When I was 12 living on an Air Force Base, I finally found peers by playing D&D with airmen. From then on I didn't bother with friends my age until college.
My son loves my game collection (a couple hundred games of all sorts) and always wants to try something different. I think there is something about the self-containedness and mastering rules and strategy and exercising the brain in a manner of their own selection that has a strong appeal. We have plans to visit a card store I found nearby and see if Yuh Gi Oh or such may catch his interest. He doesn't like Pokemon (because of the cartoon's bad acting and the way they draw the people's heads he says.)
