Scrumptious. I call the one on the right.

At E3 this year I noticed a group of guys wearing anti-booth babe t-shirts (as well as their underwear outside of their pants). I’m in the minority who thinks booth babes are extremely lame and pathetic, so I was intrigued. When I returned to the east coast I did a little research and found out which company sported the shirts but saw the only possible way to get one was to sign up for a contest and win one. So I filled out the entry form and promptly forgot about the whole thing.

Of course since I’m writing this I was one of the contest winners, along with 25 other people. I assume everyone who entered "won." The shirt itself is pretty low quality. The women on it look mildly deformed so the shirt looks more like a protest against handicapped people than booth babes, but its heart is in the right place.

Yesterday I wore the shirt and noticed something odd while walking by an attractive woman on the way home. She didn’t turn away in terror; instead she looked me in the eye and smiled. Perhaps this doesn’t sound like much of an oddity to you playboys out there, but I knew something was going on. I looked down and rethought the design of the anti-booth babe shirt I was wearing and then it struck me.

The one on the left is shaped like my mother.

She thought I was gay. From afar, the shirt appears only as women inside a big red NO sign. The irony is that had she had time to read the shirt she may have realized I wasn’t gay, just a huge nerd. That’s assuming she understands the shirt, which is very unlikely. It is a protest shirt that references an annual video game trade show’s entertainment practices; not exactly mainstream. So what should have been kryptonite to any woman, (no, not "reason", I’m still talking about the shirt) ends up disarming them.

I have never owned a shirt so complex. From afar I am a homosexual, close up I am a loser. Many women like to befriend gay men because they are not after sex and they can do each others nails. The problem is, if for some reason a woman were interested in me the shirt would immediately tell her I’m not interested in her. I may run into a cool girl who likes video games and gets my shirt, but the odds are slim. The majority of women avoid gamer nerds, and if I am at all typical, they have good reason.

I don’t think I’ll be wearing my anti booth babe shirt any more. It’s sends off too many signals and I don’t want to be seen as gay or cool. I think I’ll fallback on my traditional lady slayer, the God Dethroned shirt with demons ripping Jesus off the cross (chicks dig metal).