Call of the Tangential Posts

[pendamuse]

Admittedly I am not a gamer, and I haven’t stood in line for anything since maybe wanting to score Janet Jackson  or Prince concert tickets in the early Oughts.  Therefore, I kinda understand standing in line for a game release. You want to be the first to own it, the first to play it and have all of the geeky bragging rights associated with

Comments

[brock_tn]

Oh Gods, but I do remember what it was like to be that young, male, and that socially inept. Not with any great fondness, mind you, but I do remember it.

On an entirely separate note, did you know that the Thicket has gone back to being active?

[pendamuse]

I had heard and I've been by, but unfortunately I don't have the time to lurk on forums like I used to. And that's a shame because I miss so many people.

Have you been well?

[brock_tn]

About as well as can be expected. Lark and I are in Huntsville, Alabama now, and thoroughly enjoying it. It's this odd little island of "Oh, how cool is that!" in a state that is in most other respects devoid of any reason to stay there any longer than is absolutely necessary.

[p_m_cryan]

Every time I think I can't possibly adore you more, you go and write something like this.

[serpentrose]

It's interesting that you should post this on the day that I find myself thinking that the hole "fake geek girl" thing is comes from of gynophobia. It would seem to support my thought that calling certain women 'fake geeks' is a way of othering them, a way of gaining distance from something simultaneously feared and desired.

[brock_tn]

Having been the socially inept geek at one time, it's not so much that women are feared as it is that they are viewed as being unattainable. The classic geek KNOWS that he possesses none of the qualities that women find attractive in men. Therefore he assumes (rightly or wrongly,) that any advances he might make toward a woman will be rejected. In some cases this translates into anger towards women. Stupid, I know, but we're talking here about people who don't do interpersonal interaction at all well outside their closely circumscribed peer group.

It's not really gynophobia, but it can be hard to tell the difference just from behaviors. And it's not all geeks that act that way. But the ones that do are, I am afraid, annoyingly obvious.

[serpentrose]

I don't think I've ever been in a place of desperately wanting to impress someone while feeling I have absolutely no chance of doing so, though I can imagine where it would make things difficult and confusing.

I bet it would help reduce this problem, and many others, if there weren't so many messages from society telling people there's a huge gap between men and women and that one can never understand the other.

Several of the male geeks I follow in various places online have spoken against the labeling certain women as 'fake geeks' and none of them have made such accusations. If they had I would probably have dropped them from my 'stalking' list. I am thankful that this is not something I have had to deal with directly, partly because I'm very reclusive and even if I weren't I do not currently have the sort of look that would cause them to give a second glance.

[brock_tn]

I don't think I've ever been in a place of desperately wanting to impress someone while feeling I have absolutely no chance of doing so, though I can imagine where it would make things difficult and confusing.

It's actually worse than that for many geeks, who do tend to overthink things. Because, if you already know you're going to get rejected, there's no point in making the advance in the first place.

I bet it would help reduce this problem, and many others, if there weren't so many messages from society telling people there's a huge gap between men and women and that one can never understand the other.Well, I'm in my late 50's at this point, and I've been married to the same woman for going on 31 years, and I will not pretend that I understand women. But I will agree that our society does a craptastic job of preparing young men and women to get along with one another at close quarters. Part of that is, I think, that few of them are good at communicating. It's not just that they have a hard time conveying their wants, their

[pendamuse]

It's women's fault men have confusing thoughts about the opposite sex. Everyone knows that.

[brock_tn]

Not really. Young men suffer from an oversupply of blood to the brain, which causes muddy thinking. One traditional method of treating this was warming a child's fundament with a peach switch, which drew the excess blood to other parts of the body. That was, of course, impractical when I was a drill sergeant, so instead we had our charges do many, many, many, many, many push-ups. Same effect, overall.