried. If it isn't visual, she ain't bothering.

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Many people in my life know that I roleplay. I currently live at home, so my mother definitely knows about my site because I spend an awful lot of time on it! My sister and her husband know, my SO and many many of my friends. None of them has really felt a want/need to read my material but they know the basic jist of what my site is about, and they know of some of my online friends I have met and gotten close to! 

 

Sometimes it is hard to explain what "roleplaying" actually is to people who don't know. My mum just know I write online, etc. I've had to explain what exactly I do to some of my friends/family a little more in depth. I think if it means a lot to you, you should definitely tell your family/friends! I'm sure they would be supportive, and you don't have to give them the link to your site if you don't want them going on it, I'm sure they would respect your privacy in that sense :) 

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Yeah, I just say I write with randos on the interwebs. My creative friends are baffled at the idea of giving so much control over to anyone else (but what if they ruin the plot?! kind of stuff.) My work mates are more curious about catfishes. (Family are not a big part of my life so they don't count).

 

It's never been a big deal to anyone. I expect the stress of it all has built it up into a bigger event than what it really is. Anxiety right? It does that. 

 

Like other people have said, it doesn't need to be a big sit down, "Mum. Dad. I have something to tell you." You just enjoy writing with other people and as it's an important part of your life, you'll find times when you can mention it in passing. 

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Just let it naturally come up in a conversation and start it from there. You don't need to tell your parents everything about your rp life and Tally in one sitting, you can just start talking about it as another part of your life. I've told my parents, my brother and an ex-boyfriend because when we lived together they would be curious about what I was typing on the laptop. I've also mentioned it to friends in a "so this girl I write with is from Australia and-interesting story"-kind of way, and in my experience, as long as it sounds like anything else, people will treat it as such. (I admit though, that I have a very hard time admitting I roleplay in fandoms. I think people associate it with a weird type of playing-pretend and I'm kind of embarrassed?)

 

Also, my parents are actually happy when they understand I still have this hobby. They know I love to write, they know I spent my childhood writing story after story, and I think they're really hopeful I'll pick up real writing in my adult life eventually and so, for them, roleplaying is better than not writing at all. Also, I'm trying to finish a phd in English as a second language, and both my parents agree writing random stuff in English every day is very clever practice. 

 

So go ahead, really. Even if they do think it's ridiculous, and even if they do blame your internet problem on it, it's not impossible to make them see it's both a big part of your life and an objectively constructive hobby!

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Breathe. Your dreams are anxiety-lying to you.

 

My mother was... not terribly aware of - ... well, hmm, much of anything tbh. I think she occasionally knew I was writing something, but who knew what, and she rarely had the lucidity to care. My dad, on the other hand, is rather quite aware. It's hard to miss it, honestly, given I talk about it a lot, and I do a lot of coding for RP, heck, I ran out and bought my own server for my site, which now resides in our basement (lovingly named Catastropika).

 

Honestly, it just kinda... came up. I did have to backpedal and explain I mean round-Robin online writing, dad, not. .. not that. (Yes that? Hmm smut's a weird grey-area, not that I've ever mentioned RP smut...) So, just, wait for the opportunity to come up. There'll be one. Discussion of hobbies usually leads right into an opening to mention the communal online-writing you do. I've never heard of a parent ever getting interested enough to read some of it, they'd have to be pretty paranoid, or ridiculously invested in the concept of your writing, but, you can just print out some select things, and you're an adult - you're under no obligation to give them a link. My father's silly quotes ended up in my site's quote generator - that's as close as I want my parents, tbh.

 

And even if it is ostensibly a waste of time, there are some solid skills that adminning a forum RPG teaches you, as does playing on one. A greater understanding of the ins and outs of language and communication, community management and to some extent, customer service-like skills, organisation, marketing, among other things, and this isn't even touching the technical side. So if they do think it's a waste of time, you can point that out. There's nothing to be ashamed of in it. It may be outside the box to those outside the RP circles, but you know, that's fine. They don't have to understand every little detail, just understand the stories and that it's important to you.

 

If you prefer, introduce the concept first as story-related things - because that's what RP is at its core, story-telling. Mention the odd things your story characters have gotten into, what kinda wacky plot-lines they're dragging you through (plot <= => them, amirite). Most can understand story things. And then go from there. Just drop the rock in the lake and see where the ripples go.

 

OH ALSO, if they have any concept of D&D... or LARP... or RPG video games... might be a basis, too.

Edited by Arceus
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I have few family members that know. 

The only that thinks anything of it is my husband and he likes to read over my shoulder, which things turn into huge jokes because he often reads over my shoulder when it's two girls talk about relationship stuff.

 

My husband has seen this YEARS ago. It's still a joke. 

"I know how you fan girls like Nightwing's..." 

 

He's really supportive. Sees it as a good thing. I'm learning some coding, brushing up on writing, and making friends. Especially since his job can leave him overly tired and stressed at times.  

 

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You have to do what you think is best for you. Whatever you feel is the most important thing. If you want people to know and think you're comfortable casually mentioning it, do! It sounds like your mom is curious about how you spend your time and if you want her to know, you could just tell her. In my experience, people are more shocked and curious than anything.

 

I'm not sure if it helps, but here's my coming out story:

I came out as a roleplayer to coworkers at our show and tell this year (I am 29). It took me decades to be this comfortable with my double life. People at work stared at me in astonishment when I told them. They had no idea such communities even existed. It was like I told them another planet existed in our solar system. It was great. They still think I am weird. Nothing changed.

 

Strangely enough, I never had to come out to my parents. I've roleplayed since I could write. In elementary school, my friends and I would write on notepads and pass them around at bus stops on our route to and from school. If we were good each of us would get the book once per bus stop (so twice per day). It was glorious. We were nerds. We were made fun of. Bullies stole our book and threw it in the mud. They pulled our hair. I got punched in the eye for it once. We dried the book out, healed up my eye and kept playing.

 

My parents knew SOMETHING was up. My dad gave me a lecture about how he used to hide in the woods to play D&D because the 70s and 80s he grew up in meant that roleplaying was associated with Rock Music and the Devil. I told him straight-faced as a kid could "Beelzebub." We laughed, he told me to hide my Harry Potter books. I got better at hiding. Then when we got computers and it was even easier to hide.

 

Even though my parents acted insane and mad at my long hours spent on our dial-up connection on our hand-me-down Packard Bell, my parents also knew then that I was obsessed with SOMETHING that had to do with writing and friends. I kept is a secret for a LONG time, thinking that they didn't know. I told them I wrote poetry (which I did extensively for an elaborate cover-up). As a teenager, it was easier to hide because of Chat Rooms. I named my online friends after my high school friends. I thought I was clever.

 

It felt natural and safe to hide. The fact that I roleplay never came up outside of my immediate friend group, and when we graduated high school it never came up IRL again for at least ten years. In college, my friends knew I played games online, but they didn't really know what I was doing. I didn't come out to anyone I knew IN PERSON until a few years ago. 

 

When I did come out it happened out of the blue. I was 26. A new friend of mine saw my books on the shelf (I stop hiding my nerdiness when I got my own place) and exclaimed that she loved them as her favorites. We talked at length about them. After hours of nerding out together, she admitted that she loved them so much she roleplayed them online. My surprise was immense. I too roleplay online I whispered. We laughed so hard we cried. It was this big thing that connected us, and it felt fine, and time to share.

 

Having that friend around helped me feel more comfortable. We talked about roleplay outside of game. Co-workers and other friends got curious, and together we were able to tell them. 'Oh we write together.' My grandmother asks. I tell her I have online friends and we write. She thinks y'all are my pen pals. My parents know I still play games online. They know I collaboratively write. I don't think they know the details. If my parents see me on my phone, as a joke (because my parents LOVE making fun of how clever I thought I was), they ask me "How are the girls today?" in reference to how I used to rename y'all after my friends. It is now funny because I worried about what they would do, and they really don't care.

Edited by Zahhy
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If you don't want them to read everything, tell them about the writing without giving them a URL. My family has always known I love writing, but I have come out a lot in my life: first, when I was interested in someone of my gender when I was 14, which was a big deal because I have a very Mormon extended family. I've come out as into BDSM, and as the admin of an 18+ site (something I always worried my family would assume meant I was writing porn). Most recently, I've been coming out as gender fluid, which has been so hard for me for many reasons I won't get into because that's not the point of the thread.

 

Through all those times coming out, what I've learned is that, no matter what their reactions are, it's never as bad as I feared it would be, and I always wished I had done it sooner rather than suffering with a secret trying to pry it's way out of my lungs. Turn to the people who are closest to you who know about your site, let them know what you're doing, and then take the leap. Once it's done, you'll at least know.

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Someone who is facing the same problem I did a few years ago! I didn't come out as a roleplayer until I was 25. I'm almost 29 now, and I feel like it's so easy to talk to people about now. I won't offer the information up to strangers, but people that matter to me in my life know all about it. Generally, I start in with talking about my book and they often as me to read it. Sometimes, they'll ask me where I gathered my inspiration or how I got into creative writing, and that'll open up the topic from there. I was pretty honest with my husband about it from the start. He's a huge gamer, but I had never been open about my writing with my SOs in the past. With my husband, it was different. He thought it was a weird hobby, but he couldn't really talk because he gamed a lot. Now we have this amazing relationship where he actually helps me when I'm stuck on a story. I tell him all about my characters and what they're doing and he's funny and sometimes asks questions. It's great. 

 

I think my mom has an idea. My dad doesn't. He's not technologically inclined and I think it would just confuse him if I tried to explain. But a lot of my friends know. Even some of my closer coworkers. You just have to be comfortable with the idea of sharing that part of your life. My husband was a great influence on me in that aspect. He loves anime and video games and a lot of really nerdy fun stuff that I do, and he just didn't care what anyone thought of him for it. So when I met him, saw how he responded to that, I decided to do the same. Just embrace it, let it come up organically, and don't be afraid to be proud. You never know when you might convince a friend to come and write with you! 

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