"These Are My People"

Randy sits down and watches Amy watching the nerds play their game. He thought he'd hit bottom in Whitman, out there on the parking lot, that surely she would get scared and fleet. But this is potentially worse. A bunch of tubby guys who never go outside, working themselves into a frenzy over elaborate games in which nonexistent characters go out and do pretnd thengs that mostly are not as interesting as what Amy, her father, and various other members of her family do all the time without making any fuss about it. It is almost like Randy is deliberately hammering away at Amy trying to find out when she'll break and run. But her lip hasn't started to writhe nauseously yet. She's watching the game impartially, peeking over the nerds' shoulders, following the action, occasionally squinint at some abstraction in the rules.

(Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon)