an unpleasant confrontation.

[axioma]

I was at my father's birthday party tonight and one of the guests who i dont remeber ever having met asked me what i was doing for a living now. when i told her i play poker, she reacted pretty negatively to the news.

basically, she first asked me if i thought it was ethical, which was more or less a polite way of her saying SHE thought it was unethical. when i told that i did not think this way in the slightest, the conversation eventually lead to her saying she thought it was "evil". i do not think this was due to a religeous belife, but rather something else.

i gathered that she was some kind of counciler for a living. she did not really give me any rational line of argument to support her beliefs, but rather repeatedly asked "but what about all the people with gambling problems" as if i was somehow to blame, or if not to blame, at least not helping them in any way. i told her more or less that i am not overly sympathetic towards problem gamblers anyway, and that i belive there are people far better deserving of my sympathy.

i then gave her one or two of what i thought were reasonable arguments releasing me of any responsibility towards problem gamblers, and she then resorted to asking me what i thought poker adds to society. rather than try and answer her in that way, rationally and intelligently, and as she was becomeing rather annoying by this point, my defense was more or less along the lines of 'welcome to the real world'.

normally im able to reason well with people like this, but i was taken a bit of gaurd this time.

anyone had simalar confrontations themselves?