"Are there Any Girls There?" Make a Perception Check

    Sometimes the types of conversations that come up at our weekly dance night here in the area amazes me.  As I bounce around with the various people I regularly quest with in life all of us telling adventures in our "tavern" during down time, I find so much of a variety in life.  Just last night, between the insane amounts of dancing I did, thanks to my two friends the DJ's who made a great attempt on my life via dancing, I bounced from conversations with a friend of mine who is another female gamer type and her adventures trying to write plot line for a video game to various political issues that people have to talking about different types of music and the effect they have on people.  It was a blast!

    One of the conversations struck me pretty hard as it is something that I have to think of often as a female, especially one in the gaming community.  The person who brought it up was one of our younger sidekick types.  To be fair to him he doesn't have many friends and being of the geeky/gothy variety of people, like many guys that age, aren't so good with the newly found social skills.  Not a judgement, just an observation, it is something that often happens to us geeky types before we come into our own and level up as it were.  Some never get there and other's blossom, level up and become better in our charisma and diplomacy rolls.  

    He brought up the fact he feels that females seem to be revered in the communities that we are part of.  Which is true, females ESPECIALLY in the gaming communities are, it is a relatively new thing for there to be as many nerdy women as there are now.  Just as an example back when I started gaming, which was longer ago then I care to admit to, being a young lady who played D&D or the White Wolf World of Darkness games was nearly unheard of.  You were more likely to find girls who would play video games then anything else, which in many ways has continued to this day, however it was still rare to find girls who would play games like StarCraft (a little later in the time period then I'm actually talking but still it pertains) or things like that.  The fact I was a female who loved table top rpgs, played Magic the Gathering and played those types of video games was strange and unusual, but for the most part the guys thought it was cool.  

    Even in more recent history females who play miniature games and things of that nature, while becoming more frequent, is still not something that happens AS often.  I mean I started playing World of Warcraft just after it came out 8 years ago people were shocked when they found out I was actually not a guy playing a female character.  So yes, we are looked at somewhat on a pedestal.  Most males like having ladies in their gaming groups.  Come on, can keep up on the fighting, role playing and for a lot of us, quick on the problem solving feet and it gives the guys someone to talk to who isn't all male all the time.  Honestly I think sometimes it can bring people into gaming.  I can't tell you the number of times I've had male friends admit to me that they started playing a particular game or larp, walked into a gaming store, decided becoming interested in miniatures because of a lady or ladies that they saw there.  I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like us gaming/geeky ladies are a good thing for the industry.  So I think we should keep it up!  I mean really...do you hear many of the guys complaining that we're around?