Abstract: A social encounter catalytic initiator includes an integrated circuit counter and a display driver which drives a seven segment display. The counter and driver are carried within a housing along with the display and the housing may be in the form of a sign, badge or pin. The counter is incrementally actuated by a user to provide, at the display, a visual measure of the user's interest in establishing a social relationship with another person who is in view. The display may be driven to provide numeric, alphabetic or word format incremental values. A comparator may be employed for switching the color of the display when the user selected incremental value exceeds a variable predetermined color change incremental value.