I think I'm in trouble. I realized today that I don't size up girls in the same fashion as my friends. While I do size-up girls, there's no doubt about that, but all of my friends seem to stop their measuring once they've determined that the girl is a possible and desirable romantic interest. I don't stop there. I test these poor women with every scale in my disposal, and I think I know why. I'm not interested in a romantic tryst, it just seems like a waste of time on everybody's part, and I'm too forward thinking for that.
No, I believe that my problem is that I'm looking for a partner, someone who I could possibly share the rest of my life with, which nobody at my age is interested in. It's a problem on two ends as well, I mean it's a problem in that I evaluate the women I meet as potential partners, and of course very few of them are going to meet that kind of standard on their own, and on the other side of the coin it shoots me in the foot in the dating scene. This "problem" is why I think I got so bored at my last date, we talked and I realized that this girl wasn't what I was looking for in any sort of long-term relationship, so I immediately turned off on her. It's funny, in a time with one-night stands, cheating boyfriends, and divorce at an all-time high, my problem is that I'm too ready to commit.
I'm not entirely sure how to tackle this problem, how to lower my entrance exams if you will. But at least I understand a bit more about myself. Perhaps the key lies in just not caring so much, letting things come as they are and to stop worrying so much. Maybe I just need to stop worrying about girls.
Showing posts with label girls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label girls. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
I Really Hate Valentine's Day
Thanks to my very best friend Valentine's Day, love in all of it's many forms, has been on my mind lately. While I have many, very powerful feelings on the subject personally, I don't really want to share them with the internet, so instead I'm going discuss love in video games.
Love is brought up in video games fairly often, especially within the RPG genre, but for the most part it is a very superficial love, cute and pink and with as much substance as those words imply. Actually, one of the first RPG's ever, Dragon Quest for the NES is a perfect example. In Dragon Quest it was the players goal to save the princess and then defeat the evil dragon king/emperor. After rescuing the princess she would give you an item literally called "her love" (replace "her" with the princess' actual name which I forgot), that could tell you how much experience you had left to level up and if I remember right let you save anywhere in the game (a very handy feature for that game). That was it, she had never met you before, you rescue her and then Whoom, she's in love with you. She has, I think, one line to that extent. While recent titles have had slightly more complex relationships (see the link in my last post), they are still quite simple. Even Persona 3, one of my favorite games, which had enough complex topics covered in it that I had an actual cathartic experience (which actually led to my date on VD which led to this discussion), had simple, woo the girl and then forget about her once she's fallen for you mechanics.
It's not just love either, friendship dynamics are almost entirely non-existant. Take Neverwinter Nights 2 for example. NWN2 is a game that prides itself on it's companion dynamics (it's a feature on the back of the box), but outside of one or two scenes that occur once you get enough companion points (by agreeing with your allies in the dialogue), there is nothing. I long for a game that creates a true companion experience, one where your allies have their own personalities and respond dynamically to the players words and actions. What I want most of all is real relationships, friendships that take a dozen of, "Mega RPG#34's 80 hours of gameplay", to foster. I want soulmates to find that are not obvious from the first cutscene.
Of course all of this wishing isn't really doing anything. Games are really much better described as simulations, so one has to simulate these interpersonal dynamics, figure out ways in order for specific hard-coded events occur from player chosen actions. Even more difficult is the writing for these things, it's not easy to make a relationship that gradually gains strength, it's much less difficult to hop on a train and have two best friends lie conveniently in the only open booth (cough*HarryPotter*cough). In my latest, and by far most ambitious project, a full campaign module for Neverwinter Nights 2, I intend to tackle this difficulty in gaming. I know that I can do a better job than Neverwinter Nights 2, it had a good start, but the designers just seemed to forget about that part of the game a third of the way through, but trying to top something with a more complex dynamic such as Ico will be a difficult test (and one that I probably won't pass, but I have to try). Probably the hardest part will be trying to figure out how to simulate the tactile experience of relationships. Ico had the magnificent aspect of the boy and Yorda holding hands, but in the NWN2 engine I can't recreate that, so I'm going to have to somehow use fade-outs and dialogue to create that physical aspect, and no I don't mean sex. Human relationships, especially romantic ones are full of body language and tactile events, I mean you can literally tell if two people are a couple by the fact that they hold hands (more true for new couples than "older" ones). This is something I have no chance of even simulating in the NWN2 game engine, so I'm going to have to imply that it's being simulated, a really awkward and difficult task to surmount.
On a slightly different subject a surprisingly large number of people have had very strong reactions to my last post, particularly my thoughts on my "date". Some of these reactions have been simple and informed, "perhaps she had a hard day at work and just wasn't all there" to the mind boggling "somehow I was a bad person for finding her boring after being the one to ask her out?" (Sorry Amanda, but I just don't get it, how was I supposed to know if she was boring or not without asking her out?). Let me make one thing clear here, I'm not burning any bridges. What I mean is that I wasn't the one to end the date, she did (had some kind of meeting with her housemates or something apparently) and I'm not avoiding her or anything, if she were to show any indications of wanting to go on another date then I would be just fine with that. Of course none of that means I may find her anymore attractive (outside of physicality), but I may understand a bit more of why I wasn't that interested in her.
I realized after some thought that I really like strong, aggressive women. I like women who want to win. These are traits that female gamers tend to have, which outside of sharing one of my biggest hobbies/interests, makes them very attractive to me. Unfortunately these are also "male" traits that most women don't share, so I'm looking for a particularly rare type of woman. Add in that I'm quite a bit shallow (though there are some interesting studies on why men care more about physical features more than women) and I refuse to date anyone I think is stupider than me. That last one is a biggie, since I'm a pretentious asshole with wayyy too much pride, I think I'm a genius, and thus I can only date another genius. So I'm looking for a physically attractive, intellectual, female gamer, yeah...
P.S. Next post I'll try and have less asides, maybe I'll just remove the parenthesis keys off my keyboard...
Love is brought up in video games fairly often, especially within the RPG genre, but for the most part it is a very superficial love, cute and pink and with as much substance as those words imply. Actually, one of the first RPG's ever, Dragon Quest for the NES is a perfect example. In Dragon Quest it was the players goal to save the princess and then defeat the evil dragon king/emperor. After rescuing the princess she would give you an item literally called "her love" (replace "her" with the princess' actual name which I forgot), that could tell you how much experience you had left to level up and if I remember right let you save anywhere in the game (a very handy feature for that game). That was it, she had never met you before, you rescue her and then Whoom, she's in love with you. She has, I think, one line to that extent. While recent titles have had slightly more complex relationships (see the link in my last post), they are still quite simple. Even Persona 3, one of my favorite games, which had enough complex topics covered in it that I had an actual cathartic experience (which actually led to my date on VD which led to this discussion), had simple, woo the girl and then forget about her once she's fallen for you mechanics.
It's not just love either, friendship dynamics are almost entirely non-existant. Take Neverwinter Nights 2 for example. NWN2 is a game that prides itself on it's companion dynamics (it's a feature on the back of the box), but outside of one or two scenes that occur once you get enough companion points (by agreeing with your allies in the dialogue), there is nothing. I long for a game that creates a true companion experience, one where your allies have their own personalities and respond dynamically to the players words and actions. What I want most of all is real relationships, friendships that take a dozen of, "Mega RPG#34's 80 hours of gameplay", to foster. I want soulmates to find that are not obvious from the first cutscene.
Of course all of this wishing isn't really doing anything. Games are really much better described as simulations, so one has to simulate these interpersonal dynamics, figure out ways in order for specific hard-coded events occur from player chosen actions. Even more difficult is the writing for these things, it's not easy to make a relationship that gradually gains strength, it's much less difficult to hop on a train and have two best friends lie conveniently in the only open booth (cough*HarryPotter*cough). In my latest, and by far most ambitious project, a full campaign module for Neverwinter Nights 2, I intend to tackle this difficulty in gaming. I know that I can do a better job than Neverwinter Nights 2, it had a good start, but the designers just seemed to forget about that part of the game a third of the way through, but trying to top something with a more complex dynamic such as Ico will be a difficult test (and one that I probably won't pass, but I have to try). Probably the hardest part will be trying to figure out how to simulate the tactile experience of relationships. Ico had the magnificent aspect of the boy and Yorda holding hands, but in the NWN2 engine I can't recreate that, so I'm going to have to somehow use fade-outs and dialogue to create that physical aspect, and no I don't mean sex. Human relationships, especially romantic ones are full of body language and tactile events, I mean you can literally tell if two people are a couple by the fact that they hold hands (more true for new couples than "older" ones). This is something I have no chance of even simulating in the NWN2 game engine, so I'm going to have to imply that it's being simulated, a really awkward and difficult task to surmount.
On a slightly different subject a surprisingly large number of people have had very strong reactions to my last post, particularly my thoughts on my "date". Some of these reactions have been simple and informed, "perhaps she had a hard day at work and just wasn't all there" to the mind boggling "somehow I was a bad person for finding her boring after being the one to ask her out?" (Sorry Amanda, but I just don't get it, how was I supposed to know if she was boring or not without asking her out?). Let me make one thing clear here, I'm not burning any bridges. What I mean is that I wasn't the one to end the date, she did (had some kind of meeting with her housemates or something apparently) and I'm not avoiding her or anything, if she were to show any indications of wanting to go on another date then I would be just fine with that. Of course none of that means I may find her anymore attractive (outside of physicality), but I may understand a bit more of why I wasn't that interested in her.
I realized after some thought that I really like strong, aggressive women. I like women who want to win. These are traits that female gamers tend to have, which outside of sharing one of my biggest hobbies/interests, makes them very attractive to me. Unfortunately these are also "male" traits that most women don't share, so I'm looking for a particularly rare type of woman. Add in that I'm quite a bit shallow (though there are some interesting studies on why men care more about physical features more than women) and I refuse to date anyone I think is stupider than me. That last one is a biggie, since I'm a pretentious asshole with wayyy too much pride, I think I'm a genius, and thus I can only date another genius. So I'm looking for a physically attractive, intellectual, female gamer, yeah...
P.S. Next post I'll try and have less asides, maybe I'll just remove the parenthesis keys off my keyboard...
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Mr. Nice Guy
After years of careful study I have determined that "nice guys" do in fact "finish last." It all started when I was in elementary school, there I learned how to share (give other people your stuff so they can move away and never see you again), be polite (let people cut in line in front of you when you've been patiently waiting for hours or let others walk all over you in some other fashion), and how to play nice (never get want you want and always defer to other people's opinions). I've learned over the years how to get around the problems that are inherent with these "nice guy" acts, letting me be the good guy but still get what I want, save one, how to be a gentleman and a "nice guy" around women.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to express interest in a girl while still being a "nice guy" and a gentleman? I'm not allowed to just walk up and tell a girl that I like her, because that could make her uncomfortable (and the girls at this campus are paranoid enough to assume that I'm a stalker). I can't make eye contact for very long for the same reasons. I can't look at a girl's body without objectifying her and being a pervert. I'm supposed to act like a friend to these girls that I'm interested in, and every single girl that I am friends with tells me how creepy it would feel to start dating any of their friends. I'm not allowed to hit on girls who have boyfriends (how do I find that out without you telling me or being a facebook stalker?). Honestly, I'm at my wits end here and am just about ready to say "fuck it" and just start asking every girl that interests me (whether I know their name or not) if they want to go get some coffee sometime (mind you, I've been told repeatedly not to do this because it's somehow creepy, how it's creepy I have no clue).
The worst part of all of this is that I feel like I'm the only one my age who still tries to be a gentleman and a "nice guy". Here I am, opening doors for women and getting called a sexist pig for the trouble, while the guys behind them just walk up and slap their asses and get a girlfriend for their effort. I don't know, maybe there was some lesson in Middle School that I missed where they told all of the guys how to be assholes and pick up chicks that I missed while I was sleeping and growing an extra foot (I'm 6'5" which really doesn't help diffuse the big creepy guy factor, along with the bushy eyebrows and "supposedly" intense stare).
I'll give it 'till the end of the week, then if things don't pick up girl-wise I'm just gonna go do everything that I was told not to do.
-Cory Ragsdale
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