I would guess that the majority of fan fiction for both sci fi and fantasy is written by females – which would make them fans who have to have at least a basic knowledge of the terrain.

Let’s not encourage that guy to come out of his basement; he wouldn’t know what to do in the world out there!

This is either performance art or, well, exactly what it appear to be.

This idiot must just be too damn socially backward to be brave enough to come out of his parents’ basement to the fandom cons….

You may be right. Seeing an actual woman, particularly dressed in one of those close-fitting Star Fleet uniforms, could easily kill that chap. God alone knows what would happen if she actually spoke to him.

You know, I’ve always said that if Lush did not exist it would become necessary to invent her. I wonder if the other people in the magic television are real.

Surely the guy has been exposed to the lady Trek fans in some form or another. Unless he’s so thrilled each time he encounters a woman that it’s just safer for him to think of her as a hallucination, lest he spontaneously self-combust.

Women liking Tolkien on the other hand is pure rubbish! Everyone knows we don’t exist!

Come on: don’t you feel just a little sorry for a lad whom every female Star Trek fan has avoided so studiously that he thinks they don’t exist? It sounds pretty tragic to me. Picture the scene: a couple of nice postgrads from MIT are discussing the theoretical possibility of warp-field extension into non-Euclidian space, then along comes cartoon boy and they fade into the background like the Tuatha De Danann. Truly the world is a cruel yet amusing place.