Via Waxy, here’s a charming story of Alexander, who who flirts with a girl via iTunes library names in a coffee shop. For those non-Mac users (and I’ve never really done this, so correct me if I’m wrong), you can expose your iTunes library (via Bluetooth or 80211?) so that other Apple users can check it out:
A conversation began, conducted solely by library title, and it continued for the next couple of hours. At one point I offered my AIM screenname, identified myself as the kid with the 3 on the back of his neck. She didn’t talk to me online. She didn’t leave her table to talk to me in the coffee shop. I didn’t dare approach her, personal space and all that. But we kept talking.
It ends disappointingly. What a fraidy-cat. He chats with this girl for two hours online, and can’t summon the courage to go over and say ‘Hi’? I come from the Carpe Girlum school of romance, but c’mon, man, grow a pair.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Darren, you’ve obviously never been a shy twentysomething music nerd.
The point al3x was trying to make, that you may have missed by calling him a coward–maybe you wouldn’t have if you had read “Caring for Your Introvert” by Jonathan Rauch?–was that for all the advances in technology that is supposed to enable people meeting “in real life”, all social technology thus far has enabled exactly the opposite: it’s made it *easier* for us to sit behind a computer and *not* get all of the really great stuff that you get meeting face to face, like facial expressions, body language, and, well, the kinds of things that correctly interpreting facial expressions and body language lead to.
Richard: Nah, I got his point, but that’s really no excuse. I mean the guy had two hours to work up the nerve to talk to this girl.
I don’t know all the details (maybe she was homely, maybe he’s mute) but I gotta calls ’em as I sees ’em, to quote some semi-illiterate.
I see where you’re coming from, Darren, I really do.
Now I’m not about to boast that I’m stellar at talking to women, but I’m no social deficient. In fact, I’ve got a pretty adept social eye. And while, as Richard pointed out, the virtual conversation afforded none of the cues of body language, I was able to look at the presumed “maria” across the cafe a couple times. Suffice to say, she did not look like a girl who wanted to be talked-to. I had offered a description of myself during our conversation, and I had offered my AIM screenname. She was happy talking about music via her music library, and that was the extent of it. And as I said in the post, she bustled the hell out of there. She did not linger, by my table or otherwise.
So sure, male logic: “have slightest pretext to engage female? Engage female!” But between the closed body language and my not wanting to whiff it big right by the counter in my home-away-from-home coffee shop, it just didn’t add up to worthwhile.
If I see her again, though, you better believe I’m gonna be all up ons. Caution to the wind, etc.
I guess I should take umbrage at the “grow a pair” bit, but shit, I’ve talked enough blogsmack over the years. Apt in context.
the most striking thing about this story to me is not that itunes chatting allows one an impermeable degree of anonymity. that’s almost too obvious, although it is this aspect of the tale that seems to have captured the imaginations of bloggers all around the web. no, what i find fascinating is how displaying one’s music to the public immediately summons up associations with sex and flirting.
when i share music on a network, i do not do so to broadcast my fitness as a mate, like some demented, geeky bowerbird. my goal is to facilitate piracy–and in rare cases i might even steal other people’s music via ourtunes. if someone goes into an itunes library exchange with that goal in mind, there is no reason to expect any actual flirting, or to so interpret other people’s attempts to communicate, however bizarre they might be.
so, shared musical taste really does mean nothing, does it? i guess what i mean to say is, it doesn’t matter if you grow a pair or not–it won’t help you if the other person has no intention to drop everything and mate with you immediately.