Double Blind Experiments in Dating

Hypothesis (prediction before the date): This is actually one of the first men I started talking to when I first signed up for MyLifeIsOverIfIDon’tGetMarriedNextYear.com, but he’s had friends in town so we’ve been asking each other random post-apocalyptic hypotheticals for the past two weeks leading up to the big first meet. I see this guy being a big geek. I expect he loves authors like Terry Pratchett, but I also think he’ll be kind of quiet and maybe reserved.

Materials (the guy, the place, any other variables):

• It’s interesting, because this Subject already reminds me a lot of one of my favorite cousins. During our correspondence he mentioned that he really doesn’t follow sports, and do I see this as being an issue in getting to know each other. Aww how cute! And if we’re telling truth, yes it is. But I assured him that I don’t need to have 100% in common with everyone I meet in order to like them. In reality, I do need any guy I date to love the pigskin, even if it’s the team I like the least detest the most.
• We are going to a bar that is right down the street from where I live to enjoy a few beers together before I split off to meet up with all my single ladies.

Procedures (omg what happened???): Huge shock: I arrived to the bar and instantly started to pretend to text someone, and nearly fell over when he walked up to me and touched my arm, because he looked ABSOLUTELY NOTHING like his profile picture. I’ve ranted about this before, but this Subject takes the cake for choosing a picture that doesn’t even remotely resemble his likeness.

Oh, we talked about the Large Hadron Collider. Of course we did. How could we not? I mean, we’d exhausted robotics small talk and techniques for building biomedical equipment without even the most rudimentary CAD program. So really once we moved past geostationary satellites, DARPA and CERN, the only thing left to talk about was the Large Hadron Collider.

You are so cute! I want to take you home with me and ask you trivia quesitons when Jeopardy! is on...

Appearance aside, this man truly impressed me. He and his dad are building a house together down in a small coastal town south of the City. He lives in the City, in the house he grew up in with his sister, but they never really speak because the residence has been split into a duplex. He works for a pretty big and fancy-schmancy lab, building biomedical equipment for their experiments. He likes beer, which surprised me, because he had trouble making eye contact with the pretty girl across the table from him, even though she was trying so hard to relate to everything he was saying. Did you hear me?!? He couldn’t even look me in the eye for most of the date because he is so geeky-shy.

Results (the good, the bad, and the ugly): Yes, I was right – he is a big nerd. I mean, he’s obviously a smart guy, and I had no trouble relating to him because I am very in touch with my inner geek. That said, this was the first time I felt a twinge of guilt (guilt? Pity. Pity? Indigestion? Possibly indegestion.) because I had a realization about this adorable and slightly dweeby man: I can relate to him on so many levels; but I’ll never be attracted to him because he can barely relate to me. I can talk about computers and gadgets and sci-fi all day, but he’s never taken a keg stand or asked someone their name after kissing them square on the mouth (not that I’ve ever done that… I just tend to be attracted to the kind of guys who have). He’s not a social person, he doesn’t have a big personality to match my big personality, and he knows nothing about celebrity gossip.

Conclusion (overall rating): He’s like the kid in your junior high class who would be cute if he would grow a little confidence, but who would let you copy his answers while you did your homework in class together because he’s just so nice, and that made you think he was adorable, but you’d never date him because he’s really just too awkward. But the bar had a bunch of home brew beer that was good (as long it wasn’t IPA), and I really enjoyed not being the biggest nerd in the room for an hour and a half. He gets a 6.5 because beer and geeks are both high on my list of likes.