My first Tokyo Game Show, last year, was also my first major trade show, and therefore my first experience with booth babes. I’ll skip the standard, needless explanation of what a booth babe is, and get straight to the point: Booth babes are weird.

Yes, yes – exploitation, sexism, yah boo etc. But I didn’t say wrong or bad, I said weird. Booth babes make me feel uneasy; unsettled. Why is that, I wonder? Under normal circumstances, I enjoy looking at – and indeed pursuing – hot young women in sexy clothes.

But did you notice that phrase I used? “Under normal circumstances”. There’s our answer.

There’s nothing strange or unappealing about the booth babe in, as it were, a vacuum. Attractive girl, dressed sexy, approaching me with a flirtatious smile? In a vacuum, no less? Several thumbs up from me! No, it’s the context of the booth babe that makes her so bizarre, and me so ill at ease.

Fellow straight guys: imagine you’re in a bar, or a club. Or on the street, or anywhere except a trade show, really. You glance around to see a luscious girl – made up, hair done, and dressed in a low cut, sleeveless top, a black vinyl miniskirt and fuck-me boots – making a beeline for you, lips smiling and hips swinging like a model on a catwalk. Eagerly, she engages you in conversation.

It’s completely clear what this girl wants. So of course you flirt back. It’s the normal, natural social response.

Now imagine the exact same girl approaching you in the exact same way, but this time, you’re not in a bar – you’re at the Tokyo Game Show (or whichever show you like). Suddenly, it’s inappropriate to do what comes naturally. This girl is doing a job – if you flirt with her, you’ll make her uncomfortable.

So a girl is flirting with you, but in a context that does not allow you to flirt back. How do you respond instead? Fucked if I know. Hence, awkwardness.

Hell, you can’t even get angry at her for being a cocktease. She’s just doing her job! And generally, doesn’t it make you kind of an ass if you get mad at someone for doing their job?

Some guys know how to respond, mind you – the fat nerds who quite confidently demand specific poses from the girl, and unabashedly lower their cameras to take upskirt photos. These are the same guys who, under normal circumstances, would rarely have the courage to even speak to an attractive girl, let alone ask her on a date – let alone shove a zoom lens up her skirt!

Isn’t it weird how the rules change, when you walk into a trade show? Personally, it throws me off. I am of course polite and friendly with booth babes (and to be honest, a little flirtatious, but no more than I am with all women), but I do find them awfully strange. It’s like visiting the set of The Sopranos, and you get to meet James Gandolfini, but the whole time, he stays in character as Tony Soprano.

That’s exactly what it’s like.