Maybe I would’ve finally lost this pesky V-card—seriously, it’s a minus five charisma penalty—if I’d gone to SuperHero*Con like I was supposed to last week. I had my Captainess America costume all ready, and I’d been chatting in an online gamer group with Flash185, a fellow coder from Detroit with a quirky sense of humor and a decently cute profile pic, about having butter beer at the hotel bar one night.

