As I'm pulling up in front of Becky's apartment, I figure I'll be playing Aliens vs. Predator 2 within a half hour. Becky opens the car door and leans the seat up to let her sister out.

"See you, Todd," the sister says to me. My name isn't Todd.

"So," Becky says, "Thank you for a wonderful evening. That was so nice of you to let my sister come along."

"My pleasure."

"She really liked you. I could tell."

"Yeah, she's a great girl."

"Well."

"Yeah. Well."

"Can I ask you something personal?"

Uh-oh. "Sure."

"I know it's none of my business, but you're not really gay, are you?"

"What? No, of course not. What gave you that idea?"

"I didn't think you were. So that was just a joke, about the gay magazines?"

"Gay magazines?"

"Yeah, when you said you wrote for gay magazines."

"Oh, no, I write for game magazines. Game magazines."

"Oh, I see. Like sports and stuff?"

"Yeah, exactly. Like sports. Stuff like sports."

"When you went to the bathroom, my sister said 'see, I told you he was gay', but I didn't believe her. I told her you were just joking."

"No, I write for sports magazines."

"Oh, that's really funny," she says, putting her hand on my leg for the second time this evening.

"Yeah, well," I say.

"Well," Becky says, leaning in, "I'd invite you in, but I sort of have company. Want to go to your place? I don't have to be to work tomorrow until late. It might be nice if we could spend some time alone." Her hand is still on my leg. She's leaning in towards me.

"Yeah, let's go to my house," I start to say. But I don't. My mind is racing, figuring how I'm going to get everyone out of my house. I can't very well tell her I've got up to a dozen geeks on the computers in my house. 'What are they doing there?' she'll ask and before I know it I'll be having to explain how multiplayer computer games work and why I spend one night a week playing them and how it's not really like sports. I could tell Becky I have to check my messages, then I could call Trevor and use some code phrase to tell him to get everyone to leave. I could tap it out in Morse code. Actually, it would never work, because Trevor doesn't know Morse code. I don't know Morse code either.

How about the old poker night ruse? I could call and tell her there are guys having poker night at my house, but that they're just about to leave. Then I could call and say to Trevor, "Hey, so you guys are just now leaving, right?" The guys would certainly understand. I mean, come on. They could imagine the possibilities.

And now I'm flashing back for the first time in probably ten years to my freshman Intro to Philosophy class in college (don't worry, this isn't going to be as pretentious as it sounds). The professor was a bespectacled sad sack whose nose was covered with busted capillaries. When I found out he was only fifty, I was shocked. He looked so much older. He rambled in class, letting his voice trail off and obviously trying to think of what to say next. Most of us ignored him. Some of us used to read books during the lecture, brazenly holding them open on top of our desks. He didn't seem to care. It was a notoriously easy class. He never gave us tests and as long as we turned in a few papers, he gave us good grades. He was gone by my junior year, but I'll always remember something he said.

"Let's face it", he muttered one day, "Even sex gets old". I don't remember the context, but I remember the comment because it was utterly outrageous. Especially when delivered to a room full of eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds. 'He must be crazy,' those of us who showed up that day said to ourselves, 'sex gets old?' Of course, we didn't know what it was like to be fifty and stuck in a job you're no good at and drinking so much that your nose looks like a lump of veined putty. 'Does sex get old?,' we secretly worried, resolving to have lots of it in case he was right.

I'm nowhere near fifty yet, but as Becky leans in towards me, with her hand on my knee, and about twelve guys play Aliens vs. Predator 2 on the six computers in my house, I'm wondering if maybe this is what he was talking about. Time was I would have spent hours on end with this girl if there was even the remotest possibility of sex. How many drawn-out evenings have I had long after I should have gone home? How often have I stayed at a party till some ungodly hour hoping a particular girl would keep talking to me and maybe come home with me? How many hours on how many bad dates have I endured based on the gruel-thin prospect that there might be sex at the end of the whole awkward tunnel?

But now I'm wishing I was back home with Trevor and everyone else. Becky and I can go out another night and, sure, it might be fun, but there just aren't any fireworks here now. It must mean something that this decent looking girl has her hand is on my leg and I'd rather be with my buddies. Am I old? Am I obsessed? Am I getting more mature or is this some pre-pubescent regression to boyhood make-believe? And are the three races really balanced? I mean, if the predator can cloak, won't he always have an unfair advantage?

There's a walk to her front door, where Becky's sister sticks her head out to ask Becky how to check the VCR to see whether Will and Grace got taped. After that, I chicken out and don't kiss her. The efficient alien has to be patient. He waits and watches. He doesn't move until the right opportunity presents itself. He knows it's better to take his time rather than to act too soon.

"So, yeah, I guess it went pretty well. She wanted to come over here afterwards," I'm telling Trevor.

"To Shoot Club? You mean she's into gaming? How cool is that?" Trevor's trying to crawl up the wall, but he gets confused and ends up trapping himself in a corner.

"No, she doesn't know about Shoot Club. She just wanted to come over."

"So you think you could have had some of that?" Trevor asks, half turning in his seat to talk to me while he scuttles around on the ceiling, trying to get his bearings, "Stop fucking shooting me! I'm hearing about his date!" Trevor pounces at one of the Marines and soars over his head.

"...then stop trying to jump down on us from the ceiling..." Peter says from the other room, using a grenade to blow Trevor into a mass of acid goo.

"You missed him," I say, "But that's not what I meant. I just think she was interested. We're going out again this weekend."

"Hey, cool. You need me to come along in case her sister is there?"

"Her sister's leaving town tomorrow."

"Man, that's too bad. Hey, check this out." Peter is popping off grenades to test how the different ones work. Trevor creeps up behind him and lines up an attack. He jaws shoot out and snap off Peter's head. "Cool, huh?"

"Hey you told me you were hearing about his date!" Peter yells from the other room.

"We mostly come out at night," Trevor cackles, "Mostly." He sits me down and shows me the controls and for the rest of the night, I don't even think of Becky's hand on my leg.

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