A non-geek's guide to finding true love with the best people on earth

Things are really happening in Loving Geeks land.  I sold an article to Citrix: 10 reasons geeks make the best mates.  And Paul & I made a video to go with the article.

And more and more people are taking my survey.

Paul & I have a romantic weekend planned … well, it’s romantic for geek and a nerd.  We’re driving up the coast to meet with with Vicki Milledge, a lovely person with a sparkling mind, to work on Leading Geeks content.

And Leading Geeks is also really heating up. Paul’s got an Australian webinar tonight, and n Thursday e’re doing a presentation of The Geek Contraxioms: 7 ways to work better with developers.

An Paul is being a sweetheart. After a bit of a dust up when he was trying to tell me he appreciated me by sharing an excel document with me, and I thought it was just an excel document, he kind of really got it. He got that there’s no way for me to know what’s going on inside him unless he says what’s going on.  Yes, I need to look for hidden signs of love, but its unreasonable to expect me to know that an excel document about income distribution holds depth of feeling.  So he got that, and he was really sweet about it, and told me lovely things that I longed to hear.

So, yeah.  Good Valentines Day.

So the markets just took a nose dive, and I trepedatiously peeked at my Vanguard accounts.  About two months ago I dropped a big chunk of my severance pay into stocks and now, I think, surely I’ve lost most of it, and I’ll have to cut short my not-get-a-job plans.

Well, here’s the thing.  In June, when I told Paul I was putting money into stocks, he was, as ever, urging caution.  ”Don’t put money you’ll need this year into the market,” he said.  But I did what I intended to do, which is risk a portion of my money on the chance that it will earn big return.  BUT I did hear his cautious voice in my head as I picked which funds to invest in.

I looked at the high yield high risks funds and I thought what would Paul do (WWPD)?  Would he go for the biggest gain or the safest bet?  And I tempered my instincts,  and went for funds that were right down the middle.  Moderate amount of return. Moderate amount of risk.

So today, when I checked to see the damage, I was pleasantly surprised to see that while the markets in general lost 10%, I only lost 2.5% on my June investments.

So I beat the market!  (I know, everything can change in a split second) But it just goes to show the power of seeking balance in life and love.

There’s a lot more to say about geeks and money.  All those wild trips to Vegas that you didn’t take might just end up translating into a cozy house by the beach when you retire.  More research on this topic is required!

So, here I am thinking all day long about my analytical friends, the geeks. What makes them different than me and my people? What makes them tick?

What is behind a geek’s need for verifiable truth, unassailable logic, and hyper-literal language use? It hits me that these are fairly reasonable responses to an unsafe world. I relate to this because I know what it’s like to live in an unsafe world.

Unsafe

By unsafe I don’t mean that there’s someone waiting to jump out from behind a bush and accost me.  That’s not the kind of unsafe that really haunts me underneath it all.  One way of feeling unsafe is that at any moment I could be abandoned by the side of the road, excised from the communities I live in, forgotten, ostracized and alone.

Another way of feeling unsafe can come from the sense that the world is chaotic and random. There’s a panic that comes from the suspicion that there really is no order and at any moment everything could crack into tiny pieces. Understanding the rules and order and structure of things is the only thing between me and oblivion.

Differences

I am more subject to the fear of being alone.  It leads me to strive to create connectedness.

My geek boyfirend is more afraid of being out of control in a chaotic universe. This leads him to strive to create certainty.

I want to share feelings and experiences and create a comfoting sense of resonance

My boyfriend wants to be correct, accurate and right.

I’m way more willing to estimate and be approximately right if it means I’ll form a connection, because connection makes me feel safe.

He needs things to be specific and accurate, because certainty makes him feel safe.

Having this insight makes me more patient, because I realize while we may not be in the same boat, we’re floating on the same scary waters.

And then there’s the assholes

I think there’s another way to feel safe – to strive to have control over situations and people – and this appoach tends to be used by assholes.  I don’t want you to date those guys and I don’t want you to be that way. Perhaps you didn’t know, but a big reason I’m writing a book about loving geeks is because I don’t want the assholes to win, and I want women like me to stop thinking that asshole behavior is sexy.

Geeks, in their peculiar specificity, are way sexier.

Geeks don’t want to change who you are, they just want to be able to make sense of you. That’s where my book and this blog comes in.  I’m going to help you help them make sense of you … and when that happens, the gates of heaven will open and you will know true love.

Early this morning after I pushed Paul to resonate with me about how awesome it to snuggle close and warm all night long, I was reminded that he is the best boyfriend ever.

I was hoping he would say something like “That was lovely night, my darling” or “I feel so close to you” or some such fantasy thing - but all he as saying when I asked, “Did you have a good night?” was “Umm-hm”.

And when I probed further he said, “I preferred the snuggling in the morning to being entwined in the middle of the night.”

Unsatisfied, I continued to try to draw something warm and toasty out of him “… so wasn’t it a little bit special? Can you tell me what it meant to you? I just want to be able to share the same meaning…”

And as I’m trying this or that tactic to get the connection I want, I’m realizing,

1.  He’ doesn’t want to give me the warm fuzzy

2. This is the kind of stuff men hate about women

3. But I can’t let it go because I’m hormonal and I want what I want

So as  it becomes increasingly clear that he either can’t or won’t resonate warmth and closeness with me, I fling myself over an opposite pillow and allow all my bones to melt like something in a hot car, staring dejectedly away from him into the colorless middle distance.

Now, at this point, what other boyfriend would not have just gotten dressed and left an academy award on the bureau on his way out?

But Paul stays and gently responds to my exaggerated posture of despair.  ”I can see that what you wanted was resonance and all I was giving you analysis. I’m sorry.  I didn’t intend to upset you.”

Now, at this point, what girlfriend would not have thanked her lucky stars, kissed him fondly and sent him on his way?

But I had to pick at him some more.  ”It doesn’t matter what you intended,”  I said. “Do you realize that you are undermining your apology by talking about what your intent was? As if somehow you aren’t responsible because you didn’t mean it?”

We then proceded to have a discussion about the role of intent in an apology.  He said that he used intent to evaluate how much offense he should take.  I said that I consider intent as well, but it doesn’t undo the damage.  It doesn’t erase the impact.  If you really want someone to know you are sorry, you will say you are sorry and leave it at that.

(Please note, during this discussion, I realize that, while I’m essentially right, I’m pushing it, and I think that at any moment I’m going to exasperate him into leaving.)

He’s says there’s a big difference between an act that intended harm (I’m going to get there late on purpose), caused harm through neglect (I lost track of time), or the harm was cause outside of anyone’s control (traffic was unexpectedly bad).

I agreed that intent has bearing on how offended we might get,  but still, intent doesn’t mitigate damage.  If I wanted to start a meeting on time and you are 20 minutes late, regardless of your intent, it’s still 20 lost minutes. The apology is primarily about regret for the damages.

Now, any other boyfriend would have argued his point until we were screaming at eachother and slamming doors.

But Paul, the best boyfriend ever, said, “Hmmm. I’ll have to consider this.”

(Please note,  this is the best outcome a girl could hope for.  We don’t really care all that much whether we’re right or not, we care more about whether we are connected or not. [Look for a long luscious blog post about this soon] And his willingness to consider my point of view feels like a big DING DING DING on the connection meter.)

Now, any other boyfriend would have gone off about his business and never brought it up again.

But a couple hours later he calls and thanks me for being so helpful.

(Please note, he THANKED me for being HELPFUL)

He said that he had done something or other that he needed to make right about some logistics with his ex-wife.  He said he apologized to her without editorializing about his intent, and she seemed moved and pleased.

So, now, don’t I have me the best boyfriend ever?  And doesn’t his ex-wife have a great ex-husband?

And, really, it’s me who is saying she is sorry, by writing the post.  Sorry that I can be so pushy and nit picky and nitty gritty, parsing every little interaction.

Yet again, I am amazed and humbled that I’m so lucky that I get to love a geek.

If there were a teeter totter reperesenting the geek/non-geek continuum, my dad is way down on the non-geek side. He is a man of sensation. A real earth-man.  Eats-with-fingers, smearing butter in a three foot radius all around him.  In the garden, getting dirty, growing things inexpertly but with great enthusisasm.  Jumping into the Maine-mountainside-pond in the god-awful month of May, squealing like a girl in the freezing water.

His insightful observations about life are sound, but not well-reasoned. They are experienced and organic and common sense.

As a yankee-no-spender, his austerity is really hedonism when you scratch the surface, since he can take such enormous pleasure in the littlest of sensations.  Warm socks. Peanuts. Dirt. Bees in the hive out back. His lovely (little) wife.

He conserves optimum temperature, but not in a terribly calculated way.  If you open the shades when its sunny and close them when it’s dark, the house stays cozy.  If you warm your empty cup in the steam of the brewing coffee, when you pour your coffee in it, it will stay warmer.  Never, never open the windows if it’s hotter outside than in.

He is kind, in a very unquestioned, common sense way.  Because it feels good to treat people well. It feels good to do service, share the garden’s bounty, carry the heavy package.  It’s joyful.

I wish I could be more like my dad.   But I fear I’m burdened with my mother’s over-thinking to really get all there is to be gotten from sitting in a sunny spot in a warm house on a winters day.  My dad gets it, and I think he’s amazing.  I love you dad.