Below is a tumblr thread from women about dating judgmental male nerds. Let me just preface it by saying #notallmen, lol. You don’t need to correct this because it’s already stated here for you: this article is not saying ALL male nerds are like this. It is specifically talking about the whiney, judgy assbabies who are still going around calling women “fake geek girls” based on their perceived level of attractiveness. In fact even most geek boys don’t do this, most are just happy to meet someone with similar interests. But unfortunately there are still enough angry dudes out there that we’re still having this discussion.
So if you grew up as a nerd / geek in the previous few decades you were probably bullied. Male or female, that’s just a fact and it sucks. But seriously, there’s no point in taking it out on women today just because you’ve decided they are somehow responsible for your pain. That’s just plain old misogyny and it makes you an asshole.
Female geeks have always been here. We’ve always been part of the sub-culture, we helped build it (read: Women Who Shaped Geek Culture) and we are here to stay. There are legions of us and we’re not rare unicorns. We’re just humans who happen to be passionate about geeky things. So in conclusion, just don’t be a judgmental asshole.
Anyway, here is the tumblr thread about dating male nerds:
(via: Vellum and Vinyl)
Devaluing those who invalidate you is an understandable, if astonishingly self-defeating strategy to maintain a sense of self. Personally, I don’t view people who do this as “assholes”, more as people who would do well to develop more effective emotion regulation and interpersonal skills. While it isn’t pleasant to find yourself on the receiving end of this kind of resentfulness, engaging in the same sort of thing yourself just fulfils the prophecy and perpetuates the problem. If you honestly believe that you hold the moral high ground, then it might be a good idea to walk the walk.
There are plenty of male geeks out there who aren’t assholes, as well. Generalizing like that, labeling a majority of a group unfairly because of the loud minority, is pretty close to them assuming you aren’t a member of a group because of your gender. I find it utterly ridiculous—and always have—that there are geeks who have such a backwards point of view, but I know they are there and have met them. But I’ve also met women who think I am pure evil and cannot be trusted to tie my own shoes because I am a man (no, seriously, that’s being generous).
Though, if I may make the distinction here… geeks are people who “geek out” over something (like Star Wars or LotR or ANYTHING really) while nerds are people with academic knowledge about a variety of subjects (and are generally a less a-hole-ridden group in my experience.)
Males stole My Little Pony from little girls.
Originally males would’ve been laughed at if they watched it and owned pony toys.
The old ‘skinny and bony’.
Look, I don’t normally comment on these posts, but I just have to put my own two cents in here. (Post rant edit: Sorry about the length, I guess it was more like two dollars…)
I’m a nerd from way back. I mean so far back that I remember when Episode 4 was in the theaters and I was lucky enough to see it there. I’ve been bullied all through high school (actually even longer than that), had very few friends (although close ones) and done the whole “woe is me” line before, and it really did get me nowhere. Eventually I came to the realization in my senior year at HS and even more in college (MIT if you want to know) that I was my own person, and that just had to be good enough for me. Needless to say that even coming to that “revelation” didn’t make it instantly easy street from then on. I did not get married until my mid 40’s, and to this day I am still a strong introvert (although I am able to compensate well enough that people don’t always realize) who still likes stuff that my wife has no interest in sharing with me. That said, we do have things we enjoy in common (eg. my wife absolutely ADORES Grogu and The Mandalorian), and just like she does things without me, I do some things without her too (loved seeing The Dark Crystal in the theaters when it came back).
That said, I am also lucky enough to find the proverbial hidden diamond. You might think that I’m talking about my wife, but honestly I’m not. Before you get the wrong idea, I’m talking about my daughter. Now she’s not my biological daughter, she’s my wife’s child from her previous marriage. When I met her, she was only 11, but she loved some pretty nerdy things (Star Trek, Star Wars, video games, etc.) and for her, that was okay. I have been told that I have been a good influence on her, and that showing her that I liked some of the things she did, but the one thing I made sure she understood was that whatever she liked was a good thing, no matter how many or how few also liked it. I’m honestly not sure if I said it directly or if it was just by being myself and enjoying my own stuff, but apparently she took it to heart and really forged her own path in the world. To be fair, I really feel that this is more on her than on me, and I was just lucky to be around to give her a safe space to explore her own interests, and I have seen her grow up to be a beautiful woman who is a beacon to the world. You might think that I’m exaggerating like any proud father, but I’m being surprisingly direct here. In her short 26 years, I have seen her (1) befriend another girl who was VERY odd (she identified as a wolf) and gave her the support she needed to come out of her shell, (2) start a secret society by simply choosing to do her own thing in the face of the group going in a different direction (which still gets talked about with reverence to this day in the said group, and few knew it was her who started it), and (3) stand up to a large corporate bully on behalf of her town while in a position of power, getting maligned and sued by said company, and even losing her position possibly because of backroom politics, but still continues to stand up and make her voice known. These are just a few things that our little “nerd” has done in the world, and I’m honestly not exaggerating about any of these, and she is beautiful to boot. (Okay, I’m a little biased, but she really is tall and good looking objectively speaking.) To this day, she still enjoys many things outside the mainstream (she loves some interesting anime, was very into Doctor Who for a while, plays D&D on a regular basis, and loves the natural sciences) and she is confident enough with herself that she doesn’t care what anyone else thinks (even her mom sometimes). I know she’s a unicorn, and even she knows she’s a unicorn, and we are both very proud of it.
In a nutshell, or possibly in a huge nut orchard at this point, those people exist, and to try to make yourself feel better by belittling them is at best going to cost you a possibly wonderful friend, and at worst make them rethink their beliefs and rob the world of another possible unicorn. To put it in terms of the environment, because she would love the parallels, just because the species is endangered doesn’t mean that they need to be locked away, or the species may just die out. Unicorns shouldn’t have to cut off their own horns just so they can be accepted by those who can only understand horses…
Living without love and affection for a long time will naturally cause resentment. Much like the homeless guy on the streets, their problems are too big for you to fix, but they deserve pity and mercy all the same. Being unloved is just as terrible a burden to bear as it sounds like it is.