Online gaming as a social ice breaker

Since the interaction of online gaming and socialability seem to get people interested, I thought I'd post on something recent. A friend from back home decided to come up for the weekend to visit and meet the Lehigh friends staying here. Expectedly, it was slightly awkward since both my friend and my new group didn't really know what to say to each other. It was only after talking about videogames that they really started to click. I think that this all harkens back to the article A Rape in Cyberspace and how seriously people take their online lives, and how it filters back into their own. Cyberspace activites and Reality activities (like soccor) are indistinguishable these days.