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From: jorn@chinet.chi.il.us (Jorn Barger)
Subject: Implementing 'jerks'  (Was: more character interaction ideas)
Message-ID: <C4DuIB.IsL@chinet.chi.il.us>
Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX
References: <732870099snx@hinrg.starconn.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1993 07:37:22 GMT
Lines: 100

    You work too hard to take this abuse
    Be on your guard, jerks on the loose!
        The Roches

(Disclaimer: I been there, okay?  I think men come by it naturally...)


Thinking over our recent directed-dialog dialog, here's a first sketch 
for implementing 'jerks' (dime-a-dozen annoyances in pickup situations):

When a jerk approaches the MeActress, he randomly chooses one of several 
dozen 'clever' opening lines.

She replies with a *temperature* keyword: COLD, COOL, WARM, HOT.

He has a randomly set persistence-factor, that determines how quickly 
he'll respond to chilly hints:

[His thought-balloon:] She is obviously stunned by my devastating love-
vibe.
[Her thought-balloon:] In thirty seconds, I will walk slowly to the phone 
and call the police!
        Peter Hannan "The Adventures of a Big Mouth" (comic, 9-4-87)

If he's not immediately driven away, his second line will be chosen from 
the 'banality bank', which contains a dozen or so *one-sided* 
conversations on conventional topics.  *These don't have to branch* 
because the jerk's only 'decision option' is to *take the hint* and 
scram, to natter on blindly in the sole conventional direction, or to 
switch to an entirely new banal topic.

Each jerk will also have a certain personal history that he'll readily 
share (or fabricate!  these guys are pathetic! ;^) if you give the "hot" 
response, which always implies asking him flattering questions:

"If he sing she must be in ecstasy; if he dance she must look at him with 
delight; if he speak of learned things she must listen to him with 
admiration."
       'Laws of Manu' (ancient Indian?) 

This can be used as entrapment:

    I know what boys like, I know what guys want
    I like to tease them
            ...Sucker!!!
        The Waitresses "I Know What Boys Like"

Patterns of warmth and coolth may be used with non-jerks, as a seduction 
ploy:

    "...to dominate her thoughts completely... a simple game of 
    blowing hot and cold, of solicitousness and disdain, of presence 
    and absence is all that is required."
        Ortega y Gasset "On Love"

"When I first meet them, I treat them almost with contempt.  I'm rude... 
and I act indifferent, no matter what they're like.  It's the first step 
in what I call Henry's heavy heartbreak technique.  The next time I meet 
them I'm much nicer, and the third time I fall all over them, and 
brother, it works!  By the third date they're ready to go for broke."
        Fast & Bernstein "Sexual Chemistry"

    For what is courtship but disguise?
    True hearts may have dissembling eyes.
        Thomas Campion "Never Love Unless You Can" (1617)
 
        'Gray Room'
    Although you sit in a room that is gray,
    Except for the silver
    Of the straw paper,
    And pick
    At your pale white gown;
    Or lift one of the green beads
    Of your necklace,
    To let it fall;
    Or gaze at your green fan
    Printed with the red branches of a red willow;
    Or, with one finger,
    Move the leaf in the bowl--
    The leaf that has fallen from the branches of the forsythia
    Beside you...
    What is all this?
    I know how furiously your heart is beating.
        Wallace Stevens (1917)


This psychology works both ways, and you may find youself reading: 
"Against all your better instincts, you find yourself following the 
Kennedy-cousin toward the dim doorway..."

A good guy ought not play games, though, perhaps:

    Neither will I put myself forward as others may do,
    Neither, if you wish me to flatter, will I flatter you,
    I will look at you grimly, and so you will know I am true.
        William Rose Benet "Eternal Masculine"

-----
jb

