How do you cope with
being the only female player you know?
That's the issue I
faced a couple of years ago. Because I was the only female player I knew, I
felt very anxious about going to play at a store (I have Generalised Anxiety
Disorder, so I'm fairly skittish to start with), and being in a room full of
dudes is something that girls and women are generally socialised to avoid.
But I love the game,
and listening to Magic The Amateuring was consistently telling me that women
like me can and did play Magic. So I'm terrified of going to a store but I'm
sick of playing against my partner… What's a girl to do?
I started my own
casual playgroup. I made a private group on Facebook and invited everyone I
knew that played magic casually to play magic at my house once a month (it
would be more often but I simply don’t have time!). Over time our decks went
from unruly 60 card free for all decks and casual 1 v 1 decks made of what we
had in our collections to me lending everyone a precon Commander deck to now
everyone going nuts over EDH and a massive arms race.
However, I've also
taken time to teach any women who I knew who showed interest how to play. Some have had fun but never played again, and
other women join me for my monthly shenanigans. Playing more often with people
I know and love has given me the confidence to start playing instores at FNM,
and I'm also bringing friends along to prereleases and FNM as well. Because we
are all in it together, it engenders a positive vibe as we already have friends
at the store.
By trying to recruit
my friends into my playgroup prior to them dealing with the realities of
playing in a store, I've started to create the kind of LGS community that I
want to play in. Where men and women play each other, have a tonne of fun and
improve their game.
That's such a great initiative! I wish I could do the same, sadly my real life social circle of women are very far from gamers and going to an LGS to play with strangers is not really an option for me either (Social Anxiety Disorder for me) so for now I'm relegated to playing with the dudes I already know.
ReplyDeleteAnxiety is just awful - I hate how I have to fight to do the things I want to do some times.
DeleteI would definitely recommend listening to Magic the Amateuring - one of the hosts has social anxiety and talks about some of her experiences playing competitive Magic. It took me around two years from starting to play to go and play in a store though - it took time but I'm so glad I got through that to where I am today.
Much love and good wishes!
I'll check out the podcast, not sure I'll ever make myself a regular presence at a local game shop though. I've played for a few years and I've attended these things three times over the years just to try it. Either I'm so on edge that I can't concentrate on the game or I have to take Xanax to relax and neither of these things amount to playing well and the former is very far from a good time.
DeleteThanks for the good wishes, I'm going to throw you a follow on Twitter.