Ever baked a PERFECT cake? It's really really hard.

Some folks have class, like this guy. Lots to learn from him. (or her... but really?)

Exactly... the only issue is that there are FAR more boys and the social convention is absolutely disgusting. Stop trolling the OP. Get some freaking respect. That's all the OP is asking for. Her only flaw? Too many people posting here have none.

Lolwha?

Wow... imagine that. My instincts were correct.

Ah yes... However, very very few people complain in constructive ways. I totally agree with the sentiment and most of the content of your argument. Isn't it true that not all complaints are valid though? If you see nonsense being spouted or a criticism is suggested that, if heeded, might be a disastrous result, do you not have an equally valid right to criticise that complaint? Look I don't think that the complaining about the complaining is really what you are getting down on here. Can we both not just agree that it is always helpful to offer well thought through reasons and voice well meaning concerns about something and leave it at that? After all... don't the smart among us skim over the crap that most people spout and only respond or acknowledge the people trying to engage in an actual debate? Well except for the really assenine ones... those I find myself enjoying a response towards.

Holy geesus how amazingly ignorant of you! Men get a free pass do they? I want to know if you have a wife/ girlfriend. I really do. I can't imagine that your attitude displayed above would get you very far with any woman who had a shred of self-esteem. The very fact that you feel it is OK to use people of any persuasion as the impetus of another's desire (on any level) is really quite despicable. They aren't there for your pleasure. They aren't there to amuse you or sing your praises. And for God's sake they shouldn't be told to turn a blind eye to your shameless chauvinism. The OP simply IS NOT putting herself out there overtly to be harassed. How can you even suggest that? She obviously doesn't like it. She's given you no indication AT ALL that she's sought out such behaviour or encouraged it in any way. Adult women that you interact with don't have issues with constant harassment? That's simply amazing; sad even. Truly, truly, sad. I don't believe you. And if you DID ask them, I want to see the way you phrased that question to them, because there isn't a woman that I can conceive of (that lives in a Western Culture) that would answer a question like "Do you mind being constantly harassed by men for cybersex or other sorts of online flirtation?" with "I don't care". I'm sure there are a few, but not any that are being honest with themselves. Once you can turn a blind eye, sure. A few times and you'll sigh. CONSTANTLY being harassed is not right in any way, shape or form. Seriously people... no freaking respect. You must live very shallow lives or have very little education if you truly hold these views. Thank god I only see people like this on an internet forum. I'd knock your teeth out of your face if you disrespected a female like this in front of me. PS: If the person I quoted is a female, get some counselling. You deserve to hold yourself in better regard. You shouldn't feel that it's normal for men to treat you like a commodity. You're a human being for god's sake.

Since actual advice on this thread is in short supply... Honestly, making friends in game is very similar to how you make friends in the real world. You have to put yourself out there. If you go around doing the things that you like to do, in areas that are populated with people that are similarly interested as you, you're going to be in luck. However, if the things that you like to do are not the types of things that huge congregating populations of people are doing, you're going to struggle to meet even acquaintances. Lets take a case in point. You mentioned that you feel that the people you +add after a Flashpoint are not what you count as friends. Why not? My question isn't to suggest that you should change your stance but rather for you to look at the situation a bit differently. Why did you add them? Was it because they seemed capable and you might ask them for aid with further Flashpoints? Was it because they said something funny, you liked it, and resigned to talk to them later but never did? Was it just "doing what you do after a successful run"? See my point here is that you can't really have a huge list of friends unless you are willing and brave enough to be the innitiator. It's not stalking to send a tell to someone like: "Hey, Beardedbiker, I know I said your name was a bit silly on an RP server but I think we had a lot of fun in that Flashpoint the other day. Perhaps you'd like to hit another one with me sometime today"? Appeal to what others in the game like to do that are of similar interest to you. Another thing (the thing I actually do myself) is to look online via Google search and find Guilds that have similar interests and goals. Do you like RP? Google "SWTOR RP guilds Fan Fiction". You'd be surprised at the quality of guilds out there. Googling RP guilds works well too, but the Fan Fiction addition will provide you with a better insight into the quality and aims of that Guild's RP. Perhaps conversely you have some social expectation. I once saw a SWTOR guild that had 500 people in it and was a "Christian Guild". Personally that seemed a bit strange to me but I looked at their website and they were surprisingly organized. What it proved to me is that communities will form where there are individuals coming together for common interests. TL;DR version: Find what you want. Look for others that want the same. Get out of your shell and meet people. People actually like people that like to talk about their interests It's not as scary as you think.

I have only ever grouped with my Guild-mates. I answer this post only because I'm curious to see how people feel as well. My experiences with people that are poor players is that I like to help them. However, generally, players get very defensive when their playing ability is called into question or they have a habit of blaming others for some other perceived issue. I don't like dealing with that dynamic and grouping with unknown people tents to increase my chances of having a bad experience. Thankfully I have put time and effort into creating a community of people like myself before the game launched. As a result I am having nothing but fun.

Actually you missed the point of the OP entirely. What she is saying is that because she is a female, playing in a male-dominant game, she is constantly bombarded with annoying flirting attempts by socially inept men. Men don't suffer this fate. Nor do women suffer this fate at the hands of lesbians or Bi-sexuals. Society is structured in such a way that, for some reason, it is unsocialized and immature boys that resort to this behaviour. Likely this is because their behaviour gets them no action and therefore they have very little experience at successfully relaying desirable conversation or behaviours to the opposite sex. That's my somewhat educated guess. She doesn't mind that people know and acknowledge she is female. She just objects to immature boys pining over her all the time.

I'm going to try and offer some form of objective stance towards this issue. That way people might step back a moment and look at this issue from a few different angles, especially the OP. Now... just being kicked for the "crime" of being Autistic would be deplorable. However, lets face some facts: *Autism is a mental "disorder" that is being owned up to by the OP. *Autism as a "disorder" carries with it certain behavioural cues that make the diagnosed person act apart from the norm. If this wasn't so, then there would be no need for the diagnosis in the first place. *People are generally uncomfortable around people who act outside of a "normal" set of behavioural standards. * Autistic people, generally, have a habit of saying or doing certain things in public that are deemed uncouth without knowing that they have done these things or without understanding why these actions effect people the way that they do. In order to really hold someone accountable for unjustly kicking you from a guild you would really have expect that they understood your 'disorder' and had the appropriate training to deal with the moments where your Autistic behaviour became relevant to their experience within the guild. People play a game to have fun. They don't play to deal with people's life-struggles. Perhaps you were a bit TOO zealous in telling people about your "disorder". It can come across as attention seeking. I had a guild member who once told everyone in the guild about all of his personal issues every week. One week it was that he had ADHD. The next week he was Asthmatic. The next he had heart trouble and so on. This isn't to say that he didn't have these problems but it does make a person wonder if they aren't just making some of it up to get sympathy from their peers. People rarely share their troubles. Over-sharing can be a real deal breaker for social groups. It's hard to do as an Autistic but I think you really need to try and think about the things you say and how they are perceived by the people around you. The main thing that Autistics do in therapy, as adults, is practice visual and social cues in order to better understand the world in a more "normative" way. Look, it's really not fair. If you're really Autistic, then it's just something you have to deal with. This is a social game and people, generally, do not understand your problems. To add to this, they don't want to understand your problems. They are playing the game a lot of the time, to ignore or escape their own problems. Try not telling people about your Autism. It might go a long way to making them except you for who you are. Don't let the label of some "disorder" define who you are. Don't let them define you by a label. I think that's the issue you are dealing with here.

It seems a bit crazy to me that I might be a "fanboi" in this conversation, but I have levelled to 50. I teach little kids and at the moment I have a bit of time off over this season. My friends and I are avid MMOers as well and as such we have spent WAY too much time levelling up to 50 to get our raids started in short order. That geekish admonition dispensed with - are you serious? Nothing to do? Man, I have a TON to do. Yes, one thing that I have done is make an alt but that was because I wanted to cover more crafting skills for my companion characters. There are two major chains of daily quests to unlock as well. At 50 there are 3 Flashpoints to run and a further slew of Hard versions of these as well. All of which are fun and a push forward in challenge. There are Two Operations at launch which are rather challenging and both have Hard modes for greater challenge. There are TONS of quests that I KNOW you didn't go and do. The crewskills are so vast and complex that I doubt you have even scratched the surface of these. Now... if you have read all of this and thought to yourself, "I see nothing here to do" please admit to yourself that this game just isn't for you and move along. There are many here that really like this game and enjoy the activities that I have listed. I don't really see value in your trying to convince us that there is nothing to do in this game or that it is unrealistic to have been able to race to 50 so quickly. It's pretty par-for-the-coarse if you ask me. In short time they will release even more content to play with and our experience will just get better. Maybe you'll be there. Maybe you won't. But please save us all the grief and just go if you don't like it. We understand it's not your cup of tea. We respect that. Just please don't try and make us feel inferior for having a different opinion from you.

Since this thread seems to have some sensible folks in it, I'll give you my educated two cents. I am in a guild that has a pretty structured plan for our crafting. As a result I think we have seen what most of the real payoffs for the different crewskills can be. Slicing has three major benefits. Firstly, you can run missions for credits. Over time, if you are choosing missions that are yellow to you, you will yield more credits than what you spend. In addition to this you have a chance (and though people claim otherwise, it's a decent chance) to get an Epic mission. This mission is quite sellable on the GTN. I frequently buy up all of these types of missions that are available for 4-6k credits each (for UWT missions). The second thing that Slicing does is grant Augments. This is really the only way to get the better Augments that are in the game. Augments are used in the special slot that is created by a Synthweaver or Armormech when their crafting of an item crits. These slots make the item quite a lot better. People do not have a lot of Augment gear up on the GTN at the moment but that will change shortly. I just got an Augmented level 50 Helm to a guild mate of mine yesterday. He was stoked. The last thing that Slicing does is provide additional patterns for other crafting professions. These are often Orange, modable, items. The little known thing is that these modable items can also crit and thus receive Augment slots when made. What this means is that those orange patterns SHOULD be worth quite a bit on the GTN. Now, the market might be too immature for people to know about this and thus have a demand for it. I have bought several of these off of the GTN very cheaply because of this ignorance. As a result, my guild has a LOT of variety when selecting gear that can (though admittedly is difficult) be quite better than any alternative gear. So slicing does more than grant credits. In fact it's not built to be used how everyone was using it. That's why it got nerfed. The intent of the crewskill was being missused and not enough missions to yield augments and patterns were being made (that's my guess). You still make a killing by getting out there and slicing in the field. You simply cannot use it as a lazy credit source now. And frankly, shame on you if you thought that was right in the first place. You know damn well it was too good to be true.

Quoted for stupidity.

I was out with my Slicer friend. I saw a Damind Crystal formationa dn got 2 from it. I was so happy that I linked it to him 37 times and called him a sucker. Then I looked over and he pulled 2560 credits out of a box then just drove off on his epic speeder, into the sunset. I cried.