Date Like A Nerd

Unlock Your Player 2!

Expert Level Interviews

Level Up Your Social Skills Using Online Gaming Communities

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with Kaylee Lopez

🫣 Meeting new people can be scary. That’s why online gaming communities are a great way to start if you have Level 1 Social Skills and want to gain some XP! 👾

In this episode, I bring back Kaylee Lopez, an anthropologist who writes about gaming and game communities. We discussed why communities are important and how you can use them to level up your social skills IRL 💬

🏰 From self-esteem to safety, communities can serve many different purposes. Fortunately, whether they’re online or in-person doesn’t dramatically change the impact they can have on you. Having a group of people who want to be with you and support you can help you become more secure in yourself and with others 😎

🖥️ You can use online social spaces to try new social skills that you’re too afraid to test in the real world. By giving your avatar the behaviours you’d like to have yourself, you can safely test what it would feel like to be someone different 🦸 Someone you want to be 🫅

You’ll even get to see how people react, and how you can react to those reactions (and so on) 🤩 After rinsing and repeating, you’ll start incorporating those characteristics into your real life. There are forms of therapy (including TTRPGs) that are based on this model. The fact that it’s not “the real you” is irrelevant. You’ll still grow and develop into the person you want to become 🙌

As time goes by and you start feeling more confident both in your skills and with the people in your community, you can go from text-based interactions to audio, video, and maybe even in-person meetings! 🤗

🫡 So what are you waiting for? Are you going to accept this new Quest? 🙂‍↕️

🎧 Listen now and start leveling up your social skills online! 🦾

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Where do nerds REALLY meet their Player 2?

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Kaylee’s Links:

Related Episodes:

Timestamps for lazy nerds:

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:01:19 The Value Of Communities
  • 00:03:46 Becoming Secure Through Communities
  • 00:06:09 IRL vs Online Communities
  • 00:08:09 How to Meet People in Online Games
  • 00:10:35 Developing Social Skills
  • 00:13:19 Who You Want To Be
  • 00:15:00 Staying Safe
  • 00:21:05 Contact

Find Love Through Online Games

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with Kaylee Lopez

👾 How do people find a partner who plays online video games? It often feels like you’re damned if you join a community looking for a relationship, and you’re damned if you don’t (because how else can you meet someone outside dating apps?!) 🤨

🎮 In this episode, I talk to Kaylee Lopez, an anthropologist who writes about gaming and game communities. We explore the ways you can integrate yourself into communities, unlock the gamer branch of your Social Tree, and find your Player 2. Literally! 🕹️

⌨️ Meeting gamers has its own set of challenges that are different from meeting people IRL 🖥️ On the one hand, most people don’t play video games to find their soulmate (just like with most communities). So even if you’re brave enough to approach NPCs, most people don’t want to be hit on immediately 🙅

💬 On top of that, if you do start talking to someone and hitting it off with them… you know absolutely nothing about them. And even if you did and had some interaction, whether you’d get along in person remains uncertain.

And to top it off, even if all of that does work out… they may live too far away from you! ✈️ So even if you manage to find your soulmate, they may exist all the way across the world with neither of you wanting to move 🌎

So with all of these odds against you, could it ever happen? The answer is YES.

🎧 Press Start to learn how to find your Player 2! 🧑‍💻️

❤️ FREE GUIDE: 🎮
Where (and How) to Meet Your Player 2 Organically

FREE DOWNLOAD

About Kaylee Lopez

Kaylee is an anthropologist that writes about gaming and game communities. She’s also a certified therapeutic game master, game writer, and game editor.

Kaylee’s Links:

Related Episodes:

Timestamps for lazy nerds:

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:00:58 Finding Love Within Online Games
  • 00:04:56 Joining With Honesty
  • 00:07:47 IRL vs Online Chemistry
  • 00:09:56 Find Gamers In Your Area
  • 00:14:16 Expanding Your Social Tree
  • 00:18:05 Breakups Within Communities
  • 00:20:11 Contact Info

Beat the Fear of Rejection Through Your Gamer’s Journey

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with Dr. Daniel Kaufmann

If you want to approach people, start conversations, ask for a number, or invite them on a date, one of the most useful Skills you will need is resilience. In this interview, Dr. Daniel Kaufmann shares why many of us give up before even trying, and how video games can get us closer to achieving our goals in any aspect of our lives.

Part of the Hero’s Journey idea is that we as spectators can identify with the hero of a story and gain Skills and motivation to improve our lives. Video games take this concept to another level: we are the ones winning. Without us, the avatar would sit still and go nowhere.

This also implies that both you and your avatar will gain experience and get better as time goes by. Carol Dweck calls this the Growth Mindset. For some of us, this is an in-game lesson that we can take outside the virtual world. But for others, it’s not enough to compensate for decades of the Fixed Mindset discourse. Real life just doesn’t have the same opportunities and motivations as video games… unless we gamify it.

But this is only one of the many lessons you can learn from video games. So what will you do? Will you stay in your comfort zone or will you start working toward your dating goals?

Listen now and start leveling up with your Gamer’s Journey!

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❤️ FREE GUIDE: 🎮
Where (and How) to Meet Your Player 2 Organically

FREE DOWNLOAD

Guest Bio

Dr. Daniel Kaufmann is a YouTube Partner as Dr. Gameology, where he teaches about the many positive elements of video games that help us overcome professional and personal journeys in real life.

He is an Associate Professor who’s helped develop programs for gaming and geek therapy training in clinical settings, and his publications cover video games, personality theory, online education, and counselor development. 

Dr. Kaufmann recently published the book The Gamer’s Journey, to help you turn the themes found in many video games into life lessons that can unlock your own potential. 

Timestamps for lazy nerds:

  • 00:00:00 Intro
  • 00:00:50 Bio
  • 00:02:01 How The Gamer’s Journey Can Improve Your Life
  • 00:08:14 The Fixed and Growth Mindsets
  • 00:17:00 Fear of Rejection
  • 00:24:05 Conversation Skills
  • 00:32:20 What Gives You Motivation
  • 00:37:41 Contact Info

💬 To practice your Conversation Skills with me every month for FREE, go to https://www.datelikeanerd.com/improv