At first, I thought it was just "IRL", as the kids say. For example, when we were in high school, he dated a girl who was so possessive, I once offered to get him a crowbar for Christmas so that he might have a chance to loosen her vice-grip on him. However, as he discovered the world of online gaming, it appears that it's not just his charming good looks that attracts female bizarreness.
On one text-based game, he had one woman cyber-stalking him and posting all kinds of crazy weirdness in an attempt to sabotage his in-game reputation and relationships. This went on for months until he finally left the game altogether, although for unrelated reasons. The only provocation that we could figure is that he was also a moderator for the forums and once had to get onto her for breaking the rules.
There have also been other misunderstandings where "being a nice guy" has been interpreted as "wanting to be in an actual relationship" and the other (read: crazy) party has gotten butthurt in the end. However, the most recent tops the cake. Lately, The Bastard has been playing a World of Warcraft style game: fantasy role-playing, real-time play with quests and guilds, as well as the ability to have voice chat with other players. This game has in-game relationships that give you certain "buffs", depending on what type of relationship you're in and the stats of the other player. I think. I haven't actually played it, so I think I've got that right.
Anyway, he "got married" in the game to one of the other guild members. He considered her a friend and, as he's married and she was in a committed relationship, The Bastard assumed that there was an understanding that this "relationship" was solely for their mutual benefit in the game. However, he got online the other day and found that she had "unfriended" him, left his guild, blocked him on chat, and sent him a ranting PM, basically saying that he hasn't been spending enough time with her, and that she doesn't deserve to be treated this way.
She was pissed that her fake husband wasn't spending enough fake quality time with her because he was too busy going on fake missions with fake elves, fake mages, and other such fake characters.
I asked him if there was any way that anything he's said could be construed as wanting more, and he said they'd make jokes about spousal abuse when one of them beat the other in a sparring match or whatever in the game, but couldn't think of anything other than that. I asked him what he was going to do about it, and he said that he was just going to keep his mouth shut and pretend that nothing happened.
He's apparently learned nothing from real life.
