# Polly’s Tale

LLMS index: [llms.txt](/dvw/en/llms.txt)

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So it’s a weekend in 1980. I’m in a computing laboratory with 15 students, all of whom are playing my game, MUD. This being 1980, and this being a computing laboratory, and this being a weekend, everyone here is male. The female computer science undergraduates have better ways to occupy themselves (mainly concerning male noncomputer science undergraduates).

I look around at my friends and realize that chances are not one of us has ever had a girlfriend [^47], nor have we any prospect of ever finding one. We regard all the female students on our course as people rather than as girls, and we’d no sooner hit on one of them than we would on each other. We’re desperately short of social skills. The non-computing girls on campus are split between those who shy away in horror and those who laugh in our faces. It’s pointless even trying: We’re inexperienced and out-gunned.

None of us is happy with the situation, but we’re resigned to it. We suffer in silence together. Here we are on a beautiful weekend, sitting around computers writing and playing games.

It’s so sad! I see decent, honest, likeable guys becoming more and more set in their defensive, insular ways. They’re not bad people, but they’re hiding themselves away! They need to grow their personalities, not retreat into them! Yet how can they do so, knowing that every attempt to change will inevitably end in humiliation? There ought to be some means by which they could behave in ways that they wouldn’t ordinarily, yet be safe from the consequences of failure. If they could experiment, could make adjustments, could see themselves succeeding, could discover and emphasize those aspects of themselves they most admired; might this not equip them to behave a similar way in real life?

Then I look at my screen, and a thought occurs to me. (To be continued…)


[^47]: Or boyfriend. Essex University was politically correct years before the term came into vogue.