Mr. P obviously didn't realize the Universe was desperately trying to warn him about the dangers of locking himself in a room with three other dudes to stare at a cardboard map. The subtle approach with the power outage didn't clue him in, and so the Universe went nuclear, and that sailed over his head too. tsk.
My first "date" with Portal...well, only date... was entirely normal. I was living in an apartment at the time, he came over, I believe he brought a hockey bag with his favourite scenario binders, dice, dice tower (?), rule book, we picked something, played it, I warned him in advance that if he wanted something to eat or drink he should bring it with him though if he liked Diet Pepsi and whatever it was I had in my cupboard, he could help himself to all he wanted.
Only strange part was our game went for four hours or so and I don't remember him ever going to the bathroom.
Or blinking, come to think of it.
Hmm.
The fellows I played with in high school I met by circumstance; we had to introduce ourselves to our Social Studies class in the first week of Grade 10 and tell about our interests. I must have wanted to get beat up pretty badly because I seem to recall mentioning wargames. The fellow in front of me turned around and asked which ones. I can still picture him in his 1980s muscle shirt and gelled hair. When I said "Squad Leader" he told me that he and his friends played in the Chess Club at lunch. So I joined them. You can imagine the types that hung out in the Chess Club; it was not a formal club in any sense, I think it was just a refuge for the awkward kids who didn't want to get shaken down for their lunch money. I started hanging out with the two or three Squad Leader players there, who had all known each other from junior high - a different school than I had gone to, and became friends away from school also.
That Christmas, ASL came out, and I was the one to make the investment - or rather, my mom did, with dad's credit card. Wouldn't have bothered if not for those fellows. Couldn't tell you about which scenarios we played - we mostly did DYO - but buying ASL all went back to being made to introduce ourselves in Social Studies class, and sitting behind a dude with a pony tail entirely by chance.