I [23M] have taken a lot of interest in a traditionally "nerdy" game recently, and I feel so much shame that I've been hiding it from my girlfriend (21F). Help?

I recently have gotten into a tabletop game called Age of Sigmar where you collect and paint little plastic models then play a fantasy strategy game with them. So much fun, and a really interesting fantasy world.

The issue is I feel a lot of shame at how hobbies like this are perceived, and I've been lying to my girlfriend about how I spend my time to avoid her knowing about it.

When I first got into it, I showed her the first miniature I assembled to guage her reaction. Her and her sister laughed, said "oh god, don't tell me you're one of those guys" and ever since then I have hidden my hobby as much as I can. She later mentioned she didn't really mean it, but qt this point I can't get that reaction out of my head and because we're long distance, I spend a lot of time on it then lie to her about what I've been doing.

On the surface I'm not someone you would think would be into things like this (this will sound douchey but I'm muscular, relatively good looking, dress well, good job, etc) and I can almost feel a vibe of "you're better than this". Which I know is dumb! It's just a game, I'm not doing anything wrong by enjoying it and most people that play are perfectly fine and normal people! But I can't shake the shame around my geeky hobby and stop lying to my girlfriend about what I do with it. It didn't help that the one time we went to the store, it was mainly scrawny high schoolers that smelled funky. But they were having fun and honestly good for them, nothing wrong with being skinny, we all have different priorities.

Anyone have any advice?

Tl;dr: Getting into a "geeky" hobby and feel a lot of shame and have to hide it from my girlfriend.

Submitted July 28, 2018 at 05:39PM by My_Baby_Loves_Memes https://ift.tt/2LYvcwz