For some reason, I just remembered the first and only time I took part in a live-action role-playing game — the kind where people run around in the woods dressed as elves and orcs — somewhere in the Siberian forest, back in the autumn of 2000. Let’s be honest: the subculture of people wielding plexiglass swords was never really my scene. But a friend invited me, hinting there’d be drinks afterwards, and I wasn’t in the habit of refusing such offers. Spoiler: there weren’t any.
The main roles — orcs, elves, dwarves — were quickly claimed by the more enthusiastic types, so I ended up as a peasant fleeing a raid on our village. After about forty minutes of running through the forest, I got bored and hid behind a tree stump with a couple of girls I vaguely recognised from university corridors.
One of the girls, a pretty brunette with curly hair, looked at me gravely and announced that I’d been poisoned by an arrow: all the symptoms were there. She turned out to be an elven nurse, apparently well-versed in such matters. She immediately prescribed treatment: the poison could only be cured by a kiss from an elf. Well, rules are rules, I said, go ahead.
About thirty seconds later, I interrupted the medical procedure, thanked her for the treatment, and ran off, leaving the bewildered elf behind the stump. I’ve always been, you know, exceptionally good at reading social cues.
