It was only a matter of time.
Yep, we here at Geek Girls headquarters have started getting inquiries from boys in search of a geek girl of their very own.
Ken from Indianapolis asked, “I’m a single 24 year old geeky guy…Where can I go to meet geek girls?!” and Dan from Brazil said, “…here in Brazil there aren’t cool chicks that get geeky, love games, [and] know bout technology…Do you have any idea of where we could look for those? Time is passing and we are really getting sad and lonely cause the non-geeks don’t fill in the blanks.”
Yes, Ken and Dan, I agree. There is nothing quite as awesome as a Geek Girl. As for where to meet them, that’s a bit tougher to answer.
Where the Geeks Are
Here’s my two cents: the best place to meet a truly geeky girl is probably, well…online. For example, my husband and I found each other via the perfect storm of geekery. One night, while I was bonding with my laptop in my single-girl studio apartment, Nancy sent me an IM with a link to a blog called the Kingdom of Squirrels written by a guy named Jeremy. “Hey,” she typed, “you should date this guy.” I checked out the blog, thought the guy looked cool, but suspected that he was so cool that he was either:
a) gay
b) taken
c) psychologically unfit
d) all of the above
By coincidence, Jeremy stumbled across my now-dead blog a few weeks later (he thinks via a directory of MN bloggers — this was in 2002 when there were far fewer blogs and before they were proclaimed dead) and left me a comment. I saw it, clicked over to his website and realized I had been there a few months before. We exchanged blog comments and emails for a couple of months, we saw each other in person for the first time when he came to see me at a poetry slam, we had our first real date a month later, and the rest is history. There was also a mix tape involved (well, technically a mix CD, but the effect was the same).
Finding the Elusive Female Geek
Obviously, you can find a geek girl anywhere you’d find any other kind of girl, but it might be tricky to figure out if she’s a geek. Sidling up to a girl at happy hour and asking if she knows CSS from RSS might not work so well. In my experience, what works best is to just put yourself out there, either via a blog where you write about whatever you are passionate about or an expert on, via Twitter, and on social networks like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, or whatever is most popular in your country or age/interest group.
Next, cruise around and see who’s interesting. Let it happen naturally by commenting on blogs that interest you, or finding opportunities (like Meetups) to mingle with other geeks in meatspace. Whatever you do, don’t be creepy. Sending an IM or direct tweet like “Hey, baby let’s chat…” is sooo not going to work. It’s just like real life: you’ll encounter a lot of people, but you’ll only make a real connection with a few. Don’t try to force it, or you’ll come off all wrong and you’ll scare the girly geeks away. Be cool, man. Be cool.
What worked for Jeremy and I is that — first and foremost — we found each other to be interesting; technology just facilitated our relationship. Had it not been for the Internet, AIM and Movable Type, we might have never met (in fact, I probably should have invited Tim Berners-Lee and the Trotts to our wedding), but our relationship is based on who we are, not on the technology itself. It’s a bit of a happy coincidence that we are both geeks, but your odds of meeting a geek girl are higher online than they are IRL. So, just put yourself out there. See what happens.
That’s that. Don’t get the wrong idea, guys — I’m not turning this into a dating column. But, you asked and I’m here for you.
Good luck.
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