[SnowTroll]

Orrin gets the gist of it. Lots of people play video games. Heck, three quarters of my age 30-something guy friends bought a gaming system just so they could play the annual releases of whatever football games come out every year. Some of them got into some of the fun group party games and timewasters, like Rock Band and Halo. Even my wife and some of her friends aren't afraid of the occasional video game. I've had to pry her off of facebook games and redirect her attention toward real games once in awhile.

I even got my wife a little bit interested in the Final Fantasy series and a few different online "roleplaying" games over the years (I use the term loosely to refer to the genere of games that includes controlling characters that have various stats and abilities and using them to kill things, not actual roleplaying).

But the actual act of sitting at a computer and typing out sentences your character would say, essentially playing make-believe over the internet, is what she dubs "weird." Games are okay, but playing pretend in a fantasy world is strange to a lot of people. Unless it's a fantasy football team, in which case it's normal and manly.

I think where people get weirded out is the actual playing of the role. When people get together to arrange their fantasy football season, or talk about it online, they don't assume the role of a football coach, think about the background of this coach character they've come up with, and type things out that the coach would say or do. They're just themselves, tracking stats and playing a game with friends. There's this stigma about playing a character that's not you, i.e. playing make-believe.