Hey, Granito

Welcome welcome

I think it makes sense that you don't have issues fitting into another country because you can find a sense of belonging in community or group of people who play online games.

In addition to games, I think being a geek in pop culture helps you feel a sense of belonging because then you can find more commonalities with people in another country. You can talk endlessly about the same knowledge and experience with the culture (pop culture is a culture too!) you share, and you can also offer your geeky knowledge to keep the conversation going.

But then what if you end up in a country where there is no internet and no TVs? That might mean "no life" for some people but hey, you never know you might still find something common with people there. I think discomfort and feeling of disconnectedness arise once we are rid of what we are familiar. But until then you may not feel you "fit in" well. (Though this statement contracts with what I believe --that is TCKs may never fit in perfectly in a monocultural setting where they do not understand you)

Hi Granito! I used to looove Tintin. I still have the whole collection (mostly in Indonesian, with one in English) somewhere. I haven't touched it in eons. And I used to love mangga, which is actually quite a normal thing in Japan (I'm half Japanese), and not geeky at all.

But lol. You're both so funny.

As for fitting in or not - What rafael said never occurred to me before. Interesting point. Well, I suppose a lot of it can also depend on personality. My sister and I have had very different experiences with identity even though we were raised in the same family. And I've noticed that for a lot of guys, having a common interest with others help them feel a sense of belonging.

So, not sure which case applies to you, but either way, Welcome to tckid!

Hi, welcome to here : )

I had to laugh when I read that your dad asked you if you wanted to go to the U.S. - I had a similar situation, twice. The first time when I moved from U.S. to Germany(although that was a bit limited freedom, because my parent's work-visa was going to expire a year later). I remember that I cried when my parents told me that they were thinking about keeping me with them, instead of sending me to a boarding school in Germany. For some reason I really wanted to go(I was turning 11 at the time).
The second time, was when I had lived in Monaco for a year and was turning 13; my parents offered to send me to a host family in Novosibirsk, Russia. Again, I just said "Yes - if it's ok with you!".
Haha, both times I also was very surprised to find out, that it really wasn't the way I had imagined.

As to belonging to a group that indulges in playing a certain type of game... up to when I found this website, I was a very intense Diablo II player. I spent up to 5 hours daily on the Battlenet. Honestly though, I quit after I began to realise that I was just trying to escape reality. I don't know what it's like in your case, and I definitely don't want to judge you - but you should remember, that a game is just a game - "it isn't real". I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a group of people that you play a game with, but rather that you should also do other things with that group, or have another group that you do different things with... and whether an internet culture counts as a culture, my current opinion is that it doesn't, but that a culture can definitely have its beginnings in an internet community. I'm here to see if that can become reality.