Give Me a Break
Posted: September 25, 2013 Filed under: Musings | Tags: adulthood, life Leave a commentI’ve come to realize I need a break from being a responsible adult.
I don’t mean a holiday, or a weekend, or even a vacation. Even on the rare occasion those roll around, I still have all the same concerns. I have to be aware of bills, rent, chores, work, school, family, and all the obligations that make up everyday life for a typical adult. It gets to be overwhelming after a while, and I’m getting to the point where I really believe I’ve earned a little distance from it all. I know this all sounds a lot like “first world problems”, but I’m acknowledging that even folks in other countries need this kind of break too, probably even more than I do.
I think back to a time (perhaps more recent than for some, but hey, I was a late bloomer) when I didn’t have so many concerns. I didn’t really appreciate then how good I had it. Even as recent as college (well, when I was a full-time college student, at any rate) I got winter and summer break, and hanging out with my friends all night at coffee shops and diners. We would talk and joke, discuss philosophy or the news of the day or even just make lewd and inappropriate jokes.
Before that was high school, when I could leave most of my real worries behind at the end of the day (the problems I created for myself were another matter entirely). I had acting and other hobbies that filled my time, and of course my constant flailing attempts to chase girls, which I will not describe in any detail in an attempt to preserve what little dignity I have left (and I will thank my friends and family to respect that decision).
Before high school was elementary school, when I didn’t even have homework, and every afternoon was a sweet release of cartoons and video games. Weekends were more of the same. I had my problems, to be sure, but they were problems of the moment, and the good times overall outweighed the bad.
Perhaps I’m looking at the past through rose-tinted glasses, which is of course the prerogative of nostalgia. I realize it’s an old refrain that “youth is wasted on the young”, and I certainly wouldn’t want to go back and have to live through all of it again, if nothing else because I was terrible at geometry. But I do wish there was some way to be relieved of my burdens of worry and woe for just a while, a chance to let my guard down for a time, stretch my shoulders before picking up the burden again. It’s not that life is bad, and I wouldn’t trade the life I have for someone else’s life, but I do yearn from time to time for a way to step back from it all.
Other than winning the lottery (and mo’ money, mo’ problems, am I right?) or retiring, is that something that ever happens? Or do I just have to accept that being an adult means, as 1 Corinthians 13:11 says, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways”?
An Open Letter to the World
Posted: September 23, 2013 Filed under: Humor, Musings | Tags: comedy, humor, society 5 CommentsDear Everyone,
We’ve known each other for quite a while, practically my whole life, and while it’s been a good relationship on the whole, there are a few things I need to get off my chest. See, the thing is you have some bad habits, and if they don’t change soon I’m afraid we just can’t be friends anymore. I know this seems kind of sudden, but it’s been building for some time. If you haven’t been able to see this coming that just shows how dysfunctional our relationship has become.
And so, in no particular order, here are the things I really need you to work on:
You walk in front of, behind, and in general all around moving cars, as if they won’t hit you. They will. You need to stop that.
Clean up after yourself. Seriously.
You drive too fast.
Stop picking fights.
I don’t care about your religion, so please stop bringing it up.
Clean up after your dog.
Racism, sexism, and –isms in general.
Stop riding your bike in the middle of the road. I don’t drive in the middle of the sidewalk.
Clean up after your kids.
You drive too slow.
Stop yelling. I can hear you. The people in the next room can hear you. The people several houses down can hear you.
I don’t care about your politics, so please stop bringing it up.
You double park. All the time. I don’t care how big your car is, or how big you are, one car, one spot is the rule.
Learn how to courtesy flush.
I don’t care about your new iPhone, so please stop bringing it up.
I understand you’re a big fan of public transportation. I think that’s admirable. Please move into the city, where they have some, and out of the suburbs, where we’re tired of hearing you talk about it.
No matter how many times I ask, you keep casting David Spade in things.
Turn it down. If you need a hearing aid, get one. The rest of us aren’t deaf.
Put a muffler on that thing.
Don’t use management terms in everyday life. If you try to “put something on my radar” “from 10,000 feet” because I need to “take an institutional view”, my foot with find synergy with your ass.
Stop hitting on women who are clearly wearing wedding rings.
Telling me “You don’t look like a smoker.” I realize I don’t look like a cowboy or a camel, but exactly what DOES a smoker look like?
Enough with the unsolicited advice.
Mouth-breathing. I know this comes up a lot, but how hard is it to sit with your mouth closed?
I know this makes me sound pedantic, but please, stop saying “literally” when you mean “metaphorically”. It literally gives me fits.
Please stop putting pictures of your food online. Unless it looks like someone famous, I’m really not interested.
Writing computer viruses. It stopped being “cool” in 1990.
I know this is asking a lot, and I don’t expect you to change overnight, but if I don’t see some sort of action soon, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.
Sincerely,
Bob
Lines I’d Like to Use
Posted: September 20, 2013 Filed under: Culture, Musings | Tags: culture, ideas, writing Leave a commentAs some of my friends and family know, I’m not just a blog writer; I also aspire to be a fiction writer (unlike almost every OTHER English major throughout history). So far I haven’t had much success in getting published (see previous snide aside), but I still plug away at it when I find the time and energy. A large part of that is I jot down ideas for stories and, more importantly, lines of stories or bits of dialogue I’d like to use. For me a lot of stories grow out of these tiny seeds, built around what seemed like a passing fancy at the time, or just something that popped up in a conversation with someone. I may never get around to using any of these, so I’m sharing them with the world. Feel free to take them, use them, make them your own. All I ask is that if you do you share the results so we can all enjoy them.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Now honey, stay calm. I’m sure you have a lot of questions-“
“Yeah, like if you’re an international assassin, why do we live with these assholes?!?”
“These assholes are my friends.”
“Hey!”
“Look, I said you were my friends.”
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“Yeah, sure, I’ll get right on that, just as soon as you go fuck yourself.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“I would totally fight a hobbit for you, honey. You’re my preeeeciiiouusssss.”
“I’d fight a hobbit. It would have nothing to do with you. I’d just fight a hobbit.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________
He radiated a palpable aura of ‘go fuck yourself’, with a side of ‘eat shit and die’.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
His tombstone read ‘He had a better second half.’
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“Maybe I’ll just withhold the Midol from you.”
“I want you to think very carefully about what you just said.”
____________________________________________________________________________________
Truly, he was a king among his people: the douchebags.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
“I see a lot of things in my dreams, honey. I don’t want to take most of them home.”
____________________________________________________________________________________
“If these walls could talk-“
“I’d burn the fucking house down.”
What Do I Owe You?
Posted: September 16, 2013 Filed under: Musings | Tags: America, etiquette, society Leave a commentI’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about society, specifically an individual’s place in it and what we owe to society as a whole. I’m not speaking about taxes and such per se, but rather the social conventions that make up the social mores of society, and the point at which those social mores conflict with our belief in the spirit of the individual and individual expression. With Miley Cirus quickly tanking her musical career with twerking, Anthony Weiner destroying his political career with his… Twitter account, and President Obama rapidly, well, for the sake of civil discussion let’s say “adjusting” America’s reputation in the world on a daily if not hourly basis with the Syrian situation, clearly we hold public individuals accountable. But at what level do we hold private individuals accountable? And should we?
Obviously there are some actions that, while not necessarily physically assaulting others, we believe to be beyond the boundaries of appropriateness. Screaming profanities at a child is not acceptable. Public nudity is (generally) considered outside the lines. Even the unauthorized use of someone else’s property, and no it doesn’t matter if you return it with a full tank of gas, is completely out of the question, whether they were inconvenienced or not. But is that all? Or is there something more?
In our personal relationships we set boundaries, and those boundaries can be somewhat flexible. As we get to know others better we adjust those boundaries, although some things will always be off limits (although what and to whom varies from individual to individual). The difference between standards that we set amongst ourselves and for ourselves can occasionally cause conflict, the most common of which is people judging others or feeling judged. Personally I have no problem with either one; feel free to judge me, because lord knows I’m judging you. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying, has a different word for what they are doing, or has no standards for behavior at all.
But that doesn’t mean we have a right to restrict each other’s behavior. Should we call each other out on it? Depends on the relationship. In a work environment, there are (hopefully) guidelines for what is and is not acceptable, and ways to address unacceptable behavior. Outside of those narrowly defined terms, you either need to find a nice way to address it or live with it. For example, maybe the person in the next office talks on their phone really loud. Not so loud that it justifies a complaint to HR, but still. Either you need to find a way to talk to them about it, or get some headphones. And that’s the way life goes.
Personal lives are the same way. If you know someone who engages in what you consider to be obnoxious (but not illegal) behavior, you either need to find a nice way to approach them about it or let it go. Of course they may not listen, or they may be unwilling or unable to change. Then you either have to live with it or stop spending time with them. Life’s full of tough choices like that.
Which kind of brings me back to where I started. There are no guidelines about public behavior, but there is this: if you put it out there for everyone to see, you’re inviting comment from everyone who sees it. Right or wrong, good or bad, fair or not. Public figures accept this as part of the package (or at least they should, because they’re gonna get it anyway), but private individuals need to accept it too, on the small scale. Being a private person doesn’t mean everything you do is private, and we all need to accept that, as well as accepting the consequences of our actions. Even twerking (which I promise to never do).
Train of Thought
Posted: September 11, 2013 Filed under: Humor, Musings | Tags: humor, life, random thoughts 6 CommentsI wonder about the strangest things sometimes.
Example: I was in the restroom at work the other day and I noticed there are three stalls, two urinals, and four sinks. What happens if everyone finishes at the same time? Is there a specific etiquette for this? My coworker suggested it becomes a game of musical chairs (first come first serve), or possibly the guys who were in the stalls have first dibs (let’s face it, they need to wash their hands more).
But this also made me wonder, how do they calculate these things? Is there somebody somewhere whose job it is to figure out the optimum sink-to-stall ratio? Must be a tough job, since you have to account for the overly meticulous guy who’s going to wash his hands longer than anybody else, but you also have to factor for those filthy fellows who don’t wash at all. And then there’s the guys who dash in specifically to wash their hands but don’t need to use the bathroom at all. Do they throw off the calculations?
Clearly this is a job whose time has come, since at school there are two sinks for about 20 “rest stops”, if you will. But then I expect nothing else from my beloved university, where “We Kill Efficiency Whenever It Raises Its Head” was just edged out as a school motto by “You May Drive Here, But You Can’t Park Here”.
And speaking of driving, I will never understand traffic patterns as long as I live. It used to be that back roads were supposed to be the way around traffic on the highways. I moved recently and subsequently have had to change my commute (which is now technically longer) away from back roads to a highway, one of the most popular in the region in fact. Most days my commute time has been the same, and some days it’s even shorter. This makes no sense to me. The only exception has been the first week of school, when apparently everybody went to work and/or drove their kids, before they all let out their metaphorical guts and said, “ah, the heck with it” and went back to their normal routine.
I’m still trying to develop a new routine. Bad enough I had to move to a new house in a new neighborhood, AND I’m back in classes, but My Not So Humble Wife started a new job as a school teacher. Yes, she’s a first year teacher, which from objective observation seems to me to be akin to Purgatory: indistinguishable from Hell except insofar as it will someday end. She’s also in class one night a week, a class composed almost entirely off first year teachers, who all have to be up early enough to wake the rooster on the way out the door. Her professor is aware of this, so naturally he lets them go early every week. Just kidding! She goes to the same school I do, “Where Killing Your Dreams Is Tradition”, and he keeps them right up to the last minute and sometimes after every week. What a swell guy. I need to put him on my Christmas card list.
Speaking of Christmas, I may (finally) be able to put up outside Christmas lights this year. I know that doesn’t sound like a big deal, but for the better part of the last decade I’ve lived in a house with no outside outlets. How does that happen? I grew up putting on the biggest and gaudiest – excuse me, most tasteful light display possible every year, and I’ve looked forward to continuing that tradition in my own home. It saddens me that I have an inflatable snow globe still sitting in the box in my attic, waiting to greet the people of the world. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever get to use it.
But like I said, I wonder about the strangest things sometimes.
Things I’m Grateful For
Posted: September 9, 2013 Filed under: Musings | Tags: gratitude, life 5 CommentsI’ve noticed recently that I have a tendency to be somewhat cynical, particularly in my writing (no need to deny it, it’s true). While I’m perfectly comfortable with that fact, I also decided that it’s time I took a step back and made a list for myself of all the wonderful things I have in my life; a chance to “count my blessings”, as it were. Bearing in mind there will be a whiff of cynicism buried in this list (hey, I’m still a leopard), it’s at least a good exercise in being a better person. And so:
The Not Quite Comprehensive List of Things I’m Grateful For (In No Particular Order)
- I’m still relatively healthy (in spite of myself). I’ve tried eating better, exercising, and quitting smoking. None of the above of stuck. I don’t even drink water on a regular basis. At least I don’t drink (much). Despite all of that, I still have all my teeth and I’m not too grossly overweight, and I don’t have any major health problems besides a little acid reflux and bipolar disorder (and hey, I was born this way).
- I have the most amazing wife ever. Yes, I know, I talk about her a lot, and occasionally make mock, but she is an essential part of my life. The funny part is she found me. (A fact she never lets me forget.) We met having an argument about Shakespeare, and someday I hope to convince her she’s wrong, but today isn’t that day and tomorrow doesn’t look good either. But I love her anyway.
- I’m surprisingly grateful for my Not So Humble Sister. I say surprisingly because when we were growing up I was… less than perfect as a brother, and we’ve definitely become much better friends as adults than we ever were as kids. This may or may not have something to do with how difficult I am to live with.
- Speaking of family, I am quite grateful for My Not So Humble Mother. Not to do the whole “guilty son” thing, but I really don’t see her as often as I should. Even so I love her, New York accent and all. (Seriously, it’s something you have to hear to believe.)
- I have a pretty awesome set of in-laws. They’re the best kind of people to know: unique, special, and loving. They welcome everyone but they tolerate crap from nobody (including and especially me).
- I’m so very happy I don’t have to deal with other people’s children, and conversely that I don’t have to deal with parents of children. I know too many teachers. I hear the horror stories. If you’re a parent, I’m sure you and your children are the exception. I’m also sure you know who I’m talking about.
- I’m thrilled I was born in the U.S. Let’s face it, for all this country’s faults (and I do go on about them at length), it’s still one of if not the freest countries in the world, as well as having one of the strongest economies. It matters. A lot.
- This may sound condescending, but go with me a minute: I’m grateful to be a white male. I’m not trying to put anybody down, I’ve just been doing a lot of reading lately, and while I still would never go so far as to call myself a feminist, a liberal, or an activist of any stripe, I’ve at least come to accept that white male privilege is real and it exists. Should it? No. But as long as it does I’m not going to pretend I’d be happier if it worked against me.
- I’m grateful I’m straight, basically for the same reason. I’ve been married for going on a decade now, which is about a decade longer that homosexual couples have had that option. Does that make it right? Not a chance. But again, anybody who says they would rather do things the hard way is either crazy or lying.
- I’m especially grateful I’m still able to learn and grow. If you had told me five years ago that I would have admitted I’ve got it better because I’m a straight white male, I probably would have laughed in your face. At least now I can admit it, and that’s at least the first step toward working for real equality (my working definition of “real equality” may vary from others, but at least I’m open to the discussion now).
So there it is, a little something to brighten your day. If you have something you’re grateful for, feel free to share it with everyone in the comments below.
Lessons from Night Class
Posted: September 2, 2013 Filed under: Musings | Tags: advice, college, office Leave a commentAs I may have mentioned before, I’m still pursuing my college degree, mostly out of masochism, but also due to a deeply rooted sense of self-hatred. Due to the fact that I have an actual job (unlike most college students and, apparently, most college graduates from the last few years) this means I have to take night classes. (Online courses? Never heard of them. I go to a school whose motto is “Where crushing innovation is tradition.”) What with the commute from work, parking, and the scheduling of such things, my classes don’t start until after 7PM and run until 10PM. This has given me the opportunity to learn some lessons that I believe would translate well into the business environment, lessons that are more implicit in nature. They won’t show up on any tests, but believe me; they’ll be more valuable than knowing who was the first Roman Emperor.
First, respect my time. This covers a lot of ground, but the first example I’ll give is the guy in class who asks a question (usually at the end of class when everyone wants to go home) that is completely irrelevant to everyone but him. For every minute you are speaking, you are wasting a minute of every single other person’s time in the class. Do that in a meeting in a business environment and you’ll be lucky if you’re politely told to “take it offline”, which is a nice way to say STFU and discuss it later. If you’re unlucky you’ll just be told STFU.
The flip side of this is the professor who keeps the class past the scheduled time. Look, I realize you think your bloviating is the most important thing in the universe, and we’re all paying just for the privilege of hearing it. Let me correct that misperception: we’re paying for the degree. Listening to you drone on is part of the price, not a benefit. In a business environment the guy who drones on like this doesn’t get invited to meetings, which is a great strategy right up until you discover you’re out of the loop, not involved in projects, and oh yeah, no longer necessary at this company and there’s the door.
Second, respect my opinions. I’m not suggesting you have to agree with everything I have to say (lord knows I think 90% of people are idiots), but at least hear me out. And don’t just sit there spending the time planning what you’re going to say when my lips stop moving, actually listen to what I’m saying. Process the information, and form a cogent response. Even more importantly, be aware of whether you are actually adding value to the conversation or if you are only speaking because you feel the need to “get your two cents in”. The guy who has to be heard on every issue is the guy who nobody wants to work with, and believe me when I say that there is nobody who is so highly skilled that they are irreplaceable if they are intolerable.
Third, respect the space. I don’t know what it is about night courses, but people come in with food and drinks all the time (too rushed to grab dinner on the way in, I guess) and then leave their trash lying there when they finish. This kind of disrespect for public space says as much about you as your appearance. Whether or not there’s janitorial staff is irrelevant; that’s the moral equivalent of saying “Mom will pick it up.” Act like an adult and clean up after yourself. There are plenty of public spaces in an office, such as meeting rooms, kitchens, and break rooms, and if you treat them the same way as you treat those classrooms, you’re going to find yourself out on the trash heap next to your trash.
It doesn’t take much, but it makes a big difference. Pay attention to these little details, show a little respect, and you’ll be a better student and a better coworker.
The Jeffersons, Anthony, and Me
Posted: August 21, 2013 Filed under: Musings | Tags: life, moving Leave a commentI’ve been away for a while, but it’s been for a good reason: My Not So Humble Wife and I have finally gotten a place of our own. Yes, after seven years with Our Not So Humble Roommates (great guys, I swear), we finally decided it was time to strike out and get a little slice of the American Dream for ourselves. Or rent a piece of it at any rate.
The thing is, I had a vision in mind of what it would be like. Maybe it’s because I was raised by television as much as by my parents, but I was expecting it to be something akin to the Jeffersons. “Moving on up” and all of that. Turns out it’s had more in common with “Anthony’s Song“. Which is not to say I don’t love the place we’ve moved to; it’s a great neighborhood, the people are nice, and the townhouse we’re in is quite lovely. I certainly didn’t have to do much if anything for the move, as My Not So Humble Wife did all the heavy lifting on the preparations, and we hired movers to do the literal heavy lifting.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact I’m basically back in the neighborhood I grew up in (the strip mall I had my first real job in is right around the corner), but I just feel like a bit of a phony. My wife nailed it the other night when she commented, half-jokingly, that she’s waiting for someone to kick open the door and say something to the effect of “you don’t belong here!” It almost feels like we’re just pretending at being adults, playing house until the real adults show up. Given that we’ve been out on our own for quite some time that seems rather silly, especially for a man staring down the barrel of The Big Four Oh, but there it is.
It kind of brings me back to a thought I’ve had more than once since I (first) left school and started working to support myself: when do you become a grown-up? More importantly, when do you start feeling like a grown-up? When does that strange sensation that you’re just faking it go away, and you get comfortable in the life you’ve built for yourself? And do I want it to? In some ways I’m not sure I do, because I’m afraid if I get comfortable I’ll get complacent, but sometimes I long for complacency. It certainly seems like it would be better than feeling like I’m living in a Talking Heads song.
The fact is, I have found myself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife, and when I look back on the improbable sequence of events that have brought me to this point I realize there’s no way I could have anticipated any of it, let alone planned for it. In some ways that seems wonderful, but in other ways it’s terrifying. Maybe when I finally learn to accept that as “life” is the moment when I’ll finally be a grown-up after all.
The Nature of Fame
Posted: August 14, 2013 Filed under: Culture, Musings | Tags: culture, fame, one hit wonder 3 CommentsI’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of fame lately, mostly because like a dog with cars I’ve been chasing it my whole life and I’ve never been able to catch it. While it may be an ugly bitch goddess, it oftentimes seems to be the only game in town. After all, the only other option is to toil in obscurity, and what artist (and I do think of myself as an artist, otherwise why bother?) has ever said “I truly hope to be an unknown for the entirety of my life”?
Certainly there’s something to the notion that you can peak too early, as we have seen in many child stars who go on to become the butt of every late night talk show host’s repertoire. And then there are the one hit wonders, those too-numerous-to-name musical acts that have achieved wild fame and success… for the proverbial fifteen minutes. While some of them (such as emmet swimming and Wheatus, a couple of my favorite bands) continue to perform and have dedicated fan bases, others are resigned to the dustbin of musical history.
And I wonder: what does it feel like? What is it like to be a one-hit wonder? Not a failure or a nobody (I know that already, thanks). Not a great celebrity, like Tina Turner or Harrison Ford or even Will Smith, or somebody who has a major success and then becomes a hermit (J.D. Salinger, I’m looking in your direction). I’m talking about a person who has one mega-hit (Rick Astley) and then is never heard from again.
What does that do to you? Do you feel terrible? Does it make you bitter? Do you feel angry? Are you grateful you got to taste the heights that everyone dreams of, even if only for a little while?
Maybe it all depends on how you dealt with the fame. Did you invest your money wisely? Did you blow it all on coke and whores? Were you just a little kid and your parents invested your money wisely (or conversely, blew it all on coke and whores)? How does all of that change you as a person?
Maybe it’s contextual. What if it was your best work you ever produced, at least in your own eyes? What if it was the worst drivel you ever produced? What if you banged it out in 15 minutes because you had a deadline? What if you labored over it for years? Do you try a different field, or just keep going, hoping lightning will strike twice?
Do you ever take a break from it and decide to come back to it later? I know that Mayim Bialik did just that, taking a break from acting to pursue a short sideline in a simple side career (neuroscience), but it’s not like Blossom was an obscure show that only ran for one season. What about the folks from The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr.? What happens to them? (Well, besides Bruce Campbell. His career can survive anything.)
I’d like to know. No, really, I’d like to know, specifically by finding out for myself. Hey, I’ve already been a nobody. I’ll take being a one-hit wonder.
Wait a Minute, WHAT?!?
Posted: August 9, 2013 Filed under: Musings | Tags: feminism, geek, men, society, women 1 CommentOkay, I have to get this off my chest, because I simply can’t believe this exists. Not that I believe the women who are talking about it are lying, but I simply wish that the humans who share my gender and my interests weren’t such complete asshats. It’s pretty well established by now that I’m not exactly a feminist (as a friend said recently, “I’m not a misogynist, I’m a misanthrope, there’s a difference”), but this shit is beyond the pale.
Lately I’ve seen some (lots of) stories about women being called fake geeks and being chased out of the community of gaming/comics/sci-fi/whatever for not being “real nerds”. Really? And this is happening because… why? I’d ask if the guys who are doing this are twelve, except that I remember being a twelve year old geekling, and if a girl ever showed any interest in the sort of things I cared about I’d be more likely to chase her away by falling all over myself showering her with attention and praise (you know, being creepy) than by challenging her right to be there (you know, being an asshole).
The weird part of this to me is that I’ve walked into a game store and comic shops with my wife and I’ve seen the reaction. First I walk in, and nothing changes. A few guys might look up, they notice one of their own, and then they go back to whatever it was they were doing. Then SHE walks in. (You can even see the capital letters running through their minds when it happens.) A girl. It’s always a girl, never a woman. There’s a sudden pause, like deer caught in the headlights, or possibly roaches caught in the kitchen light. All heads turn towards her to see what she’s going to do, and more importantly if she’s with someone (free range is fair game after all). Then their eyes surreptitiously follow her around the store until we leave. After seeing this happen a few times I could totally understand why neither she nor any woman would want to go into any of those kinds of stores (the weird funk of basement boys aside).
But that at least evidences, albeit in a crude and creepy sort of way, that geek men at least crave the presence of women. And having spent far too much time around geeks, I can say with some authority the only thing they love more than their hobbies is talking about their hobbies. So when a woman comes along who is ready, willing, able, and in fact eager to do just that, what is their response? To chase her away by calling her a “fake geek”.
Mr. Spock, your analysis?
“Highly illogical, Captain.”
That’s what I thought. I’ve heard the (bullshit) argument that at one point in time there were a few media outlets that hired models to pretend to like video games or other things to appeal to geeks and somehow that means all females who ever exhibit any interest in anything geek are forever tainted. Wow, that might be the first time in history anyone has ever used sex appeal to sell anything to anyone ever! </sarcasm> The worst part of that argument is that video game trade shows had been using booth babes for YEARS before that, and these same guys were eating it up with a spoon.
So what happened? Did a girl come along and ask you to engage her in conversation about the relative merits of Star Wars versus Star Trek instead of expecting her to wear both a Princess Leia costume and an original series Trek uniform?
Guys, there are women out there, real women, who share our passions, who care about the same things we care about, love them with the same intensity we do, dive in with the same ferocity and joy, and best of all they want to share it with us. It’s everything we ever dreamed of, and you want to shut them out.
Grow the fuck up.
. And be sure to leave a review with your not so humble opinion!
My Not So Humble Opinion 