Embarrassing ...or not?

[signofzeta]

Okay, I really don't think that you have to be rich, or play co-ed sports to get girls to like you. You CAN be an engineer, that's fine, noone's going to think of you as a nerd if you are. If you don't want to be a med student, you CAN still get girls to like you. The main thing that matters is confidence, and being a happy, fun to be around person. If you're well likeable, you don't need to be rich, although being healthy and in shape is always a good idea, regardless.

I only picked med school and co-ed sports for the sole fact that you can get to know more girls easier, than playing Football, or going into a faculty dominated by males, and that the only way to hook up with girls is to already know them in the past, or go to a bar.

If there are girls in Engineering, the bond between you an that girl is far greater than between a male and female med student. It is because of the team environment, but if it is for sheer numbers, then being a med student is a better idea.

Trying to get a professional job is another way of saying that you want to achieve success (at success at success). If others see you as content with a low wage job, and you play lots of Pokemon, they will see you as immature, because you care more about a kids game than to be more successful for your future generations.

 

[omahanime]

1. Be a med student. Don't go engineer.

2. Work out a lot. You have to be jacked. Not too jacked that you look like a meathead.

3. Play ultimate frisbee. Ultimate is a co-ed sport. You meet a lot of girls this way. That way, you are into sports without looking like a jock.

Oh No!! I am none of those. I better go tell my wife, she should leave me after almost 23 years of marriage.

So I am attached to another object by an incline plane, wrapped helicly around an axis.

 

[Celebi23]

I only picked med school and co-ed sports for the sole fact that you can get to know more girls easier, than playing Football, or going into a faculty dominated by males, and that the only way to hook up with girls is to already know them in the past, or go to a bar.

If there are girls in Engineering, the bond between you an that girl is far greater than between a male and female med student. It is because of the team environment, but if it is for sheer numbers, then being a med student is a better idea.

Trying to get a professional job is another way of saying that you want to achieve success (at success at success). If others see you as content with a low wage job, and you play lots of Pokemon, they will see you as immature, because you care more about a kids game than to be more successful for your future generations.

Success is not measured by money.

I won't respond to anything else in that post at the risk of having that point swallowed up in others and at the risk of further derailing this thread.

 

[signofzeta]

Oh No!! I am none of those. I better go tell my wife, she should leave me after almost 23 years of marriage.

So I am attached to another object by an incline plane, wrapped helicly around an axis.

If this is a joke, then haha.

If this is serious, then it is obvious you can't figure out which part is the joke, and which part is serious.

FFS You DON'T have to go to med school, work out, or play Ultimate Frisbee. You DO, in the other hand, have to get a high paying job, in which a medical doctor is a subset of, stay healthy, in which working out is a subset of, and join up in other group activities that isn't pokemon, in which Ultimate Frisbee is a subset of.

This is true FACT. So long as you treat Pokemon as if it is your life, then while you view it as a hobby, others will view it as an obsession, and would treat you differently. On the other hand, if you are a hard worker, willing to achieve success, and is willing to try different things, then others won't view your love of Pokemon as an obsession.

Success is not measured by money.

I won't respond to anything else in that post at the risk of having that point swallowed up in others and at the risk of further derailing this thread.

It doesn't matter. Go tell that to society. Someone would treat someone who wears a suit and works at a high paying jobs much better than someone who works minimum wage. And if you have a kids game as a hobby, guess what they are going to blame? "Oh this poor person wasted his entire life playing a kids game rather than working hard in order to earn more money". That is what society thinks.

It also need not be a the highest paying job in the world. So long as it is a professional job, where education and degrees are required. While you may feel like working a job where degrees aren't required, to others, they would think that you prefer a kids game over getting a degree in anything, but who wouldn't want a high paying job. Do you even know how many Pokemon products you could buy with that much cash?

So long as there are douchebags in society, openly playing Pokemon TCG will ALWAYS be embarrassing.

 

[Athena]

FFS You DON'T have to go to med school, work out, or play Ultimate Frisbee. You DO, in the other hand, have to get a high paying job, in which a medical doctor is a subset of, stay healthy, in which working out is a subset of, and join up in other group activities that isn't pokemon, in which Ultimate Frisbee is a subset of.

This is true FACT.

But... this isn't a fact. I don't know what's sadder; the fact that you probably honestly believe this, or that you're trying to foster it on others.

Your views on society sound like a combination of a 1950's TV show and a teenage, high school drama movie.

Honestly, it's kind of insulting to me. I work an hourly retail job, and I really have no plans to get a high-paying job (unless by some miracle my writing becomes famous) because that sort of thing has no interest for me. I make enough money to live and support my hobbies, and I'm comfortable with that. I've always been rather shy, so social situations are a burden to me.

None of this has any bearing on how I view myself and how others view me, especially in regards the love and enjoyment I get from my hobbies. Walking into a party may make me tremble, but things that I enjoy have never made me embarrassed, and I've never felt looked down and belittled by "society."

A lot of the embarrassment that people feel (whether in regards to playing Pokémon or anything else), comes from a personal level. If some part of you feels like Pokémon is a children's game that you shouldn't take part in, and if you don't have the confidence in yourself to overcome that, you will likely be embarrassed, no matter who the other party is, whether it's a fellow student or a store clerk or a relative. And people who look down on people for liking things like Pokémon have their own insecurities, just like with any form of bullying.

There's no unspoken rules or "society" that decides the kind of things that should be done to achieve the desired results. If you want to do something "non-geeky" to make up for your love of Pokémon (or insert other "geeky" hobbies here (anyone else here love Star Wars? )), then you have to realize that it's only something that you're doing to yourself to make yourself feel better about it.

...

tl;dr

The only, honest solution that someone can have to cure their embarrassment is simple confidence. You can't change what people think about you. You can only change what you think about yourself. Confidence is something that some lucky people have in spades, but more often than not is fought for and hard won. I know I had to work for mine.

And, please, don't spout out your own misguided beliefs like some sort of snake oil cure-all.

Oh, and....

So long as there are douchebags in society, openly playing Pokemon TCG will ALWAYS be embarrassing.

Maybe for you, but never for me. And for plenty of others, I'm sure.

 

[v3rdict]

Well, since the end of page 2 and all of page 3 were walls of text, I'm skipping them just to say:

It was a semi-joke post (about the nerd cloak).

School, from elementary to high school, can be terrible for some people. Unfortunately, that joke post was pretty accurate as far as the nerd-cloak goes: Looking fit or appearing active is key for ANY social interaction, not just for boy/girl catching. For a lot of people, though, school was about trying to blend in and not be seen. You know who was seen? Nerds playing cards (Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic, never saw Pokemon) in the library before class and during lunch hour.

While you should be CONFIDENT, and NOT care what other people think, it can be pretty bad in school when you can't control how other people treat you. So you learn to improvise. Adapt, even.

Yet some people/schools/communities don't have that problem. But let me tell you, College and the REAL WORLD gets sooo much better. I kept Pokemon and MtG on the down-low, but a few of my friends knew. It was said once before that once you're friends with someone, it doesn't matter-- and that's very true. College rolled around for me and then I realized that there's so many people doing their own thing with their friends, not busy bullying each other or giving a shit, that you can be into ANYTHING without fear or embarrassment.

But I apologize, I think I'm on the topic of how the school system can be flawed, and how children and teenagers can be so cruel. >.>

But it gives reason to why we have threads and discussions on how we may get embarrassed about what we enjoy. And like I said, some people don't have this problem. To each their own.

 

[Celebi23]

If this is a joke, then haha.

If this is serious, then it is obvious you can't figure out which part is the joke, and which part is serious.

FFS You DON'T have to go to med school, work out, or play Ultimate Frisbee. You DO, in the other hand, have to get a high paying job, in which a medical doctor is a subset of, stay healthy, in which working out is a subset of, and join up in other group activities that isn't pokemon, in which Ultimate Frisbee is a subset of.

This is true FACT. So long as you treat Pokemon as if it is your life, then while you view it as a hobby, others will view it as an obsession, and would treat you differently. On the other hand, if you are a hard worker, willing to achieve success, and is willing to try different things, then others won't view your love of Pokemon as an obsession.

Not having a high paying job doesn't mean you're treating Pokemon as your life. It means you don't have a high-paying job. The two are separate things; they aren't correlated, and if they are for some people, it's a coincidence.

Also, omahanime was clearly being sarcastic. And I think he was implying that he also thinks your guidelines are ludicrous, saying that he's happy and happily married despite not following your rules. The fact that you think he'd be worried about his wife leaving him after over 20 years because some guy on the internet told him he doesn't meet requirements he made up about getting girls to like you kind of worries me.

It doesn't matter. Go tell that to society. Someone would treat someone who wears a suit and works at a high paying jobs much better than someone who works minimum wage. And if you have a kids game as a hobby, guess what they are going to blame? "Oh this poor person wasted his entire life playing a kids game rather than working hard in order to earn more money". That is what society thinks.

It also need not be a the highest paying job in the world. So long as it is a professional job, where education and degrees are required. While you may feel like working a job where degrees aren't required, to others, they would think that you prefer a kids game over getting a degree in anything, but who wouldn't want a high paying job. Do you even know how many Pokemon products you could buy with that much cash?

So long as there are douchebags in society, openly playing Pokemon TCG will ALWAYS be embarrassing.

Does it matter what the other people think? Will I be happy if I work as a medical doctor? No, probably not. Will I be happy working some kind of job where a degree is required? Probably, but that won't influence my decision. I have every intention of getting a degree, but when it comes down to it, if I decide I'd rather be a writer or musician even though they don't require degrees, I'll be a writer or musician. Why not? Because some people on the street who don't know me will look down on me because of it?

It's impossible to be accepted by everybody. If you fudge your life and follow your guidelines just in an attempt to be accepted by society, some people will STILL look down on you. Furthermore, not everybody who fails to follow your made-up guidelines is a reject of society. Contrary to your beliefs, people who do not have professional jobs can still be liked by the public. Look at Elvis Presley. He must have had one of the least professional jobs ever. He was idolized when he was alive, and many years later, people still idolize him today. People looked up to the guy. People wanted to be like him, even though he did not have a professional job, wasn't jacked and, to the best of my knowledge didn't play ultimate Frisbee or other coed sports. The same applies to many, many other people.

 

[signofzeta]

You may have won this battle, but, after looking at my joke post again, it said A foolproof way, not THE foolproof way. My arguments may have been all for naught, when the answers are written in the very post I wrote. I just can't believe I went through all this trouble typing all this stuff, when my joke post said A rather than THE. How could I have been blind. Must be all the rage that built up inside me when I read Teal's post, therefore clouding my judgment and making bad arguments.

I'm pretty sure you grown people know the difference between A and THE.

If you didn't get it, when I said A foolproof way, it means one of MANY ways that I know, based on experience, works. So do you HAVE to follow these guidelines? NO. You can do it however the hell you want. I'd probably wouldn't try to follow these guidelines. The jacked med students who play ultimate would all label you as wannabes anyway. You can be a famous rock star, or freakin Wayne Gretzky for all I care.

Now if I said THE foolproof way, it's like saying, these guidelines are THE ultimate, haha, ultimate, way to get the ladies and have others look past your kiddy hobby. If I said it this way, it's really saying, follow these guidelines. Any other way is for icky double dog doo doo poopy booger heads, and everybody in the entire universe should laugh at you.

But I understand Teal's post. He must have saw what I wrote, got angry, and wrote his mind, not realizing that I was referring to one way, and not THE way.

 

[pkolaboy]

Lol I didn't intend on causing controversy. I was just looking for relation. When I first started to play nobody knew I played. I was talking to my sister in law's boyfriend and somehow we started to talk about the Pokemon VGA. Somehow we started to talk about the card game and I got him hooked out of nowhere. He plays college baseball and nobody would think he would play Pokemon lol. I agree with both sides on how it can be embarrassing and the other side how you shouldn't care about what other people think. I am glad I posted this, because for now on I will try to not let what other people think get to me...

 

[omahanime]

http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-how-old-is-too-old

Found another thread
http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-too-old-for-pokemon

 

[Celebi23]

You may have won this battle, but, after looking at my joke post again, it said A foolproof way, not THE foolproof way. My arguments may have been all for naught, when the answers are written in the very post I wrote. I just can't believe I went through all this trouble typing all this stuff, when my joke post said A rather than THE. How could I have been blind. Must be all the rage that built up inside me when I read Teal's post, therefore clouding my judgment and making bad arguments.

I'm pretty sure you grown people know the difference between A and THE.

Now if I said THE foolproof way, it's like saying, these guidelines are THE ultimate, haha, ultimate, way to get the ladies and have others look past your kiddy hobby. If I said it this way, it's really saying, follow these guidelines. Any other way is for icky double dog doo doo poopy booger heads, and everybody in the entire universe should laugh at you.

But I understand Teal's post. He must have saw what I wrote, got angry, and wrote his mind, not realizing that I was referring to one way, and not THE way.

I think we were arguing against your blanket assumption that everybody needed to modify their life to be accepted by society at the risk of being labeled a bum more than we were arguing against your original post itself. But, we still do not agree that being jacked, rich, and participating in a coed sport automatically makes you a chick magnet and accepted by society. There are exceptions to every rule, especially those that some guy just randomly came up with as a joke. Js.

If you didn't get it, when I said A foolproof way, it means one of MANY ways that I know, based on experience, works. So do you HAVE to follow these guidelines? NO. You can do it however the hell you want. I'd probably wouldn't try to follow these guidelines. The jacked med students who play ultimate would all label you as wannabes anyway. You can be a famous rock star, or freakin Wayne Gretzky for all I care.

These guidelines obviously aren't from your experience, considering you've pointed out multiple times that you just came up with them because you saw your cousin plays ultimate Frisbee and has girls on his Facebook page. Also, does your cousin even play Pokémon? If he doesn't, your argument looks even more silly than it already did.

 

[pkolaboy]

Found another thread
http://www.pokebeach.com/forums/thread-too-old-for-pokemon

True, but this thread was created two years ago.... I was looking for conversation and a way to relate to other players.

 

[cf11]

at my old school I got made fun of for playingPokemon but my best friends didn't care. The annoying thing is when I'm talking to a girl and my friend blurts out "So whens nationals for pokemans?" as a joke and it always emberasses me, because he does it whenever we are talking to people.Next year (high school) nobody is finding out!

 

[Cinema]

I think we can all pretty much agree that signofzeta's posts on this thread are ridiculous and stupid, and should really just be disregarded. Basically all you are saying is this: My cousin has girls on his facebook friends list. That must mean he's a chick magnet. He's a med student, he works out, and he plays ultimate frisbee. Those things must be correlated in some way! So, if you guys do those things, you will be chick magnets too!

Really just so many fallacies right there.

 

[omahanime]

Also, omahanime was clearly being sarcastic. And I think he was implying that he also thinks your guidelines are ludicrous, saying that he's happy and happily married despite not following your rules. The fact that you think he'd be worried about his wife leaving him after over 20 years because some guy on the internet told him he doesn't meet requirements he made up about getting girls to like you kind of worries me.

Ding Ding Ding. Give the man a prize.

True, but this thread was created two years ago.... I was looking for conversation and a way to relate to other players.

True, but that thread could have been added to with permission. That way you could have your conversation and a way to relate to other players and and what members said in the past could be relevant.



Let us return the conversation back to topic, please.

 

[signofzeta]

Ha, forgot to add that he had a HOT girlfriend. So how did he even get that so called "girlfriend"? Absolutely NOTHING. His "jackedness", and his huge salary is the reason. Don't most girls look for men who are strong and have huge salaries? Isn't it the case in society? Same with men. Don't men look for girls who are deemed "hot"? If you don't think this is the case, then you haven't been out much. Oh well, at least he dumped her because he prefers competence.

The point I was trying to make was, as a semi-serious note, that, if you do those 3 things, hot girls will come chasing after you. Other dudes will be preoccupied about the girls chasing you, that they even FORGET that you are even a pokemon fan, therefore you won't feel embarrassed. It's called a red herring.

I said that this is ONE of many ways of making yourself not feel embarrassed, but you twist it to make it look like "do it my way, or it's the highway."

If you look at the underlying meaning of my post, get another hobby to mask the fact that you are a pokemon fan. Also get a profession where one must work hard to get where they are, thus others will say, "hey, this guy is a hard worker, and not some kid in a grown man's body playing some kids game."

So if all you know is Pokemon and nothing but Pokemon, then yeah, you should feel super embarrassed.

But hey, you can be a hard worker, and do many things, or you can just be a lazy bum and play Pokemon all day. The choice is yours.

In case you never got it. The joke part was, do these 3 things SPECIFICALLY, to make a nerd cloak to mask the fact that you are a nerd.

The serious part is, find a different hobby, a profession, or have a certain skill in order to DIVERT ATTENTION away from the fact that you are playing a KIDS GAME. If you don't want to follow this, then fine. It just means that you will feel embarrassment and guilt that you play a game deemed too young for your age.

 

[CMP]

To answer the original poster's question: no, you don't need to be embarrassed about playing/liking Pokémon. You like what you like, and far be it from anyone else to tell you otherwise. Best advice I can give is to be confident about it. If you're worried what other people think, you'll be a much easier target if you seem embarrassed yourself. Since you're 24, I feel that your peers would probably find Pokémon nostalgic since the majority of mine do (I'm 23).

To signofzeta: while I wholeheartedly agree that having multiple hobbies other than Pokémon is beneficial, the sole motivation for doing so shouldn't be to get girls. Being well-rounded is something essential for proper functioning in society. I'm a pharmacy student who happens to be athletic and really has no trouble with the ladies, and trust me, it's more about personality than anything else. Truthfully, if you're after shallow girls, than by all means go for the type of girls that flock toward rich, built men. Don't sell your cousin short; have you ever considered he has a great personality, and that's what attracted his girlfriend?

 

[Cinema]

Obviously anyone who spends too much time playing Pokemon and does little else, especially one who is out of school and doesn't have a job will not be very attractive to women. No need to reiterate that. Also, being rich and muscular won't get you girls by itself. It certainly doesn't hurt, but most girls also want someone who is nice, caring, funny, and fun to be around. If you don't have those qualites, but instead are ripped and rich, (deep) girls won't like you.

 

[signofzeta]

To answer the original poster's question: no, you don't need to be embarrassed about playing/liking Pokémon. You like what you like, and far be it from anyone else to tell you otherwise. Best advice I can give is to be confident about it. If you're worried what other people think, you'll be a much easier target if you seem embarrassed yourself. Since you're 24, I feel that your peers would probably find Pokémon nostalgic since the majority of mine do (I'm 23).

To signofzeta: while I wholeheartedly agree that having multiple hobbies other than Pokémon is beneficial, the sole motivation for doing so shouldn't be to get girls. Being well-rounded is something essential for proper functioning in society. I'm a pharmacy student who happens to be athletic and really has no trouble with the ladies, and trust me, it's more about personality than anything else. Truthfully, if you're after shallow girls, than by all means go for the type of girls that flock toward rich, built men. Don't sell your cousin short; have you ever considered he has a great personality, and that's what attracted his girlfriend?

Again, another person who doesn't get it. If you look at the 3 steps, the first one represents money. The second one represents body. The third one represents social skills, and the willingness to meet with other people. No matter how good your personality is, if you don't talk to people, you aren't going to get a girlfriend or boyfriend, or whatever.

As I said, my cousin DUMPED his girlfriend, whom everybody thinks is hot, because she is INCOMPETENT.

The underlying point is that, if you do something to attract large quantities of girls (personalities don't matter, and you aren't even trying to get a girlfriend at this point), that in itself diverts attention away from the fact that you play Pokemon, and do everything that has to do with Pokemon. You also don't have to do exactly that. You can be one of those dudes who gets A's in everything, or one of those dudes who is the star player in his team. Anything to divert attention away from the fact that you play Pokemon. Note that this is much different from hiding the fact that you play Pokemon. Hiding the fact that you play Pokemon makes it so that others people don't know that you play Pokemon. Diverting attention away makes it so that people think that you are either a chick magnet, a star athlete, or a top student, rather than a kid in a grown man's body.

With the label of "Pokemon fan", comes the label of "kid" attached to it. You are only embarrassed because you think that other people think that you are playing a kids game. Now 2 things could happen:

1. You completely hide the fact that you play Pokemon. This isn't a guaranteed solution to remove all embarrassment. This also means that you have to cut all social contact from non-pokemon people, in order for you to go all Pokemon with yourself.

2. You do something else in order to get rid of the "kid" label that is attached when one becomes a Pokemon fan. It could be professional jobs, being a dad, or, gulp, having hot girls chase you around town. As long as the label of "kid" is removed, then you can proudly show the fact that you are a Pokemon fan, because other people don't think of you as a kid in a grown man's body.

If you at least don't agree with these 2 points, in which my original 3 points are one of many subsets of point number 2, then I have nothing to say, but Hypocrite, because I know you probably followed either of these points to ensure you don't feel embarrassed about you playing a kids game.

A true way that works? Become a dad. "Hey, it's for my kids." But if you were a dad who has it so that each kid had its own mother, nod nod wink wink!!!

 

[Celebi23]

Maybe, just considering that about 10 people have told you you're wrong and nobody's sided you, you're actually the one who doesn't get it. :l

Talking to people is generally part of a good personality, btw. Lol.