If I were unattached I would probably be very attentive to Dragongirl if I met her at a con(not top pick on you, but you seem to have a reasonably thick skin). She's attractive and judging by her posts both intelligent and funny(I'm assuming that comes through in conversation with her as well). But at what point does being attentive become "stalking"? Certainly we've all heard stories where people met and at first could not stand each other, only to become close later after they've gotten to know each other. I guess my main point of contention is that people seem more interested in instant gratification, love or lust at first sight, as it were. A friend of mine had a theory on social behavior "All people tend to repeat behaviors that work for them, until they fail spectacularly." I have modified that to "People repeat behaviors, whether they succeed or not, till they fail spectacularly." I believe people behave in patterns, that most guys behave in a certain pattern of trying to attract companionship. Part of the problem I believe is that we no longer learn socialization from previous generations, we learn it from Aaron Spelling and George Lucas. We are inundated with images of people meeting, talking glibly for a few minutes and then beginning an intimate relationship (with occasional "responsible" people seen using condoms). Teenagers who try and emulate this behavior are not learning useful socialization tools because they are forgetting one element, they are not TV and movie stars and girls/women are not going to treat them like they are; because these girls/women are shown images of women having these instant relationships with very attractive men, and if they see any average looking guys, they are background players, or comic relief. Yes this is an oversimplification but it's leading me to this: RPG's are a test ground for socializing behaviors. The idea that the cool people don't play RPG's is bull. The coolest people I know do game. The most attractive people I've known either game or at least have tried gaming. Attractive gamers seem rare because really attractive people are rare. That is because we have raised our expectations of what makes a really attractive person to unrealistic degrees. We can use RPG's as a tool to help each other in this regard. If a PC attempts to make whoopee with an NPC but uses a lame behavior to get there, let them know that, discuss it, share what works and what doesn't work. After all these so-called creepy gamer guys must be playing with someone, no? If they aren't all just playing with each other maybe we can help them elevate their skills to the point where when someone like Nicole let's them buy her a coke, they can talk to her and begin a correspondence that leads to a friendly relationship and perhaps more, rather then them becoming the punch line to a story about the horrors of idiot gamers at cons... (at least it was a Coke, not a Pepsi or <shudder> a Code:Red).
For the record I am dating a beautiful woman gamer (My third in a row over a course of ten years), but more important than being either beautiful or a gamer, she makes me thrilled to be me and to be with her. Jen may accompany me to Boston Game day, and we will certainly both be at GenCon, where if anyone stalks her, I may have an enlightened conversation with them and suggest both other tactics and another object of desire. On the other hand I may just intimidate them, after all I'm not perfect either....
