(08-31-2015, 07:46 PM)Calliope Cloverbloom Wrote: Have you considered that the character could have an IC epiphany that he, ICly, is lonely, and that his loneliness may stem from the challenge he presents to others in getting to know him?Â
As a result of that epiphany, the character could choose to try to open himself up more to others - and in doing so, may find himself having others feel more drawn to him.
One of the serious drawbacks of playing anti-social characters (regardless of the method of anti-social behavior, such as wallflowering, professional elitism, classism, etc) is that they are notoriously unapproachable. People don't want to put the work into forcing an interaction to happen, and they don't need to do so, because in the same emote distance there's usually another character present who presents an easier opportunity. It's almost like in order to play a character with anti-social traits, one must already have a base of player friends OOCly who are willing to push their characters at the anti-social one. Lacking that, it's almost guaranteed that isolation is going to occur.
However, it's not the end of the world. As I mentioned initially in this post, the problem is very much one that the character, if he's self-aware, could recognize exists ICly and he could take IC steps to change who he is and how he behaves toward others. If it has results that he wants - e.g. he has some new friends get made from his attempts - then he'll see the fruit of his labors to change and will feel motivated to continue with that personal growth.
This gal's got it, really.
The short and sweet of it is that certain characters just don't fare well in public settings. Not because they're bad characters or anything like that, just that, at least from the outside looking in, the amount of time spent getting invested in that sort of character doesn't seem to be worth the return. Sometimes this might be because other people don't want to spend their time being put down, and sometimes it might just be that anti-social or otherwise impolite characters are hard to hold a long conversation with; both tend to get to a point where it's easier to just call off the encounter before things get even more awkward. Either that, or one side has to put forth all the things to talk about, and eventually, they're going to run dry. One-sided conversations, both in Roleplay and in Real Life, tend not go on for very long.
Especially since we humans are very good at picking up social cues; this includes cues that we're not wanted around at the moment.
No one is saying that you have to change your character in order to be accepted, just that opening them up a little more, even if it's only for the sake of interaction, might net you a little more. From the character you described, it might not even be all that hard.
"Hi, I'm a knight of Ishgard here for diplomacy. Tell me about your people," might be all you ever need, and changing the character might not even be necessary at all.
