To be a better human, be a gamer?

There have been many moments during my 43 years of life in which my failure as a human being has slapped me hard, right in the face. No less so than when I learned that prior to friends coming out they were unsure about how they would be received. They were, are, and always will be wonderful human beings who are worthy of immense respect and love. And so, with that context, you understand the weight of how I failed them. It was entirely within my power to have made myself a person whose unconditional support could not have been doubted. Why didn’t I do that? Why was I silent? Why did I fail them?

The answer I keep coming back to is privilege and fear. Whilst being a vagina-haver tempers the privilege somewhat, I am white, cisgender and heterosexual, a plain doughnut of a human being, if you will, and that has enabled me to sail through life without fear of racists, homophobes and transphobes. Yet, in truth, if all the racists, homophobes, and transphobes knew how my moral compass is calibrated, they would for sure be gunning for me as well: I fear them. And so to my shame, I choose to hide because I have privilege that allows it.

Now here we are, spectators to my cowardice (to paraphrase Sebastian Haffner), having a nice self-indulgent wallow in the swamp of sadness while trying to figure out how to be better. How exactly do I stand up, speak and act out in a way geared to support and protect the people I love when these are exactly the actions that terrify me? I, and many AFAB, were repeatedly and forcefully told NEVER to speak out, rock the boat or contradict. It’s quite literally a physical battle; my throat constricts, I start to sweat, organising my thoughts is next to impossible and arguing a point is not happening. That’s panic, that’s fear, it’s intense and I do not know how to overcome it. Ooo, more shame? Thanks Mum.

While this betrayal of my own principles has been one of many sources of shame, anger and self-hatred, I have been realising over time quite how much this is also an insult to and a betrayal of the people around me. We have all heard of people-pleasing, a behaviour geared towards manipulating those around a person in order to minimise any potential negative response and maximise any positive. What I do is the same but different. I pull back, don’t engage, resist friendships, push people away and be the first to reject, all in hopes of the same outcome. This is manipulation and inherently disregards the feelings of those around me. It’s not malice, but it is unkind. The root of it though is depression, which is an immensely unkind condition – to the individual and everyone affected by them. 

I don’t know how, but by some magic there are now people around me who I desperately love and …. maybe life is worth it? I love my friends, adore them, think about them and, honestly, have a wee cry sometimes because they are so wonderful, interesting, intelligent, insightful, creative, funny, talented, and simply brilliant that just occasionally I can start to think that if people of this calibre truly like me, maybe I’m actually worthy of it? That’s groundshaking stuff. Their straight up refusal to stop being kind and selfless has been dissolving my defenses while I wasn’t looking and I haven’t figured out how to express the depths of value that has to me. Maybe writing this will go some way to address that. 

And so we leapfrog to Tabletop Scotland (an annual tabletop games convention held near Edinburgh,Scotland) and learn to plot a course from strangled silence to Maggie Kuhn’s coattails: “Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind – even if your voice shakes”. 

“Leave safety behind. Put your body on the line. Stand before the people you fear and speak your mind – even if your voice shakes”. 

Last year my husband asked me to help him with the pub quiz he was running at Tabletop Scotland. This was my first experience of a convention of any sort and I was really quite worried that I would hate the environment;, it would be noisy, busy, crowded, I’d find it overwhelming and wouldn’t be included or welcomed as a non-gamer. My assumptions were proven so very wrong that I would have eaten a fucking sombrero and asked for seconds. I spent HOURS before the quiz wandering the vendor area (and spending money I didn’t have) with my brother, soaking in the joy all these people find in their hobby and choose to express in so many fascinating and creative ways. Every attendee and every person at every single stall were there with their hearts on their sleeves, brave enough to be absolutely themselves and allow others to be also; the very example I didn’t know I was looking for.

This is what was overwhelming, not the noise, not the crowds, not the food smells or forced proximity to strangers, it was the absolute refusal of these people to not be open, moral, brave human beings, just like my friends, many of whom are gamers too. There were signs on some stalls advertising themselves as ‘I’ll Go With You’ buddies for trans folk who wanted to use the toilet that fits their gender, and the organisers were in on the conspiracy too! The stalls were arranged with wide aisles to allow for people with wheelchairs, mobility aides, service dogs or space needs and these got even wider the following year. They tried, they asked, they improved – it can be done! 

That old stereotype of white, male, cisgender gamers huddled in a darkened room or dingy shop corner, staring wide-eyed at anyone with boobs or joy who might enter was kicked so hard to the kerb it went down the drain and was consumed by It. The philosophy was that those boys can keep their version of the hobby and inexplicable love for dim lightbulbs, we will not stop them just as we will not be stopped by them. 

For so many folk just being is an act of dissent, this we have known for a long, long time. And over time, over decades it seemed that we were making progress, too slow but it was there. Then in the last few years there has been the rise of the right with bigots beginning to feel safety in numbers. In which direction are we heading now and do we still have time to affect change? One thing at least is for sure, passivity will not serve us here. As Sister Helen Prejean says in her book Dead Man Walking: “If I do not speak out and resist, I am an accomplice.” 

The people I met at Tabletop Scotland are an exemplar not only of the old adage ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ but also of the new adage (which I just made up, you’re welcome) ‘fuck the fascists and be you anyway’. I am deeply saddened by the length of time it has taken for me to stop floundering and start to grasp how to be a basically decent human being. All the messaging I internalised from childhood as well as maladaptive coping mechanisms from growing up with undiagnosed ADHD, depression and anxiety has been such a fucker. But I can be better, I can be like Tabletop Scotland and all the beautiful little tattooed, gum chewing freaks out there who just point blank refuse to be less than good because that, by our own moral standards, is what we must be.

So now I have a place to start from as well as a place to aim for and that gives me hope, not just for understanding myself and bettering my own mental health but in the knowledge that such a seemingly individualistic pursuit ultimately is going to help me do better by those I love. If I have worth then I don’t need to systematically avoid connection. That is a benefit to me. And if I have worth then I have agency and can use that to “be an active participant in making the world less terrible” as Blair Imani would have it, and that will hopefully be a benefit to all the beautiful people who are unfortunate enough to know me. This is a hopeful thing, because they certainly deserve it.