Oh The Places You'll Go (And The People You Meet)

In addition to making jewelry, I'm also a gamer. I don't always talk about it because, at least for me, gamers have always been portrayed as zit faced teenage boys or 40-year old men living in their mother's basements. I totally don't fit the stereotype on either end of spectrum. I do love video games, though. The Sims 2 and World of Warcraft are my two favorite addictions.

Yesterday, while taking a leveling break, I started going through my "inventory" of charms, all of which were shrink wrapped to card stock. I had to use a thin knife and get them out by sliding it under the charm; time consuming and very annoying.

Now, I absolutely adore my guild. They are the type of people that can strike up odd conversations based on silly one line frustrations. The people that play this game are the reason why I'm addicted to it. They come from all walks of life, in every age, race and religious belief and we all get along. (Now, if our guild could teach this to the rest of the world, we may have something...)

I made a one line frustration of: "Shrink wrapping charms is just not cool people!" I was then asked if I work in a craft store (which would be ridiculously awesome) and when I replied that I design jewelry it struck up three different conversations. The first was general conversations about hobbies in the "guild chat" channel, and the other two were private messages. From that one line, I got to know two guild members a lot better.

One is, from what I understand, a 3D graphics designer trying to build up his portfolio a bit more. We talked about the potential for designing some graphics for me in the future. I'm not quite sure how that will work out, because I just can't see it in my head. I might get a better idea once I've looked at his website (www.joshpurdy.com) and I promised him that I would.

The second person I found out that I have quite a bit in common with. She works for AAFES and she and her husband are expecting to be moving to Germany in May (which there has been talk of my husband being stationed there). She's also got an Etsy shop, but said that she's not touched it for a while. I hope that she does, because from what we talked about that she makes, I would love to see some of it. She didn't come right out and say that she's a knitter, but she mentioned a few times how painful shrink wrap on yarn is. So I'm assuming she's a knitter, but she could do crochet or some other way of making baby blankets and hats that I'm not aware of.

She also said that she enjoys photography, which I do as well (we even like the same camera!). I'm hoping she does decide to get back into this especially, because there's so much potential there for it. Picture frames, puzzles, calendars, mugs, t-shirts, mouse pads, wall art... She said that she turned a photo into a blanket once. That I would love to see!

Moral of the story? I am surprised by the people you meet in video games every time. I've been playing World of Warcraft for a few years, and I'm STILL always surprised by the people that play. Perhaps one of these days I will realize that stereotype is nothing more than an outdated and closed minded view of the gaming world (with some basis in fact, which if you ever go to a gaming convention, you will see what I mean).