Date a Geek, It's Awesome

When I was younger, I totally wanted to date someone who looked like this:

But now that I'm supposedly more mature I recognize how ridiculously immature and shortsighted that was. As an adolescent and maybe even into my early twenties I really wanted the quintessential hot guy who met conventional standards of awesomeness. Most of the guys who looked like this in high school are now pot-bellied and balding (perhaps from too much partying). And if they still look like this, they are probably in finance.

The truth is, a guy like this is usually deficient in one or more areas necessary for sustaining a realistic, long-term partnership where you feel peace of mind. A douche may be awesome in theory but do you really want to marry one? If he isn't working at Stop and Shop right now and he's made it to business school, he's probably roaming, or not very good in the sack (especially if women have been tossing themselves at him for a very long time and he no longer has to try). Or he's dumb as rocks and not very interesting (yawn). Needless to say, there's not very much benefit for you in the long run and you'll end up hauling most of the water in the relationship. So what if you can flash him on your arm to your girl friends and obtain temporary ego massage? You'll still be the one to go home to the guy (or to an empty home) at the end of the day.

By contrast, dating a geek is awesome. Geeks are hot. In fact, I think geeks are so hot that I will pay homage to the ones I salivate over here:



             
                      Jon Stewart. OMG.                                   

Adam Brody. OMG. SO HAWT.

Dave Morin. SWOON. He created Path. I wish I could create shit like this. 

 Intelligence, integrity, and enough strength of character to be interesting and geeky are pretty much at the top of my list. It's sexy to me when a guy is smarter than I am and has greater strength of character than I do. You want a man who will make money, be responsible, and care for you so that you can go on to be supported in your own life and career and raise well-adjusted children. My favorite persuasion are engineers because they fix my stuff and are practical, intelligent beings that steady my emotions and assuage my illogical fears. Because they spend hours, days, years, debugging code, seeking new solutions, and patiently learning new skills, they are very patient and treat you very well in a relationship. For instance, if I complain about lack of progress on a project, my boyfriend will code some of it up. If I complain that my head hurts, he will run out to the drugstore and get aspirin. If the wipers on my car are broken, he will calmly replace them. Since my boyfriend has photographic memory, he is even able to compensate for my spaciness by recalling phone numbers, receipt numbers, and addresses on the spot. Hotness fades with time, but character does not.

If you can snag a geek, hold on. Hold on while you can!

Be Dork Fabulous

I absolutely adore Zooey Deschanel. Her infectious girlishness, those saucer eyes, and that spaced out voice are all so very endearing. And I'm not alone. While many women hate her for feminist reasons (http://femthreads.com/2012/02/05/why-all-the-hate-on-zooey-deschanel/) men absolutely adore her.

This is because she is dork fabulous. I don't care if catty women complain that she is a thirty-something who acts like a child. Who cares if she started a blog called "Hello Giggles," tweets about kittens, or wears sparkly headbands. The woman knows how to get what she wants and has achieved more in one lifetime than most women will ever achieve. She's a successful actress, singer, song-writer, entrepreneur, and inspirational role model for victims of bullying. Her greatest scandal was when the press got a hold of her financial information following her divorce and she was upheld as an uncharacteristically frugal and generous Hollywood denizen. She's on top of the world, and the remarkable part is that she remains unabashedly herself (and has probably gotten this far by doing so). Just take a look at this video of her playing the ukulele with Joseph Gordon-Levitt on New Year's Eve. She is so adorkably cute!

As I've mentioned before, women are a lot harder on each other than men are on them. For mysterious reasons, women are given to painstaking worship of polish and perfection. My theory is that nature has cursed us with an internal brain drill that fires off irrationally and tells us unnecessarily negative things (especially when it gets closer to that time of the month). To some degree, it's this perfectionism, desire to meet high standards, and desire to please that makes us incredibly resourceful workers and mothers. Magazines like Vogue and Better Homes and Gardens sell well because they cater to our predilection for polish and perfection.

But I'll let you in on a secret- men don't really care. Much like their preference for utility over aesthetics, they prefer accessibility over perfection. In fact, they'd probably prefer someone who wasn't Martha Stewart if that meant getting nagged less. While women worship other women who seem polished, put-together, and not socially awkward, men adore a woman who is confident enough to embrace her vulnerable, imperfect, inner dork. This means a woman who is okay with being who she really is apart from social conventions, has her own interests, and expresses the idiosyncrasies and quirks that make her unique (so that he feels he has snagged someone special). At the end of the day, you probably want someone who loves you for who you really are anyway. Be weird, be off. Whatever. Be your dork fabulous self. 

Physical signs a guy is into you

As I've mentioned in the past, a guy will decide within 2 seconds of meeting you ("Ladder Theory and Why It Takes 2 Seconds for a Guy") whether he is into you or not. This interest may wane with time if your personality ruins your  mystique  but you've actually got a lot of leeway if you meet a man's physical criterion for attractiveness (refer to "Stop Reading Cosmo, the Bar is Low" for a deeper dive).

As part of my commitment to helping women obtain the best men they can snag this New Year 2013, I will divulge a list of tell tale signs a man is into you. If you know whether a man is into you or not, it becomes much easier to move things along:

1) He will actually light up in your presence.
 
I love this about men. They are so cute and straightforward! If a man is into you, a noticeable glow will suffuse his countenance the minute he sees you. He will barely be able to contain his enthusiasm. The "glow" manifests in a more animated demeanor, an irrepressible smile, and increased chattiness with the guy chum he has brought along. If a man lights up in your presence it is a very beautiful thing. Simply beam back and return the effusive greeting to make his joy complete.
 
2) His pupils dilate.
 
If a man is interested in you, he will force himself to be interested in what you are saying. You don't even have to be saying anything substantial for him to be super interested. Just hearing the sound of your voice and admiring the way you flip your hair may be enough for him to stay captivated. Watch this video where Hugh Grant attempts to pick up Rachel Weisz on New Year's Eve in "About a Boy" for a demonstration:  

3) He will make excuses to be near you.

Unless he is very shy, a man will come through hell and high-water to be near you. He will strategically sit next to you, engage you in conversation to cock-block the dude sitting on the other side, and think of all sorts of ways to arrange a future meeting. Even a very shy man will plot and plan for ways to be near you or see you again. Trust me.

4) He will make excuses to touch you.

A playful poke, pat on the shoulders, or hug. Any of these are signs that he is physically attracted. If a man is into you he will crack jokes and make you laugh, tease you, or be the first person there to hold you up when you stumble so that he can find the appropriate touch point.

If a man doesn't display any of these signs, then he is not that into you. Happy hunting and here's to a New Year!