The first time I logged on to Xbox Live I very quickly realized the level of anonymity that comes with playing from the comfort of one’s couch. Personalities that might have been suppressed in real life begin to flourish and emerge and opinions that were once private thoughts are put into passionate and disgusting words.

This I came to accept, be it good or bad. I have made a handful of great friends playing online (one of which now runs this website with me)., but with the good comes the bad and I experience the ugly side of online chatter every single time I log on to Xbox Live.

The one phenomenon that has intrigued me ever since that very first night of online play has been the addition of a female to the mix of seemingly testosterone fueled competition. This “girl gamer”, quite often only distinguishable by a subtle hint in her gamertag, or the high-pitched trill of her voice, seems to soften even the most violent of online characters. Cries of “Oh man, I just raped that noob so hard” disperse and all focus and attention turns to the player running around in a pink Master Chief outfit. Why do these girl gamers cast such a spell over this predominantly male community?

While it’s obvious that the female population of gamers is growing rapidly, in my experience the occurrence of the girl gamer is as rare as a line-up for the girls toilets at a LAN party. Whenever I encounter the girl gamer, she is already accompanied by a party of hangers-on as if she is the virtual answer to the proverbial pied piper. Accepting friend requests by the dozens as she moves through the night collecting new members for her party.

The first sign that the girl gamer is present upon entering a pre-game lobby is laughter. Not the harsh, biting laughter that comes from taunting the poor performance of someone in a previous match, but the giddy laughter that can only be described as ‘cheerful’. Laughter that comes from jokes told in the interest of impressing our lovely young lass, or banter regarding whether the gamer is actually a “5 year old boy”.

You might think that this would be the answer to all the trash-talking and foul language, but it’s not. It makes the match unbearable for all others involved. The players that have realized that a female is in their presence focus their grenades and rifles on her and each death is met with a giggle. They chase her around, in the hope that she notices the skill in which they have used their energy sword, or how quickly they switched from P90 to Sniper Rifle to head-shot her amidst the heat of battle. This school-yard arm-punching seems to be the primary method used to impress m’lady.

So why the instant attraction to a faceless, feminine gamertag? Is it because these guys are so starved for female attention that they take any girl walking on their common ground as interest, or flirting? Yes. Yes it is. I remember when I was 18 years old. For every single female that so much as glanced at me, my brain would scream, “HOLY SHIT MAN. Did you see that? Oh man, she would totally go out with you. Huh ho! Today is a good day, my friend. A good day!” This still happens, by the way. All the girls at my local Hungry Jacks have the hots for me. Seriously.

So is this where technology is taking social interactivity? Away from the bars and nightclubs and into the online world? Is this the early stages of a Matrix-style world where we’re all ‘plugged in’ and our world is a complete dissociation to that of our real lives? We all hear about people getting married in Second Life, or guys proposing in Halo 3 and laugh, but are we all just too naïve to accept this futuristic style of courtship? Conversations around the water cooler at work would indicate that the rest of the world isn’t ready to accept it.

A post-weekend low-down between two lucky young gents, a gamer and your typical night-clubber, might run almost parallel until the inevitable question, “So where did you meet her?” At this point the two are clearly socially segregated, and our gaming brother is unfairly relegated to the Warhammer playing, comic-book collecting, sci-fi watching Nerd’s box.

After writing this article, it occurred to me that perhaps I should learn to accept those of my online brethren who are, quite frankly, just having a go. The human mating ritual is a peculiar thing to watch from an outside perspective. Whether it’s on the dance-floor or the pre-game lobby, it still appears completely ridiculous to outsiders. Flirting is blatantly obvious and annoying to those not directly involved, so who cares? Let them run their race.

So the next time you find yourself in an online match, and you’ve just been team killed for the third time straight because you happened to kill the only girl in the room, take it. Take it like a man, for you are aiding these chivalrous young men in their quest for their own mate. Virtual or not, it's a quest that you too have or will journey on at some point in your lives.