Cara: Sometimes I think that geek men regard me as a mysterious creature to be studied though. It's weird. Like I am different from them. I don't feel different.
Dr Nerdlove: It's like this weird sense of Othering. They're intimidated by [women], so they avoid them, but at the same time they want to get with them, and there's these conflicting natures, and then you get the ones that get really resentful of the fact that they are not getting the women they supposedly deserve. A lot of it's just built up in the head and not realising that people are people.
Cara: Sometimes even when I am dating a lovely geek dude they are fucking terrified of doing something wrong, as if I'll run away… They can just talk to me about it.
Dr Nerdlove: They're really afraid. It's like 'I've got this thing, and it's going great, and if I do something wrong, they're gonna leave.' Always feeling like you're having to walk on eggshells because you had to work so hard to get there in the first place.
Cara: And even when they want to not date you, they have a huge amount of trouble telling you so. Sometimes they just avoid you. Pure and simple. No talking. Just running away.
Dr Nerdlove: Nerds are notoriously conflict averse. A lot of us come from backgrounds where we were bullied and we see: conflict is bad, we want to avoid that.
Cara: I read your site a lot and I'm always struck by all these nerd men who think they are somehow undesirable and the bottom of the pile when in fact I know a ton of nerd women who would give their WASD arm to date someone caring and interesting like them. There are all these women out there who are looking for exactly them. They go out of their way to impress women who hate video games when there are ones who love them right there.
Dr Nerdlove: A lot of it is absorbing their own mythology that the geek is the dateless virgin who is no good with women… when in reality lots of women are looking for nerdy intellectual guys. I mean, Joseph Gordon Levitt is the new sex symbol at the moment.
Cara: I always think male nerds have an unnecessary anxiety about their virginity too.
Dr Nerdlove: That's a cultural thing. It's that weird sexual double standard we have: it's so prevalent that there's even a TV trope – you know – A Man Is Not A Virgin, and it's just this anxiety that guys feel, 'Oh I'm supposed to have lost my virginity by X year and if I haven't that means something's wrong – I've missed my window.'
Cara: Men think that this is the thing that they are going to be judged by but I'm not sure I would ever care about it.
Dr Nerdlove: Everyone fetishises virginity, whether it's something to be desired or something to be abhorred. Really when it comes right down to it – I mean there are physical differences – what with women and the hymen and all – but what it all comes down to… is a set of experiences you haven't had yet.
Cara: That's what's really annoying about all this marketing for the Date A Gamer, Shag A Gamer stuff –
Dr Nerdlove: – Yeah I just read their press release – and holy crap is it insulting.
Cara: It is very insulting, and I think the stereotype is really damaging. Obviously it's just a front for a shitty dating website though.
Dr Nerdlove: PCGamesN did a great expose of where it all came from [Steeeeeeeve!]. It's a completely out of the box, prebuilt dating network, with a centralised pool of people, and that's also how Date A Gamer or Date A Ginger (which is part of the site [Cara: Whaaaaaaat?!]) makes their money.
Cara: I hate how predatory it is. And it seemed from what Steve said about Shag A Gamer that it's really hard to leave the subscription.
Dr Nerdlove: Yeah it's like trying to get out of AOL back in the day.
Cara: So, I haven't had that many negative experiences dating gamers, but maybe we should discuss some traits that might actually be undesirable in a single gamer?
Dr Nerdlove: The only undateable aspects of being a gamer is when that's your life – when that's all you do.
Cara: Oh lord yes.
Dr Nerdlove: You get home after school, after work, and you spend all your time in front of World of Warcraft, Modern Warfare, Mass Effect, whatever your gaming flavour is, and you just sit there and piss the day away.
[There's also] the view that gaming is an exclusively male hobby and somehow that makes vagina disappear, when – I don't remember the exact numbers – but WoW alone has a staggering, insane number of subscribers and they are not all dudes. I know people who have met their wives off of WoW.
The other problem with gaming culture – and it's a problem with nerd culture in general – is that it's become unabashedly male, and in a lot of ways kind of misogynistic. Not intentionally so, not out of maliciousness, but more out of ignorance than anything else. Just through the way women are portrayed: women are told constantly that your involvement in this is as a consumable object – you're the player's girlfriend or at the end of the game – the prize at the bottom of the box. And if you're not that then you're the sexy eye candy…
And the whole Miranda Pakodzi thing with Cross Assault – she was one of the better players on the team but she was constantly being harassed by her coach and just nobody was doing anything about it. And her coach came out and said 'Calling women sluts and whores and threatening to rape them – that's all part of gaming culture – you can't take that away from us!' – because whenever you bring up the idea that maybe gamer culture is a little sexist, a little misogynist – maybe you should tone down calling people whore and threatening to rape them… They all freak out about it. …Can't we do this without calling people 'fag' every five seconds or racial slurs?
Cara: Indulgence in those habits are off-putting to women, yeah. Sometimes I feel like I've been so absorbed into this culture that it is taking you to point out to me how bad it is to normalize this behaviour. [Though I guess I did once play Heroes of Newerth and get annoyed.] As for traits that might be desirable in gamers, these days the geek inherits the earth… You make a heck of a lot more money doing something nerdy than you would doing something else, so these days it's the geeks and not the jocks that hold all the power, and power and ambition is as attractive in a man as it is in a woman.
Dr Nerdlove: Now you've got the glory days where the jocks are working at a used car lot and all the nerds are going on to invent Facebook. We create the summer blockbusters.
Cara: Do you get a lot of guys who ask for advice on how to meet nerdy women?
Dr Nerdlove: Yeah, all the time. I get a lot of questions about how to talk to women and still be a nerd. It's just that you don't roll out being a nerd like it's a problem. Just be able to have a normal conversation about topics beyond your narrow scope of interests. For the longest time the only thing I wanted to talk about was anime and comic books and video games – “Wait, why are you walking away?” At the time that's all I cared about. I wasn't really going out having an interesting life.
Cara: You focus on advice for men, but do you get a lot of emails from women?
Dr Nerdlove [slightly smugly]: I do. The site focuses mainly on men because there are more resources out there for women. Women are socialised to talk about their dating lives – there's entire industries out there dedicated to helping women get better – books, magazines (bad ones like Cosmo), TV shows, whereas with guys you're taught that if you're not good with women, then you're a loser and there's nothing you can do about it. But worse if you admit that you're not good with women, then you're an even bigger loser. And this really seems to be the only area where guys are told that this is a binary thing – you're good with women or not good with women. You don't really see men saying at basketball, “Oh man you're not good a basketball, why are you practicing?”
Cara: There's a binary thing that goes on with women as well where we're told by cultural discourse that we are either attractive looking, or not attractive looking and the latter means no deal. We're often treated like inert objects that men examine rather than talk to as an equal, so we're never really encouraged to approach a man – which I guess must add to the pain of being a shy nerd guy.
Dr Nerdlove: It's all entice them to come to you, rather than go and ask them.
Cara: Exactly.
Dr Nerdlove: Women are taught to put others' concerns and feelings over their own. Don't get too confrontational about something or too assertive about something or you might hurt a guy's feelings. …But as women are writing in more, I tailor more information specifically to them and a couple of times, information that applies regardless of gender. …Women ask me a lot of the same questions guys do, like… what do I do on this date or why doesn't this dude call me back. The one thing I get really often is 'Why do guys find me intimidating and what can I do about that?'
Cara: Oh. Hey. I've never said that before.
Dr Nerdlove: It's one of the cases where you say, 'well, why are they finding you intimidating?' 'Because I'm smart and assertive.' Well you have two choices: you can either pretend to be less assertive and less intelligent, or you could keep looking for guys who are able to handle smart and intelligent women. That can be a hard answer, because it's a lot of, 'Yeah it's gonna suck. HANG IN THERE.' [Aw man.] I think it's starting to change, I think men are really starting to appreciate the equality of the sexes more, and I think pop culture is starting to lead the way there – Buffy, Katniss. Women can be the heroes, women can save their own ass.
Cara: I still find that rare in video games. We have Lara who is really for men, and Jade from Beyond Good and Evil at a pinch. I did like Bayonetta though.
Do you ever get an email from some guy and an email from some girl and you just wanna hook them up?
Dr Nerdlove: I am actually really tempted by that, but I just see LAWSUIT [when it goes wrong].
Cara: What’s your most frequent question?
Dr Nerdlove: “I like this girl, how do I get her to go out with me?”
Cara: Hmm. I guess just ask. Do you have any questions for me…?
Dr Nerdlove [thinks, then comes up with the most comic book nerd question of all]: Um…. What’s Kieron Gillen like?
Cara: He is very popular with teenage boys.
Thank you for your time. At ease, Doc.
Header image credit: Bodies of Art Tumblr
Cara works in games production and is a regular contributor to RockPaperShotgun.com. You can find her on Twitter at @Carachan1
