Hee! about the “snotty and rude” thing. Maybe I’ve been hanging out at the wrong tables, but I do seem to have encountered a lot of very “friendly” – and by “friendly” I mean overly-touchy and creepy – older guys.
And my experience at comic book conferences is that men are very respectful as long as you a. are not wearing a princess leia bikini costume and b. are willing to talk shop. Except for the really drunk ones. The above probably goes for most conferences.

Yes, but MFA students get student loans! I say this tongue-in-cheek of course. Those damn loans are worse than my credit cards.

I haven’t met any creepy men yet, I imagine they’re more common at comicon & such-like… here men seem more likely to be snotty and rude. But I have encountered very few even of that type… granted, I am walking around looking for people I know/want to know, and not “networking” per se. (And as to whether the AWP takes commercial advantage of poor poets, I’d be more likely to blame MFA programs. As a student, I only paid $40 for an AWP ticket, which I think is entirely reasonable. But paying $40K for a relatively useless degree is unreasonable.)