rinue | Geek Dating

There's a book out called The Geek's Guide to Dating. Geek of course equals male. It has adorable chapter titles like "Escape from the Friendzone" that certainly don't imply that women are only useful as sexual partners. Overall, the way the book uses the framing device of women as goals in a game doesn't remind me at all of the sexual predation of pickup-artist culture; how about you?

Leaving aside whether this particular book is odious rather than cute, it doesn't address the central mating problem of heterosexual geek culture, which is as follows:

1. Geeks of any gender for whom geekdom is a central part of identity would prefer to date other geeks.

2. Straight male geeks are more likely than the general college-educated US male population to believe in firmly steriotyped sex-based categories - to believe that a man is like this and a woman is like this.

3. Female geeks of any orientation are much more likely than the general population to be genderqueer and/or believe that gender is an oppressive social construct.

This is not merely the source of geeky dating woe; it's the driver behind all of the harassment at conventions. Female geeks don't want to be treated as female; they are drawn to geekdom as a safe space in which to be post-gender. Male geeks absolutely want to be treated as masculine, and are drawn to geekdom as a safe space to practice rococo masculinity. These safe spaces don't overlap in their safety.

Obviously, this is a generalization; I know plenty of straight male geeks who aren't like this at all. But they're not the ones who are going to buy a geek's guide to dating. Those guys are pretty much stuck, I'm afraid.