Sorry about the very late and sporadic posting these last few months—planning a wedding will do crazy things to your schedule, but I hope to get back to a semi regular posting schedule for my small but loyal readers, hearts to all three of you guys! :)
ok so enough about me—onto our topic: Practice practice practice!
Like most things, I think it's important to practice dating. Sure there are probably some ppl out there where dating is a natural process like baby horses standing minutes after birth, but face it,we're nerds so any kind of social activity is going to be a challenge.
Let me describe a typical geek scenario: you spot a cute guy or girl at your work or class (substitute any public place here). You may learn their name, exchange some pleasantries (probably not), and engage in some light internet stalking. This may continue for weeks, months, years! You never go further than pining from afar and dreaming about how awesome they are. Gentle reader, I assure you that all this info is gleaned from years of sociological studies of geek volunteers, and indeed not from personal experience whatsoever.
After an extraordinarily long period of time when they have finally broken up with their douchy bf or gf you finally ask them to “hang out” some time. Let's suppose in this version of reality they say yes. Fantastic yes? No! I say no b/c while they were experiencing the real world you were busy creating a fantasy version of them that no real person can match up to. This will lead to a lot of problems.
Other problems: you probably have not been dating others at this time and this is bad. Not all dating must lead to permanent relationships, sometimes you need to learn how you'll act while dating. There is a social etiquette that involves stupid things like remembering anniversaries, buying useless things for each other, and pretending to enjoy their hobbies and friends.
Also perhaps more importantly you will learn what you will and won't tolerate in a partner. Never realised you hate when ppl bite their nails? Well now you do! Don't mind socks all over the floor, good for you. All of these things are part of the learning process. Also you'll be better at spotting and ditching scumbags faster so you aren't left wondering why you dated that a-hole for a year and a half. (so a good friend tells me.)
Finally I think is the MOST important thing for geeks to learn is how to not be spazzy around ppl you like. This is for all the nerds who suffer from foot in mouth syndrome or act pompous like Ted Mosby or chatter endlessly or wear blue sun t-shirt to a first date b/c they think it's cool and will impress others (I am of course again only referring to observations I have made.) it is only with practice that you'll learn to not talk about your cute dog for the entire date or talk about how cool it is that a certain building was designed by an architect that no one has heard of. For geeks on the opposite side of the chatty spectrum, practice talking to ppl you aren't familiar with. For many woman I think they will assume a guy who says very little or has very short responses is not interested in them. Or that you're boring. Either way, bad news. Maybe they'll think you're a good listener if you're lucky but if you don't even know how to nod or make odd affirmative grunting noises at the correct spots in a conversation this is going to be a rough journey.
So lets recap the sitch, you've asked out someone you've liked for a long time and they've agreed to a date. Assuming they are the barrel of awesome you think they are, do you want to bring your A game or your “I haven't read the directions” game to that first date? You generally don't get redos on first impressions so do your homework beforehand and practice, practice, practice.
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