The Men-Hunt: a prey's perspective

[ A.K.A.: 7 rules for a happy man-tourage ]

All right, where was I... Ah, mantourage. Since there are female avatars publishing the recipes for the females, maybe I should write down some of the male perspectives, and hope that they save someone a tear or two...

First thing you wanna do is keep in mind this is a pixel world. Repeat after me: This is virtual. This. Is. Virtual. While the norms of social behaviour and legal boundaries of course do apply, do not take it too dangerously close to your nervous system - it is a sure recipe for some drama, at least for yourself, and maybe for some innocent others.

So,

Rule #1:

keep the tongue in the cheek. Besides the obvious safety net effect on your poor nervous system, exhausted in the RL stress, you might be able to get less busy with actually trying to chase down the ladies for some less sophisticated activities (By the way - consider the fact that some of them might be actually a guy with the beard drinking the beer and having a good laugh - although we have voice coming soon to the rescue, so it will be a bigger challenge for the guys with the beer), and concentrate yourself onto the greatest fun of all - the conversation.

The conversation should be interesting for the lady (ok, from now on I make a firm assumption that we consider the lady as a lady and not as a guy with the beer, beard and a ponytail). If she is an avid follower of the newly-published guidelines of mantourage, she might even try to talk to you about football. This is something to be very careful with. If there is a thing the vast majority of the women hate more than doing the laundry, this is football. So, two possibilities - either she is not a woman, or she is trying to lure you to become a blinded zombie in her bag of followers. Indeed, there are are exceptions which are always possible - however, considering the odds, do not consider yourself too lucky. Even though 80% of the people think they are above average in anything they are asked about, this is not true. Same warning as about the football goes about talking about the advantages of Gentoo over Debian, or CentOS over Ubuntu(and vice versa).


Hence,

Rule #2:

talk to her in her language. This has an added practical benefit that you can learn the latest fashion trends, discover the wonders that they put into the magazine du jour for women - these are invaluable weapons that you can definitely reuse in real life, should you have a need.

Speaking of real life: never ever, NEVER EVER try to find out the real life details. Two reasons: you will be disappointed if you learn about the beer (ok, ok, that was the last time), second - some girls actually do prefer anonymity, since then they can release some of the less obvious sides of their nature, which they are reluctant to show in the wild in real life due to the twisted nature of the modern morale.

Indeed, you are free to tell her your genealogy up to 5th level of depth (just be careful not to go further, since even the most patient might fall asleep, and even if she does not snore, she will still not keep the conversation alive), but never expect nor demand anything in return.

5 words about talking: talk, but not too much. Remember, she has more men than just yourself in the pack, so try not to abuse the schedule of other participants. On the contrary - try to get acquainted with them - if the woman is worthy, then the chances are that you might find some other interesting people around, and you might get a chess partner or someone to help you analyze the latest stock market prices. They are not enemies. But assuming the stock market situation is clear, and the chess party has finished, you ask me - "Okay, and what to do then?"

Rule #3:

Redundancy. Never ever put the balls... err.... eggs into a single basket. Assuming that you want to live a long and healthy single life in SL, you need to be ready for anything. She may fall in love IRL, may get booted from work for spending too much time in SL and not having any work done (hence you will be one of the last things on her mind), well, even just marry in SL, if nothing else. If that happens, and you do not have the plan B ready - you will be disappointed. That should not happen. You don't want to feel like you've lost all of your self-respect, right ?

Self-respect. This is not to be mixed with ego. Yes, I know you are the center of the universe, but I am the center of the universe too, and even though it may be surprising for you (hopefully not) - she is the center of the universe as well, so put the things into perspective.

From this we get

Rule #4:

Behave with dignity. Be fair. Do not be greedy - after all, in real world you would at least buy her a drink, wouldn't you ? So do not expect that all women in SL are shipped under the BSD license. Spend some of these hard-earned lindens on this useless junk - jewelry, clothes, shoes.. If you are not sure - you can get away with finding a way to get her some cash. You are here to have fun - and so they are. So help them.

With regards to the fun - it can be different, there is no universal recipe. If she has fun dancing, bite your lip and go with her - after all, she's worth it, no ?
Surprise her. If she likes some extreme kinds of fun which you are not really into - then no need to strain yourself - remember, there are other candidates, who can very well enjoy doing that. Let them have fun too. Do not try to behave like a medieval feodal, tracing all her steps and demanding the report of where she was and what she did. If she wants - she will tell you. So,

Rule #5:

let her enjoy her freedom. Freedom is one of the fundamental joys that should not be touched. After all, if she keeps talking to you - you might have something interesting in yourself - concentrate on enhancing that. Be different.

Being different also means not starting your conversation with "where - your place or my place?" - even though there is an old anecdote about the person who was meeting the women and his first phrase was "you wanna f..k ?", and on the wondering question - "but you can get a slap on the face!?" he answered "yes, but you can also get a f..k" - I would doubt the hit ratio will be too big. Well, maybe amongst the folks with the beers it would... (oops! Honestly, this was THE last time!)

This brings us to the

Rule #6:

Never demand SLex. Neither in SL nor in RL, actually. If she decides she wants it, she will give you a hint, so open your mind if you are up to it. But demanding something you do not have the right to - is a good recipe for an unpleasant surprise. The more pragmatic ones might just set a price high enough which would cover their inconveniences, the others might not like it at all - again, remember there are the other candidates - behave yourself. If you feel that you really can not hold yourself tight, take a deep breath, and visit
the great experiment page - this will give you what you probably want, and in the process you will help advance the progress of the internet, and can learn the bleeding-edge technologies. And all of this - free of charge...


And now that I have mentioned the edge... Once upon a time you might find that you've been so astonishingly smart, so incredibly stunning, that one day you realise you two are spending all the time together, having a lot of fun, and there's not that much that is left from her mantourage besides you... And that you're waiting for the time she comes online, thinking of her while driving to work IRL, and so does she... So,

Rule #7:

....

And here I will excuse myself and disappear, leaving you two alone - I doubt you really in much need of any silly rules at this point...

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The publisher's comment: while publishing this article, we became aware, that the rule#1 was heavily used in the process of putting together this content, so we wanted to ensure that we explicitly warn our readers to avoid any misunderstanding.