From: caryn@sfm.com (Caryn Shalita);
Sent at Fri, 1 May 1998 13:36:58 -0700;
Re:Geek Boyfriends

Caryn writes about her husband Rich

By strict definition, at least in my experience, a geek is someone who loves technology to the exclusion of all other things--and actively avoids interactions with people--which makes him or her very unsuited for a relationship with any human being. And I say "or her" because geek is not a gender-specific term and for you to assume such a deep level of meaning and that the word itself implies some kind of man-hating shows a great deal of prejudice coming from your end. Chris Nolan used "geeks make the best boyfriends" in her story, I'm sure, because it tied in with the fact that Martha Stewart's boyfriend is a "geek. If Kim Polese started to hang out with Eddie Van Halen I'm sure the reverse question could be asked. I also have to disagree that popular female culture says that men are trivial inferior beasts. It says that most men are trivial inferior beasts, which based on the guys I've had hit on me throughout my life I'd agree is not that far off (not to say that I think all that highly of a lot of women either, since most of them get bogged down in petty BS that is totally unrelated to anything the guy said or did) and I would have to say that geeks would be the first group excepted from that definition in any case just based on their presumed level of intelligence, ie that they think with the heads that males and females alike claim to prefer guide the passage of day-to-day life.
So based on the level of dysfunction I've seen among the geeks I have have known, and known well, which are many, I would have to say that what Chris says is very much the reality in the realm of true geekdom. Hard-core geeks are not able to enter relationships without a significant amount of training by the person who is on the other end, and even then, those efforts are often doomed to failure,as there are often deep-rooted reasons why that person was attracted to machines instead of people in the first place. Now we all use the word geek to describe people who are really just tech-heads, techies, whatever you want to call them and although there is some overlap between geek culture and tech culture, the tech people are the "geeks" who have lives. And having married one of those, and as a woman who always was able to pretty much date any guy I wanted, I can say without question that in my opinion, those guys can be the cream of the crop--highly intelligent, with a sensitive streak that can make your heart melt. But they aren't the true geeks. Even if we like to tease them that they are--they know we're only kidding when the sex they have at the end of the day doesn't come from a chat room.... : )

http://www.caryn.com/