I'm a dude, I like me some poon. Everybody knows it. Growing up through high school and now into college I made sure to play by the rules dictated by the owners of said poon so that I might be able to procure some.

I'm also a gamer, and I consider myself somewhat hardcore. Not the "Hmmm....brand new car or life size Cortana 'pleasure doll' ... I'll take the doll." type of hardcore, but enough of a vet (450+ hours on PSO anyone?) to warrant the title nonetheless. Don't get me wrong, I would wreck Cortana and so would you but that's not the point. Anyway, most of the time these two worlds live in harmony or at least happily enough separate from each other. However, due to recent unfortunate circumstances they've been colliding and I'm left having to choose between one or the other.

For example: It's between classes at college so I'm headed to one of the lounges with couches and tables and whatnot for kids to study at. I've strategically positioned myself beside smokin' hot chick from English and we've struck up a conversation. Things are going well. I'm a couple sentences away from asking this girl out when out of the corner of my eye I spot *John walking my way. Alarms immediately start ringing in my head because you see John is the fucking anti-poon. Now me and John are decent friends and we'd spent many a RB6:LV clan match together putting the hurt on bitches. What John doesn't realized is this is NOT what I want to talk about right now, or Halo 3, or the latest episode of Death Note. So down John sits and no sooner than I had made eye-contact with him then *WHAM!* onslaught of nerd vernacular. He was even nice enough to include a quick anecdote involving me and Final Fantasy making it impossible for me to distance myself from the situation.

Needless to say English girl could only hold out for so long before politely excusing herself from both the couch we were sitting at and the list of girls I'll ever have a chance with. This is not that big of a deal, there will be other girls. Even so, I couldn't resist giving John a raised eyebrow in my attempt to convey the feeling of "WHAT THE FUCK MAN, WHY!? WHY!? WHY!?". Apparently he got the message because he immediately became defensive claiming that I was "lame" and a "sell-out" for even being worried about it.

This is my conundrum. Am I less hardcore because I at certain times would choose not to speak about video games? Does periodically choosing to be socially acceptable over my nerdy urges make me a sell out? I say no, no it does not. It simply makes me aware of the social rules of which to play by in order to "win" at whatever I'm trying to do at that particular moment. Time and place for everything kids, time and place for everything.

*John is not his real name....or is it?