Have I? I don't think I've ever actually rejected someone who asked me out. I've wriggled out of conversations where I was afraid the question was coming, but is that the same thing?
If I stick to in-person interactions I'll never get a man, no matter how I dress. I don't meet men, and I certainly don't meet potential romantic partners.

Tastes like cookie. Feeling of dread has reduced, possibly because I had to panic about a class assignment and didn't think about it for a while.

You know who I am. Writing ideas to you is different from telling ideas to you. I fear your judgment less in person.

You'd have to ask dad how much co-op he intends. I'm currently trying to catch up to his character level so we can group up, but I might end up doing solo stuff too.

Bring pants for when you go into the lab?

Ghosting is a type of rejection. A particularly depressing one, in my opinion. And you definitely can meet people in person, because I did. I'm pretty much the worst case scenario here. Would you like my advice?

But my judgement is no different in writing than it is in person. I'm very bouncy. Throw your ideas. It's safe.

Or you could ask him. Not that he'll be doing much gaming in the next three weeks. It would probably offend The Party.

I can't wear pants with this dress. I can barely wear underwear with this dress. And you didn't say what you were sewing!

Hey now, ghosting is different from wriggling. I've dropped conversations, but only if the other party made no effort to continue when I let the existing thread die. That's practically a mutual agreement.
What kind of advice could you possibly have? Your man dropped right into your lap. You were put in a high-socialization context where you would see him frequently over a short period. That's like romance with cheat codes enabled.

Umm, okay, bouncy. I have a secondary world fantasy setting where two realities are juxtaposed (think a fairyland sort of deal) and the black plague is spreading over both of them, in different forms. In the "normal world" the plague is the plague, but I'm not sure exactly what form it should take in the other world. I need a reason my MC to flee her world to the other, but to still not be totally safe when she's over there, even when she finds friendly denizens to hide out with. My original thought was for it to be a zombie virus sort of deal, because I wanted to write a zombie story, but why would anyone ever escape to a world with a zombie outbreak??

You're the one whose participation is conditional. We'll be having a jolly time gaming without you, but the time would be jollier with you.
Dad should bootleg you some metal music while he's over there.

How tight is this dress?! It didn't look that tight in the picture. Hike it up to your waist when you're in the lab? Just don't go into the lab that day?
I'm not really making a costume, just some Halloween-y clothes. I made a pentagram harness, which sounds like fetish wear and kind of is, but looks cute when worn with clothes. I'm also going to make some bat wing sleeves and maybe some bat ears.

I see no particular difference.

You were dropped into the exact same situation and emerged man-less! Clearly I have useful information that you lack.

Maybe there is a fantastical way to save/protect people in the fantasy world, but obviously very few options in the real world. Or at least zombies are physical things you can see and fight, but bacteria aren't understood and are therefore more frightening. You don't need to do straight up zombies, either. Maybe they aren't dead and can be cured? What sort of fantasy setting is it? Maybe she doesn't know there's a plague in the other world, she just needs to flee and then can't get back anyway?

Is that an invitation or not?
The metal scene in China is somewhat more underground than here. I'm not sure he could do it.

It's a little tighter than taste would indicate, but not particularly compared to other dresses of its type. It's just the sort of thing that shows underwear lines really easily. I can't skip lab when I'm the TA.
I can't picture this harness. Email picture now.

It was not the same situation! You had a highly eligible man available! My options were... less tenable. All of the guys I even sort of liked were either taken or gay (or both). Lowering my standards didn't even help, because by the time I did that all of the other guys had been taken.
But if you think you have some wisdom I lack, please, impart away. I have nothing to lose here.

Not knowing there's plague over there is probably reasonable, and it's not like she's in a good situation to go back once she finds out. That should work.
I need to spend some quality time actually writing things down. Trying to compost ideas in my head isn't producing anything new.

Sure! It's an invitation. Crickhollow server. Don't play a Lore-master or a captain, because those are taken.
Dad thinks he's a music hipster, but I haven't seen him display many hipster skills. Maybe he could ask one of his hosts? Or would that get him in trouble with the government?

Oh. Yeah. Can't skip lab when you're the TA. Hmm. Bring a change of clothes and wear it the rest of the day?
I'll send a picture of what I wear on Halloween. You can see it then with the rest of the world.

Yesterday I found out that I have unlimited access to copying and printing. They don't hold us accountable or anything. You can just go in and... copy stuff. It's wild. I could abuse this privilege so hard. I could abuse the privilege to the point where they take it away and it's ruined for everyone.

So your standards should have been lower to begin with. There. If you need anything else, I'll be here.

Write them down, then. This isn't hard.

Does it run well on your Mac? I guess that doesn't matter, though, because I don't have time to play except on weekends.

Please don't be the personification of the tragedy of the commons. Don't photocopy your butt and leave copies of it all over the building.

Wow, such advice, very romantic. That'll make for a great How We Met story. "See, by the time I met him, my standards were already so low that he looked good."
Let me know if you have any other groundbreaking tips.

It runs just fine on my Mac. Not that it matters.

How did you know my plan??????? It's too late now, anyway. The butts are already here.

Recently I've been coming to grips with the fact that, by all indications, Guy Fieri is genuinely a nice and pleasant person. I watch GGG and he just... oozes positivity. It's like Cutthroat Kitchen run by Mr. Rogers. And I keep finding anecdotes from people who met him in real life saying he was super nice and gave them a signed Lean Cuisine. I don't know what to do with this information.

Your avatar is still not looking festive.

Get a personal hype person? But for other people. Have your hype person hype potential partners in advance of you meeting them.

Noooooooooooooo............. butts.

I already came to that grip. He just seems really nice and genuine. He loves to eat food and tell people they did a good job. What's wrong with that?

Do they eat the Lean Cuisine after?

So sorry. I was busy investing. INVESTING.

The only way I can see that working is having someone else run an online dating profile for me and hype up matches before I look at them.

The grip is hard for me to arrive at. I've spent to much of my life thinking of him as someone to laugh at, and I don't want to laugh at nice people. It turns out he doesn't even like that flame-print bowling shirt people always picture him in. What is left for me in this life, if not making fun of Guy Fieri?

I have no idea what happened to the Lean Cuisine. I hope they saved the signature.

Oh, right, congrats on your freedom from debt. How did you invest? At random? I would panic and invest at random if it were me.

For funsies, I googled "poor sense of smell" and "can't smell dill", and now the internet is happily telling me that I'm a psychopath, that I have Parkinson's, and that I have Alzheimer's. Never ask the internet anything. The internet is a jerk.

That is a sacrifice I am willing to make. Do I get a microphone? Will you pay for the whole seat but only use the edge?

You could laugh at him in a good-natured way. Like Falstaff.

I picked an online investment firm that handles everything for you. Input money, input risk preferences, output diversified and automatically managed portfolio. I have a personal account and a Roth IRA, both with $5000, slightly different portfolio for each one. My account is free while it's under $15000. I think I sent you a link - if you sign up through my link, we both get an extra $5000 managed for free.

I also put $600 into a charitable microlending service. It doesn't provide any financial returns, but it helps me manage my privilege guilt. I get to personally choose disadvantaged but hardworking entrepreneurs to support (sort of). I'm working on collecting one from each country. Sort of like pokemon, but it's people...

Which one of those is from the dill? I think I knew poor sense of smell was associated with psychosis. Are you really surprised that the internet is a jerk?