A friend of mine watched me play Super Mario Brothers 3 and said that my SMB3 abilities were honestly the most impressive thing he had ever seen. He was serious. He said it multiple times with a straight face.
I confess that I’m really good at SMB3, but for God’s sake!
Proud!
He should be embarrassed he hasn’t seen more impressive things.
You should be proud you are so skilled a the game.
I know where the OP is coming from on things like this. It’s a small thing certainly, but it feels kind of condescending. I try not to get worked up over it though.
I have a friend who has an annoying tendency to point out to people that I’m “smart.” Her evidence? The fact that I learned how to play Dungeons & Dragons when I was 12 years old. The college papers I’ve written on things like foreign politics and American history don’t get brought up as much. 
i was really proud one night when i took like six tequilla shots back to back, aweing all those around me.
i was really embarassed when later that night i was spewing chunks in the guest bathroom.
A friend of mine has (had) a world record for one of the tracks for mariocart on the snes (he was on some website somewhere, I don’t remember what it was or how official it was, but he doesn’t tend to lie about these things). Anyhow, I used to make fun of him al the time for having no life because of how good he was at mariocart (he seriously NEVER lost). Honestly though, I was always kind of impressed.
Be proud. I mastered the side scroll Mortal Kombat games and remember most of the moves to this day. I still do not lose. My friends think it’s funny to bring up MK hoping someone will talk about how good they are so I can get a Double Flawless on them.
Being good at video games is awesome. One of my best friends from college was (and still is) hugely into competitive Starcraft, one of the best players in North America. I would hang out in his dorm room watching live matches from South Korea with him while he explained all of the intricacies and strategies of the game to me (extremely interesting even though I didn’t understand a lot, since my Starcraft skills/knowledge weren’t anywhere near his level). I wish competitive gaming had a bigger presence, maybe you can start a Mario 3 proleague!
Neither.
I used to play in the arcades, and no matter how good anyone thinks they are, there’s always someone as good or better.
One of my high school friends came to the arcades one day during the heyday of Street Fighter 2. I had heard he was the best SF2 (Nintendo) player in his dorm. OoOoOoo!
I didn’t just beat him, I had him pick 1 button (of course, he picked jab) and I beat him using only one button.
Another story out of that arcade is that there was a game where the score wrapped back to 0 at 256. Later, I found out that only 1 other player in the country outside of that arcade even knew about it. Currently, at Twin Galaxies, the record on that game is 200.
But, the best story I heard was the guy who finished Dragon’s Lair blindfolded.
And then, it doesn’t even have to be video games. At my high school, we loved to play trumps. Things like counting cards (we usually counted all four suits, not just trumps) was natural for us. Later, my friend and I got into a doubles tournament vs the trumps players from another school. In the first series, we beat the other 7 teams and came in first. Then, they said we had to get split up because we were too good, and in the second round, my team came in first, and his came in second.
Maybe I’m digressing here, but one of my opponents once said, “How does it feel when you lose?” My standard reply is, “My lifetime record is now something like 1000 to 801, so it’s kinda meaningless.” The flip side of that is the wins are meaningless as well.
Looking at your OP, I’m sure you felt the same way until your friend mentioned it.
You’re not talking about Peter Miller (at UW) are you, aka HnR)Insane?
Nope, Day[9]. Right now he’s doing live commentary on games most nights, there’s a thread on Teamliquid if anyone’s interested.