Gaming Lifestyle: Insulate or Incorporate?

There seem to have been a lot of "games are a total waste of my time so goodbye forever suckas" posts going up recently, so let me assure you right away that this is not one of those.  Games are and will remain my escape. I don't like TV, books are a bit overrated when the internet exists to assault the brain with information (slight exaggeration for argument's sake), and there's only so much you can do outside when it's below freezing.  Gaming is my preferred way to pass the time, blow off steam after possibly costing the company half a million dollars, or achieve something after a frustrating day in the office.  Yet for some reason, I expertly quarantine it from the rest of my life.
 
Keeping everyone except the most important insulated from my favorite recreation most likely comes from a fear of being judged.  Games are still the youngest medium out there and wildly misunderstood.  Sensationalists continue to label them as the cause of violence around the world.  World of Warcraft continues to grab headlines with horror stories of it causing divorce and child neglect.  There have even been stories of employers immediately rejecting candidates if they have anything to do with games.  With so much negative attention to the platform, identifying myself as one of the brainwashed, murdering psychopaths doesn't quite seem like the smartest play.
 
Yet this is my medium.  I've written games for myself and my siblings since I was 6 and continue to do so.  Heck, my career most likely grew out of writing those little games as a child.  Raptr tells me that I still play twelve to sixteen hours per week.  I spend $80 per month on my hobby even after getting married.  It's an important part of my life, why would I keep it secret?
 
Being married means I don't have to make outrageous statements like "I've never touched Bad Company 2, unlike your looser ex-boyfriend" anymore, yet I would still make a similar comment out of my embarrassment over the perception of games and gamer "culture."  Outside of potential future employers, there are not many people I need to impress for the rest of my life.  Again, why should I keep it so separate?
 
This all comes from my recent decision to create a Twitter account to follow peeps I'm interested in instead of going to all of the individual's feeds.  It then evolved into an aggregator for my own thoughts on gaming to distribute them among the sites I frequent.  It's only a matter of time before non-gaming friends find the account and start following me.  Yet I still feel like I should keep it all separate.
 
How integrated is gaming in your life?  Do you bring it up in casual conversation with non-gamers?  Do you update your Facebook posts with your gaming exploits?  Is your gaming habit an insulated or an incorporated part of your life? 

There seem to have been a lot of "games are a total waste of my time so goodbye forever suckas" posts going up recently, so let me assure you right away that this is not one of those.  Games are and will remain my escape. I don't like TV, books are a bit overrated when the internet exists to assault the brain with information (slight exaggeration for argument's sake), and there's only so much you can do outside when it's below freezing.  Gaming is my preferred way to pass the time, blow off steam after possibly costing the company half a million dollars, or achieve something after a frustrating day in the office.  Yet for some reason, I expertly quarantine it from the rest of my life.
 
Keeping everyone except the most important insulated from my favorite recreation most likely comes from a fear of being judged.  Games are still the youngest medium out there and wildly misunderstood.  Sensationalists continue to label them as the cause of violence around the world.  World of Warcraft continues to grab headlines with horror stories of it causing divorce and child neglect.  There have even been stories of employers immediately rejecting candidates if they have anything to do with games.  With so much negative attention to the platform, identifying myself as one of the brainwashed, murdering psychopaths doesn't quite seem like the smartest play.
 
Yet this is my medium.  I've written games for myself and my siblings since I was 6 and continue to do so.  Heck, my career most likely grew out of writing those little games as a child.  Raptr tells me that I still play twelve to sixteen hours per week.  I spend $80 per month on my hobby even after getting married.  It's an important part of my life, why would I keep it secret?
 
Being married means I don't have to make outrageous statements like "I've never touched Bad Company 2, unlike your looser ex-boyfriend" anymore, yet I would still make a similar comment out of my embarrassment over the perception of games and gamer "culture."  Outside of potential future employers, there are not many people I need to impress for the rest of my life.  Again, why should I keep it so separate?
 
This all comes from my recent decision to create a Twitter account to follow peeps I'm interested in instead of going to all of the individual's feeds.  It then evolved into an aggregator for my own thoughts on gaming to distribute them among the sites I frequent.  It's only a matter of time before non-gaming friends find the account and start following me.  Yet I still feel like I should keep it all separate.
 
How integrated is gaming in your life?  Do you bring it up in casual conversation with non-gamers?  Do you update your Facebook posts with your gaming exploits?  Is your gaming habit an insulated or an incorporated part of your life? 

It's precisely that assault that makes books appealing to me, much more so than they used to.
 
I try to keep this blog on-topic, and I have other web presences and keep them separate.  I wouldn't mind having even a fraction of the readers I get on my blog here on my private blog, but I feel like it helps me express myself in different ways, and not worry if I seem consistent all the time, if I keep them separate.
 
As far as gaming itself, I'm not ashamed of it, but I guess I don't play games as much as others might.  I do it in bursts rather than steadily, so maybe that's why.
 
I'm not sure I care for thinking of myself as a gamer and others as non-gamers, though, because that suggests something immutable.  I play games as a hobby, I like to imagine making them, I like testing them for others and working on development brainstorming. But when you ask me what kinds of games, I'm already in another subcategory.  I prefer not to be defined solely by my hobbies, I guess.