So you've finally met the girl of your dreams: she's cute, smart, funny--your very own Lara Croft--and she's actually into you. You both like East Coast rap, Owen Wilson movies, and moonlit walks along the beach. You've followed all my rules in The Gamer's Guide to Girls: Top Ten Cheats for How to Score (and Eventually Beat the Game) and you are poised to win big. There's just one small thing: she doesn't seem to be much of a gamer.

You're midway through dinner when you casually drop into the conversation that you're a gamer. You ask if she's into games. She says yes.

Phew.

You ask her which ones. She says, "I love playing Blackjack on my cell phone."

Uh-oh.

She seems to have picked up on your distress, so she quickly adds, "Oh, and sometimes I play Solitaire on my computer at work."

As soon as your heart starts beating again, you try to take a deep, calming breath, but your chest is too tight. You decide to say something--anything--but a lump is lodged in your throat.

It seems impossible. This adorable, wonderful woman is not a gamer? How could it be?

You ask if she'd at least played Pac-Man when she was a kid. When you look into her beautiful, blank eyes, you know the unthinkable has happened--you've fallen for a non-gamer girl.

Your options are simple:

1. Dump her. Right now. Pull some money out of your wallet, slap it on the table, and walk out of the restaurant in slow motion, shaking your head in silent disappointment /disgust.

2. Bide your time. There's bound to be something else about her that will annoy you eventually, so just have fun with her while you can.

3. Resign yourself to the fact that you could spend the rest of your life with a woman who has no comprehension of the joy of buying a new title the day it's released, locking yourself in your room for days on end until you beat it, and then starting all over again from the beginning the next day.

4. Convert her. It should be pretty easy: expose her to video games and she'll surely fall in love with them. All the cool people you know are gamers, and your girl is cool, so of course she'll get into games, right?

Not necessarily. Girls are socially programmed to be disinterested in games, and even worse, a lot of us have been scarred by bad experiences with games coming between us and our guys.

The key to conversion is to take your time and keep your expectations realistic. Here are my favorite cheats--as well as the common missteps--for how to get your girl to go gamer:

The Move: Make Her an Offer She Can't Refuse

Instead of just exposing her to games when you've got nothing better to do, turn date night into a game night--but be smooth about it, for God's sake.

Bad: "Hey wanna come over and play some SOCOM?"
Better: "How 'bout just you and I hang out at my place tonight? We can get some grub and play some games."
Best: "I'd love to spend some alone time with my girl tonight. Come over at eight and I'll have dinner ready, then we can cuddle up and I'll teach you how to play that game I've been telling you about."

Don't laugh until you've tried it, boys. One of the most romantic dates I've had recently consisted of cuddling on the couch, playing Virtua Tennis 2 and eating Ben and Jerry's out of the carton. Really.

The Mistake: Bait and Switch

Even guys with the best of intentions often make this misstep. She's on her way, dinner's ready, so you decide to kill some time with a little Madden. This slippery slope inevitably leads to you balancing a plate of spaghetti on your lap while you play and your girl sulks on the couch. If you remember the balance--dinner and drinks with conversation, cuddling and ice cream with gaming--she'll soon forget her aversion to video games and instead begin to associate them with spending quality time with her boyfriend.

The Move: Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun

Your buddies may love sitting on your couch, watching you play Mortal Kombat, drinking beer and chiming in every time the announcer says, "Finish him!" Your girl does not. Women are naturally interactive people, and the last thing we want to do is sit on the sidelines and watch your eyes get glazed. If you really want to share your gaming with your gal, you've got to involve her.

Two-player games are the best way to ease her into your world. Before the game starts, give her a basic explanation of the goal of the game and how to accomplish it, keeping in mind that she is not a child and does not want to be patronized. You play the first round, taking time to show her how you're using the controller and what's happening on screen. Then give her a chance to shine, offering praise with constructive criticism.

The Mistake: Forgetting Your Focus

Again, many guys try this strategy with the best of intentions, but it all falls apart as soon they get the controller into their hands. Never forget why you're playing. In this instance the goal is not to play as well as you can, it's to explain the game as well as you can. That means you might have to (gasp!) intentionally make mistakes so that she can figure out what to avoid (and also so that she can finally get a turn!).

The Move: Find Her Flavor

Just because your girl doesn't share your love of first-person shooters, don't give up on her and games altogether. It's entirely possible that she has some strange aversion to pretending to hunt down people and kill them.

Remember, the goal is to share your passion for gaming, not necessarily to get her to like the same games you like. So let her sample a variety of genres and platforms until she finds something that interests her. Once she realizes that gaming itself came be fun, she'll be more open to trying new types of games--maybe even the new Battlefield: Vietnam.

The Mistake: Simplistic Selections

Don't assume that her real-life interests will translate directly into the types of games she'll like. Just because she loves Britney Spears, doesn't mean she wants to play Britney's Dance Beat. And please, don't mistake her affection for babies as a sign she wants to play The Sims all night, every night.

Getting your gal to go gamer is not an easy task; there are enough moves--and mistakes--to fill an entire strategy guide. Just keep in mind that conversion is in itself a game...one that requires planning, practice, and patience.

If she really is your very own Lara Croft, she's definitely worth it.

--Lisa Weseman

Did Lisa help you get a high score with the girl of your dreams? Send her your thanks at feedback@g4tv.com.