As a younger (recently graduated highschool) grinder, trying to "make my bones" and break into/past the midstake, I feel like your blog really struck a cord with me. It's been maybe a months, tops, since my hs grad and I feel like I've already drifted from my grad class friends considerably. I mean, this isn't terribly disconcerting for a variety of personal/perspective-oriented reasons, but it does suck to "lose" friends you've hung out with for like 3+ yrs.
Fwiw, it wasn't an instant switch. Been going on for 6-8 months when (after a year of on and off grinding) I finally broke past the micros and was making 2-10x my $10/hr job. Also taking the biggest $ swings so far, I just dealt with shit and devoted a lot of time to poker. Got to the point though where I would just say:
"Yeah, can't see a movie. Busy tonight."
"Again?"
"Yeah...sucks."
And it would eventually be obvious I just didn't want to go out. Unlike you, I decided not to bring poker into it and get increasingly creative with excuses. At some point I guess I saw that there wasn't ever really a good place that interaction would end up...won't get into it but obv you understand how the conversation/relationship paths go after "o howe much u makez?!" is asked.
So, what to do? How is someone in this/our position supposed to work shit out? It's probably very person / situation dependant, but iuno, what isn't?
I've given a lot of thought to this, and it's just a weird place because it probably isn't their fault because everyone reacts like this. Before poker, if you met a guy flipping used cars, or trading derivatives (cars is the better example since it is less known I guess), our first question would be how it worked. I'm thinking there are people (albeit rarely) that would jump in, or at least do some considerable research before instantly "judging" or w/e. Maybe we're a few of them seeing as we got involved in poker one way or another. So, I mean, if we have no real control over how people react (they'll do what the will, why should we bother stressing over that shit, etc), why not be very open about it but privately just decide not to care what they think. I agree with what you said about needing validation from peers, so what I'm suggesting is probably impossible, at least in a large social setting with a group of friends or w/e. Maybe try it. I have no idea.
I mean one way a lot of people naturally trend towards is just breaking off with a lot of non-poker friends, keeping a small number of close ties to "normal" society, and the rest are all poker aquaintances. Maybe that's just part of the life...and can only change as the opinion/stigma around "gambling" changes. Interestingly, if everyone considered poker a legit profession, games would be a LOT harder. Don't ask for too much?
Pick your friends carefully, I guess.
/end rant.
side rant:
+ Show Spoiler +
I was listening to an old 2+2 pokercast where Alec Torelli (never heard of him before this, April 09', tourney player apprently) talked about a blog post where he was getting burnt out/bored with poker and decided to take time off indefinitely to do other stuff. No idea what happened to him...it's more about burnout than relating with people who don't know about poker, but he said some stuff about how most dedicated pros have mostly poker friends, it just happens. Pretty obvious once you think about it, but maybe there is a way to find more balance (and be successful).
He did talk about how just typing the blog and getting his thoughts out helped him better understand how he felt about things though, so that's probably the only reason why I'm making this post, half hoping nobody will read it. =p
/end side rant.
