PSA: geek relationships

[mrissa]

This came up in Numb3rs and then again in House, so I'm sort of feeling like it needs saying:

Geeks! You are allowed to talk about your work on a date!

No, really. You're not allowed to be boring about your work on a date. But you're also not allowed to be boring about your family, your reading material, your friends, personal anecdotes, travel plans, etc.

Deciding in advance that you're not going to talk about work when you are mutually interested in work is silly, silly, silly. Far better to get to having a comfortable, interesting conversation about work that mutates into a comfortable, interesting conversation about other things than to try to force the conversation in ways it won't naturally go.

When I lived with three other women physics students the summer I was doing research in Ohio, we were hanging around in our pajamas eating popcorn and getting to know each other. We were hoping to be friends extending beyond our work. And we did not set ground rules for the conversation about not talking about work. As a result, the conversation flowed from "bad boyfriend" stories to "bad lab partner" stories to "I dated my lab partner and what a bad idea that was" stories without lots of artificial starts and stops, and in talking about those things we ended up talking about our families and our groups of friends back home and the things we liked other than physics, and it was good. And no, that was not a date, but I'm pretty skeptical of rules of dating that treat "people one might date" as a completely separate category from "people one might be friends with."

Comments

[miz-hatbox.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I personally love hearing people talk about things that excite them. I went to a university that specialized in geek educations, and there was a guy I dated there for several years who was majoring in Computer Engineering and loving it. Anyway, during his senior year he took a course on semiconductors that covered a lot of ground on doping silicon to create semiconductors. And he was SO excited about this. How excited? The course was during winter/spring semester and he spent our Valentine's Day dinner explaining how to make a NAND gate. Or maybe that was the time he explained how you could make all other gates out of a combination of NAND gates--I forget exactly.

Now, you might say that G should have chosen his subjects more wisely but the point is that I really enjoyed hearing him explain it because his eyes lit up when he talked about it. Perhaps I am a special case but I do not think so. I can put up with just about any topic if someone is passionate about it because passion often means that they won't be boring--because they want to communicate how exciting and wonderful the subject is.

But more importantly, G was also familiar with Important Conversational Rules such as:
a) once in a while you should make sure your date still wants to listen to you go on.
b) even if they say that you should continue, you do not go on for excessively long.
c) you also ask your date what's up with them, and listen raptly to your date's stories.


So I think you should be able to get away with talking about work provided that you love your work, and that you follow the above rules. But if you are unable to make your passion for your work shine through, or if you have no passion for your work, or if you don't know the Important Conversational Rules, then maybe it is best to steer clear.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I think if you don't know those important conversational rules or are otherwise not good at being interesting on subjects about which you're passionate, that's a problem in itself, and one worthy of attention, rather than one worthy of rerouting to blander topics.

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

There's knowing the rules, which is pretty important. And then there's being able to read the tone of voice, body language, and other clues that actually tell you that the other person is not so okay with where the conversation is. Some people are much worse at that than other people.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes. And I do see the value of giving guidelines to people who would have difficulty spotting that sort of thing on their own, whether it's because of neurological issues or personality traits or something else completely. But I feel like the "don't talk shop in romantic settings" rule is more likely to result in frustrated, unhappy people who feel like they are doomed to unsatisfying relationships than in people who successfully find what they're looking for.