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Programmers Ain't Gettin' Any 417

Posted by Roblimo from the but-money-can't-buy-me-love-oh-no-no-no dept.
Szoup writes "Wired has online a piece (no pun intended) under their culture news about how the sex life of tech employees -- mainly programmers -- suffers due to the demands and amount of time their work takes away from them. Like I needed to be told this?" Update: here's another take on the subject from newtimesla.com.
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Programmers Ain't Gettin' Any More

Programmers Ain't Gettin' Any

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  • Yea, I hear they exist, but I am still to see proof, or at least local proof. NO geek girls are located in my area, there are only a couple computer nerds in the first place, and I seem to be almost a leader. It's a sad sad world. My point, there may be some, but not many, and the diaspora of geek girls seems harsh on my area.
  • If you're female things are good? Are you from Mars or something? :)

    Frankly, I can't imagine that there are a whole lot of geek girls out there hankering for jobs they're not qualified for so that they can fulfill some recruiter's misplaced crush or be ogled by a staff of trolls.

  • Another VaTech CS major here....the wierd thing is that in my two years here so far I've managed to actually have a social life outside of the CS department but never meet anyone in any of my classes....and you are right....there are cute CS girls....they just generally don't bother with CS guys....

    A recently dumped CS guy who's bored at work

  • Y'know, I have NO sympathy for you... "I'm lonely and shy, but I'm afraid the woman who likes me might not be young or pretty enough for me".

    It sounds like you're not getting any because you are too busy looking at pr0n and looking at models to even notice when a worthwhile real-life woman comes your way. My first serious girlfriend was 15 years older than me (I was 21 at the time), and though we broke up, she is still one of the most amazing people I've ever met.

    Just because a woman is 40 does NOT mean she is married or boring. I know plenty of single middle-aged women who are active as artists, writers, and musicians (everything from poetry to punk), travel a lot, are smart, witty, and funny, and REALLY REALLY good in bed. But you'd never notice, because, gee, you are too busy living in the whirlwind excitement of programming, playing computer games, and listening to cool music.

  • hey "skywalker"!
    looks like we have 2/5 of the CS girls at tech (according to egon) on this post now! and.. i wouldn't consider either of us all that bad looking! and egon, if you read this, she's right!! there ARE some good looking girls in the CS department, all you have to do is look around! it's not hard to spot us in the classrooms since we stick out like sore thumbs in a sea of male students. also, tech is a great school for parties!! you can meet LOTS of girls there, you ARENT doomed because you're a CS major, you're doomed because you're cynical about being a CS major.
  • Yup, the 3rd type can be the best. My GF is a Math/CS double major, isn't quite as geeky as I am, but hell, her nick is smiley if that gives you some idea of her character.

    Doug
  • Oh yeah? You think your CS classes are so bad? Try
    placing out of the first semester and taking
    second semester courses in the fall. The
    permanent-6-month-offset means you're classes are
    full of a few bright kids (all guys) and a whole
    bunch of flunkees (all guys).
  • Spending money on women can be a good thing. I bought a Dell Inspiron 7000 last November and boy did I get some! With some women, bigger is better. And when you bring home a 15-incher, the rest takes care of itself ;-).

  • Heh... of course it's different, as long as you're coding for yourself!

    When I'm not busy programming for work, or *ahem* socializing *ahem* with my fiancee, I'm usually writing my own software. Right now, I'm developing an Intellivision emulator for Linux. :-)

    (That is, as soon as I unpack the computer. We just moved into a bigger place so that we can move the computers out of the bedroom and have more room for both computer and bedroom fun.... ;-) )

    --Joe

    --
  • This thread cracked me up, you guys/girls. The best part is that it's all public and you can't retract ANYTHING!! :)

    I noticed your sig includes the name "Skywalker" and I'm curious if you've heard of the Mark Hamill Entertainment Site [virtualave.net] maintained by my sister. Probably not--I know there are lots of MH fan sites, but who knows?!
  • arrrgh.. i feel terrible now

    that was my First Post to slashdot. arrgh. i didnt know EVERYONE went here. arrgh. :-(

    well i guess my secret's out.. im a sexually frustrated nerd.. and yes, i was exaggerating when i said that about the girls in the CS class.. some do look pretty good. well i hope you guys dont hate me now..

    in conclusion.. i wish i hadn't written that first post.. but look at all of those responses underneath.. wierd, huh? i thought i'd get first post. argh. well, im sorry everybody.. especially u, T. dont hate me, pleeeeze!!! :o( it's a trying time for us cs majors. we're struggling!! and it's not a good thing.
  • Well I'm a virgin until marriage type of guy .. and my girlfriend is .. well, not necessarily begging for it, but she is convinced that she wouldn't stop me if I wanted it from her. There are plenty of things we can do to stay occupied, however, and there is certainly nothing wrong with waiting for marriage.

  • People who are all about "sports, drinking beer, and getting laid" are not any more well rounded than people who are all about "hacking, Quaking, and geeking out". What they are is more socially adept. Sorry to say this, but sports, drinking, and getting laid are generally social events. People who do this a lot, are going to be better at it.

    Does it mean that we are worse at being romantic, and caring, and good in bed? No, certainly not. Does it mean we're worse at picking up chicks at bars, and generally socializing? The answer is, saddly, yes. I believe that a widespread lack of social graces would lead people to think that we're not as well rounded as other people, when in reality the problem is that most geeks aren't into the same things as the people who are assuming we're not well rounded.

  • despite the impression that this story is a 'non-issue' (after all, any job that places greater demands on your waking hours will curb your opportunities for R&R and that is each individuals decision whether they seek balnce or not), I was temporarily pondering over the percentage of guys or gals that get immersed in computers simply cause they ain't "getting any" in the first place. Snowball effect once you start introverting your lifestyle. You do what you know. blah blah blah. get off the box and go out and get some. My awakening was a girlfriend that turned me on... (and introduced me to computers too!)
  • I am a woman. Hope I could be referred to as a hacker :)

    but to be truthful, there aren't that many out there. I may have to room with a guy friend (of course there's always my boyfriend :) ) simply because I don't know any girls at UC Berkeley that hack /anything/. I'm sure they're out there, but I just haven't met any of them, though I have to admit that I don't have much of a social life, as I just keep working until my bf reminds me to stop and eat or something. Signifigant MOTAS's are essential simply to keep one from working /all/ the time. Now I have a life, and a job too :)

    Lea
  • Ug, That is why we made Las Vegas.

    They have "Ranches" for people who can't get any.

    Latest thing I heard is that the Mustang Ranch, which is now owned by the Feds (the owner didn't pay his taxes), is due to be shut down. I guess the bluenoses won out over the profit motive, which is easy to do when you're using the taxpayer's money and not your own. Excuse me while I puke.
  • well, I think whether you're single or not has a lot to do with your attitude, Egon. I'm female, and while I'm not single, and haven't been for a while, I can tell you that there are single, attractive (as far as the guys tell me what is attractive.. personally I don't really notice or care at all) and smart women out there. Not all of them will be CS majors, but there are people who are interested in a lot of things, and chose to pursue something besides CS. I have a mechE as a bf, and he teases me about loving to hack, and I tease him right back.

    I guess all I'm trying to say is open your horizons! we are out there, but it's quite true that you'll stay single for the rest of your life if you always act like that. for now I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you act like that, trust me, you won't get what you want.

    Lea
  • >being a CS major, there's like 5 girls in my whole class at Va Tech...

    I also go to VA Tech (majoring in CS), but the dilemma I have is that I don't think they're any girls left in my classes; there were some in previous years, but they all seem to be gone by now... Is my only recourse to take Sociology and the like?

    Alex
    ---

  • I haven't got some for over a week -- and I'm married!
    ---
  • I think a lot of geeks are like me - rather frightfully keen on finding women, but without the tools it takes to locate them. I'd say I know less than 20 people who live in the same city as I, since I spend most of my time typing stuff in an office with few people in it (and no women at all).

    Between 1987 and 1991, I ran a local BBS that had matchmaking features. Although there were about ten men for every woman, I managed to date and meet a decent number of girls. Life was good. Sadly, the world of the Internet seems to have made us closer to people in other cities and states than ones on our own back yards. For instance, I created Wonderful Women of the Web [ http://www.wonderful-women.com/ ] to showcase the talents of interesting women on the web. Naturally, I did manage to get close to a few women that way, but all of them were thousands of miles away. Through mailing lists, I managed an intense flirtation with a very shy but sexy girl in Canada, but she vanished abruptly before I got to meet her.

    So online flirtation used to work far better than it does now. The Internet's great for information, but lousy for anything requiring physical meetings. In theory, with more women going online, things should get better. But in practice, physical distance winds up keeping people apart.

    I think another problem is that we don't get well-rounded views of people - we're all in our little niches here on the net. We can discuss geek stuff here, digital video on my digital video forum, etc, but there's no place where we can get together as people.

    Thoughts? I got the resources (T1 line, etc) to set up something if I had some good ideas as to what it should be.

    D

    ----
  • What platform you got? Bed, dining room table, stairs, boss's desk :-)

  • ...depends on what you're trying to produce.

  • Re:$$ (Score:1)

    by chialea ( 8009 )
    hmm. well. now that I know that what I want is $$, I guess I should go dump my bf for someone who makes more $$, yes?

    yes, money helps grease some wheels. it is hard to be romantic if you're not eating or worrying about the rent. however, what I really want and need is a little bit of time and affection. I don't give a damn about money or fancy presents, except as a token of thoughtfulness (and I like no-cost thoughtful things much better). I'm sure I'm not alone, especially in the geek community. Not only do we make our OWN money to buy our OWN toys, but we are not trophies.

    most of my guy friends agree that we're the best kind :)

    Lea
  • being a CS major, there's like 5 girls in my whole class at Va Tech... and 4 are ugly... :-( damn... well, at least i'll have a good job.. even if it means i'll be single the rest of my life.. oh well, it's a compromise, i guess...

    Maybe if i'm famous like Gates (or Rich like him) women wouldn't look at me as a 'programmer', but rather as a 'moneybags rich guy'. eh, worth a try.. ;-) please dont call me pathetic.. u know you were thinking it, too...
  • Why would that be important? (It's about 50/50.)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • about my time on the computer or our sex life.

    I just need to inflate her once and a while :)
  • I don't believe in 14 hour days, and 7 day weeks. I work to live, I don't live to work.
  • Right on Brother. CPE is THE major a VT
  • If you just wanna get screwed, go to the
    pros. If you want to have a meaningful
    relationship, and prefer tech over it,
    you should go tech, not screwing somebody
    elses' life.

    Still, I sometimes miss tech as it used to
    be for me..
  • [Sometimes, I question myself if I was ever a nerd or geek, but I'll try this writeup anyways...]

    What makes me a nerd:
    • I built my own computer, and knows what to do to make it run as long as possible.
    • I work in the "internet café" in my college, as an assisstant if somebody has some problems with the computers
    • I occasionally play computer games. I have to get back to "Starsiege: Tribes" more often.


    What makes me "not nerdy enough:"

    • I haven't try Linux officially yet. I'll install everything when I get home from my vacation... I have the RedHat distribution CD-ROM's already.
    • I hated programming class and calculus in college. I'm more into the hardware aspects of a computer than the software.
    • My job (in its current schedule) gives me time to relax in the weekends. I can see myself working on assignments, fencing, TV/Radio stuff next semester...
    • If you can see my wardrobe, you can see a healthy amount of computer-product-related t-shirts (a few from a Java convention), a Novell anti-piracy shirt, and so on. But you will also see a business suit. I'm not going to treat that suit as an interview-only suit, but something to be work in my regular wardrobe rotation.
    • I should lay off the "in the privacy of my own home" sex stuff often.


    What makes me "not nerd-like at all:"

    • I'm into getting out of the house more often. I live in New York City, so I can drop by in Manhattan, and do anything to my heart's content.
    • I have a budding interest of watching shows in and outside Broadway. I am recently getting flak from a few "outsiders" for being into computers and the performing arts without being gay or something. It's like they're forcing me back into my home office or something...
    • I think I am the only person who can survive listening to showtunes and metal.


    Well, do I have any hope in finding a gf? Will I? Am I too reclusive? Are my interests too limited? Who knows?
  • I agree, sue.

    what is this guy THINKING??? so far, the only thing I have gotten out of being female is the odd bit of sexism. I may be unusual, but it's not a helpful thing, in many ways.

    we shall see what happens when I need a job for more than a summer...

    Lea

  • When I saw the subject ``Quote from Hackers'' I thought it was going to be ``I hope you don't screw like you type.''
  • Ah, you kids have it all mixed up.

    Geek chicks are the best out there. They're usually just enough warped to be interesting, usually really smart (big plus in my book!), and usually pretty cute -- much more so, in my experience, than another segregated group of women... And confirming a couple other comments, I've known a lot of women who rather enjoyed men talking about their hardware :)

    Can't beat Angelina Joli in Hackers (as pathetic as the movie was!) ;)

    Seriously though, its all in your attitude! There are the introverted geeks who may not have the most active of social lives, but there are certainly the extroverted geeks out there that are very sociable, and have no trouble meeting like-minded women.

    Reminds me of a little essay about tradeshow... *ahem* "action"... I read after Web98. Can't remember who wrote it off the top of my head though.
  • I haven't quite figured this one out. My roommate and I go out to the local bar/club and these are the kinds of guys that we find:

    1) Geek from out of town who is in town on business and looking to get some before he heads home. Has buddies mention his salary in passing. Thinks that geek girl (aka "me") will be impressed and really care.

    2) Non-geeks. May be cute or not so cute, but usually have occupations such as car salesman or roofer and hobbies such as football and picking up chicks. Usually get a blank look and a comment such as "so you're pretty smart, huh" when the topic of occupations comes up.

    Of course, being in the realm of IT you would think that the IT office would be the ideal ground for the Geek Chick to find Geek Boy. I say, it isn't so. At my office, there are 2 kinds of men:

    1) Much older
    2) Married

    (and usually both apply) Good thing that I've got my array of local friends not from work or I'd have no social life.

    And then there is the eversopopular Internet. There is a plethora of Geek Boys to be found, and they usually propogate in areas such as Slashdot. However, finding the Mr. Ideal Geek Man through these methods can be described as arduous and slow. This is because of the types of men found on the Internet.

    Type 1. Far away
    Type 2. In the same town
    Type 3. In a different town but close enough that I might drive by there sometime.

    Obviously, type 2 is the ideal to find, although there have been many couples who found romance with type 3 or even type 1. Once a guy is found who is type 2, then they fall into these categories:

    A) The I don't get any normally, so if you're cute wanna come over? The answer: bzzt no. I can get banged any day of the week, you're nothing special.

    B) The I'm married but unhappy so looking for some extra loving. The answer: bzzt no. Geek chicks with jobs don't need a sugar daddy, and again - I can get banged any day of the week, you're nothing special.

    C) The geek at first but after he finds out that Geek Chick is cute, turns into type A. What happened to the Microsoft/Linux debates? The interesting discussions on the current techie news?

    D) The sickening sweet romantic geek who is in desperate search for a girlfriend, but is actually just looking for someone to follow like a puppy dog. Will joyfully send romantic little text pages back and forth all day, but eventually becomes a little too clingy. Usually passes the intelligence test and half the personality test, but usually fails the "little something extra special, that is usually a combination of the personality/intelligence/looks". Usually ends up as "just a geek friend".

    E) The hardcore geek man. Will joyfully discuss anything computer related, and strike awe in the hearts of anyone aspiring to be a True Geek. Unfortunately, the hardcore geek man strives only to be Mega-geek and has forgotten the female side of the species. All sexual hormones have transfered into the computer hardware somewhere and are probably residing in the form of binary code at http://www.sex.com.

    Obviously, if the only way to meet Mr Ideal Geek is through the Internet, the single Geeks need to get out a little more. Geek Chicks ARE out there, searching for the Geek Man, but are failing to find them. Not all Geek Chicks are ugly or taken! Some are just a little pickier and are trying to find the right combination of Geek.

    :)
  • It ends in "x". It's gotta be a new UNIX kernel.
  • course i don't hate you egon! but of course i had to get on your case about a comment like that. ya think its hard for male CS geeks? try being a girl! it works both ways. if you're a geek, people think you don't have a social life. if you have a social life and do other things outside of computers, you cant be a CS geek..(this goes for guys too, but i've noticed it commented on more for us).. and don't stop posting to slashdot cuz me and "cutecschic" are getting on your case (she's a good friend of mine too).. you can get some valuable stuff off here...
  • High correlation does NOT mean a direct relataion. It means that the two facts occur with great frequency.

  • I believe that a widespread lack of social graces would lead people to think that we're not as well rounded as other people

    And precisely WHICH social graces would these be?

    OK, here's where I'm coming from. I'm female, first of all, and I'm also bi, and from college onward I haven't had any real problems with getting a date (other than the occasional crushes on gay men and straight women, but that's neither here nor there). My boyfriend (student-geek-in-training) and I are about to celebrate our one-year anniversary at Pennsic.

    I did get the "chance" to see "how the other half lives," and I don't like it. I don't call the truly BAD pick-up lines I've received in the past from less "geeky" sorts "social graces," I call them rude behavior. I also don't see a whole lot of "social grace" in an older guy taking an underage girl to the bar and getting her drunk in the hopes of "getting some" later.

    Not to say that meaningless sex and/or sex with someone who is "just a friend" and/or one night stands are inherently bad (I've experienced all three). But from my experience, most tech-types that I've known don't want something superficial, and some of them haven't figured out how to invest the energy in something that won't be superficial. And I don't call picking up chicks and watching football "social grace." Far form it.

    In my experience, "geeks" have MORE class, not less. A pickup line that actually worked on me was "Do you mind if I flirt with you for a little while?" I didn't mind, and we're still together. "Nice boots, wanna fuck?" would not have had the same effect. :P
  • ...its what you do with it...

  • On the other hand, it is possible for a geek to be both massively productive and in a wonderful relationship. At least, that's the impression I get from the diaries of Mr. and Mrs. Cox.
    http://www.linux.org.uk/diary/
    (for the one /. reader who doesn't have this URL bookmarked ...). Telsa needles him quite a bit for his sleep and work habits, but on the whole they seem to lead a nicely balanced life whilst being in the center of the Linux Revolution. Of course, all I know is what I read on the Internet ...

    I'm still in college, so I haven't yet been exposed to the full brunt of the Big Bad World. But from my experience thus far and what others have told me, to be both a hard-workin' geek and in a committed, healthy relationship simultaneously simply requires that one get one's priorities in order and learn to manage one's work. Only do what is most important at work--don't live completely by the seat of your pants. And recognize that there is another person in your life who is (should be) more important to you than you and your work.

    It is possible to contribute significantly at work without living solely for work. I suspect that the 65 hour work week ethic is often more the result of low self-confidence and an "autopilot" approach to time management than any actual pressures of the situation.

    PYT WOTL
    Johnnie
  • Yeah this is definitely no longer a flat-mode kinda deal...

    Don't they have IRC for this? I thought the topic was sex. Frustrating...

    Breace.
  • hey M.. think we should print out this thread and show it to the other CS chics? hehehe

  • I'm not a programmer, I'm a techincal writer. And I'm damn good at it. I may or may not go back to school for some programming "stuff" eventually (there is a nearby program in Computational Science that looks nifty and interesitng).

    I'm not "hideous" looking, but I am also NOT AVAILABLE. I'm also young enough to be the daughter of the average staff engineer that I work with. And lemme tell ya, nobody has coddled me. I wouldn't put up with it.

    So there. :P
  • Creativity & the Asthetic Experience
    PS - Distller is the better Prof.
  • Well, c'est la vie, but keep in mind that your chances of finding such a woman sans bad personality are low. Women have to spend a lot of time and effort if they want to live up to this standard, and you can be sure that any woman who chooses this lifestyle must have some strong personal motives (not to mention no hobbies or interesting traits at all).

  • Sex Kills, Go to Tech and Live Forever (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    That was the unofficial school motto of my engineering college (the lib arts dept existed only to satisfy state requirements). The school bookstore even sold bumper stickers and pennants with that phrase on it. The ratio of men to women was about 3:1 when I was a freshman and most of the women were butt ugly. I went to a small high school (36 kids in my graduating class) and there were more average good looking women in my HS class than my entire freshman class at college. There were some women who I thought were ugly guys at first sight. After the freshman year, the number of decent looking women would decline because of:

    • Some would flunk out/transfer to an easier school
    • Some would marry seniors with out of state job offers or
    • Some of the others would pork out and gain about 30-50 lbs during the sophmore year

    The ones that stayed put up with a lot of crap from the guys at school: cattle crossing signs or horse trailers parked in front of the women's dorm, the frat papers suggesting the school could save money by letting the females graze on the football field, etc. The only guys that probably ever got laid were jocks, frat boys, (usually women from other colleges) and guys that were lucky enough to have a girlfriend from high school.

    The article wasn't surprising at all

  • Huh?

    As a chick who reads /. (and the ONLY female programmer in our group), I have to object. I don't _want_ a job that I am not qualified for! I am as qualified as the men here, and have seen underqualified _men_ get jobs because of rapport with the interviewer ...

    And for "if you're female then things are good.", I invite you to check out:

    Educational pipeline issues for women [mills.edu]

    Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering [mills.edu]


    YS

  • That's an interesting idea, but how do you ask a woman from work to help you find a GF without sounding TOTALLY pathetic? I think I would like to retain what few shreds of dignity I have remaining to me...

    And I think "goAtIt" should be a member function, I'm just not sure what object... And it should have some overloads, perhaps one that takes no parameters, (for when a chick object isn't available), and perhaps another that takes an int and the ellipsis operator...

    Yes, I know... I need professional help.

    >>>>>>>>> Kvort
  • I realize that the majority of those involved in the computer industry are male, but the articles seem to assume that all of them are, and that the girls are part of the "beer-guzzling, prom-dating" crowd that has mastered sexual relations. Furthermore, the one article encourages male programmers to treat all women sterotypically - buy them candy, etc. - EXPLICITLY in exchange for sex. They seem to miss the point that sex is part of a relationship with another person, and not a commodity to be bartered for with gifts. Even geek women, and those in CS classes, were often judged first and foremost on their attractiveness, and then maybe on their skills and personality.

    The articles and responses show that the main problem for programmes and the computer world is not the lack of sex, but the lack of ability to deal with the opposite sex as anything but a vehicle for sex. Maybe if women were seen as people, with full personalities and interests of their own (sometimes including technical stuff), then everyone would get along better and be much happier, sexually and in other ways.
  • cough-gulp theory meant it was hard to say....

    about what you've decided.....thanks for sharing & it sounds good to me baby - lets shag!! heheheh
  • throw dinner parties (women like a guy who can cook).

    really? Thats cool, cuz guys like a woman who can cook.
  • Tantric sex is the practice of having sex for *very* long periods of time. Like, 6 hours.


    "like Sting I'm tantric" -- Barenaked Ladies

  • If all you want is sex, just act like a dumb jock and drink lots of beer. Intelligence seems to frighten the tee-hee girls. Remember Barbie? "Math is hard!"

    If what you want out of life is a deep meaningful relationship with a female geek, just shoot yourself in the head right now. Odds are you won't be the geek guy that hooks up with the one-in-a-million geek girl.

    There were about 3000 people at DEFcon this year. About 100 of them were female. Of those women about 20 were geek girls with their boyfriends. The rest were just tee-hee girls that discovered geeks have money.

  • I went to school in nearby Marlyand, and my college singing group once performed at VA Tech. Y'all simply are the best audience a group could dream of, hands-down, by the way.

    I did notice, however, at the party following the concert, that the VA Tech men, who far outnumbered the women, were very, very friendly to to women in our group. Very friendly. Frighteningly so. :)

    Anyway, I find this whole thread extremely delightful. Keep it up!


  • but i digress. it's pointless for me to talk about this.. us nerds are destined to be cursed when it comes to women. We all know it's true; all ye with women are not true nerds. I believe the definition of nerd is "ye with computer, ye wh likes computers, ye without a woman". Or something like that. Stop me if i'm wrong :-)



    You're wrong. You personally are destined to be cursed in lovin', but it's not your line of work, it's your attitude problem. Call your classmates ugly and wonder why no one will sleep with you...



    If I could "get a girl from my CS class", would I? Put it this way -- there's a co-worker sitting less than 20 feet from me right now. She's not in my "class", she's way, way smarter than me (finished her doctorate in CS a few months ago, and yes, I know brains and doctorates are not the same thing). She's also hot enough to make your eyes water.



    Anyway, I sentence you to go watch American Pie (great movie!) and become a Sensitive Guy like Oesterreicher. It really does work.

  • Actually, you'd be surprised... used to work at MS as a full-time employee... my sex life was never fuller...

    ... of course, those Jazz drives tend to chafe after a while ;-)

    Simon
  • Do they care to comment? How about care to get a cup of coffee?

    Heh... its been my experience that geek women tend to live anywhere other than where I'm living. :)
  • i could say something really really mean back to this one.. but im not going to.. at least us VT people had the good sense to pick VT over UVA. =)
  • Ah, from one extreme to the other...
  • Hell yes!

    Now, the next order of business- figuring out how in the hell to manuvere this site! (For those of you out there, this is only like my second hour on the site- I'm still learning my way around)... :-)
  • I'm starting to suspect that those female hackerz who do exist have abandoned Slashdot due to the prevalence of the stereotypical "computer geek" and the widespread ignorance of their existence.
  • intro to the internet is NOT a cs major required course.. i think it may fill a requirement for like MIS majors..
  • At least not for me...

    My babe letting me build an erotic web site from our photo collection.

    -ck

  • Yes, there are geek girls. [geek-girl.com] This particular one carries quite an impressive resume: I started Carnegie Mellon University in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a double major in Cognitive Science. My final degree, though, is in Mathematics, with a concentration in Biomedical Engineering. In December 1995, I received a Ph.D. in the field of Neuroscience from Northwestern University. My thesis is entilted ``The Role of the Plant Properties in Point-to-Point Arm Movements: A Neural Network Approach''

    I'm pretty fortunate myself. My fiancee is into computers (and likes to sysadmin, too), although she's a Geology major. (I'm an EE myself, but honestly, I'm really just a software jock. The last hardware I built used 7400-series TTL.) You can look outside your major and outside your career, you know. Just remember, if you're not looking, you won't find anything, and if you're looking but not finding, you need to change your search space or your search criterion!

    --Joe

    --
  • At least not for me...

    My babe is even letting me build an erotic web site from our photo collection...

    Albino geek porn...

    -ck

  • Hey CmdrTaco... this sounds like a great poll topic:

    How many times a week do you get a piece?
    None
    1-3
    4-7
    7-10
    Are you kidding? I'm Hugh Hefner!

    Whaddya think?
  • lets see how off topic we can get this thread!!! and a shout-out to all the fellow hokies i see posting!!!
  • Don't do this to me!!! it's bad enough that scores of people decided to make me famous by responding to my 10-line post, but PLEEEASE!! dont make me a fool at Tech!! im already in a big hole here, ya know.. :o( arrrgh

    well, there's always engineering.. is it too late to change majors? :-/
  • Just because a woman is 40 does NOT mean she is married or boring.
    I totally have to agree with you here, totally. Where I go to college, there are plenty of interesting older women, plenty.
    But . . .
    I am not attracted to them. Totally not, absolutely positively not. One of my better friends at school is a 40+ year old woman poet/writer/musician, and she is wonderful. Do I want to get in a relationship at my age (20) with a person the age of my mother? Hell no. I'll tell you why.
    I'll be the first to admit I have a rather odd preference in my partners, and older men or women typically don't have some of the traits that I am looking for in a love. (I could list them, but what would be the point?)
    Of course I COULD find an older woman with the traits I find attractive, but I don't need to, because I've found one only slightly older (1 month, hehe, she's old).
    Part of me just is happy with the woman I got, and I don't care if she's 20 or 200. But, if I lost her, I wouldn't look for an older woman to replace her. I'd find a woman who is attractive to me on her own merits.
    Some people just don't like certain age groups when it comes to, uhh, mating. I like them like me:young, creative in their own way, and wackier than an Animaniacs cartoon.
    Thanks for your time
  • The article is interesting, but I imagine a similar phenomenon would be seen in other careers of folks who are (in general) introverts dedicated to their work.

    There are a lot of similarities between the life of a programmer and that of a research scientist. I have seen scientists (molecular and micro-biologists) lead lonely existences, spending the majority of their time in the lab. But the lab is a safe place for the introvert ... much like the computer! Not great places for gaining social skills, though.

    So this trend is hardly surprising ... What is interesting is seeing the primarily male responses to this article! It is kind of like a locker room in here, no? ;-)

    YS
    (Chick who reads /.)
  • Yes, mah brotha, I have seen geeks fall into the box out of loneliness, and it is really hard to come back out. But it CAN be done!
    ...introverting your lifestyle. You do what you know...
    True, it's never easy. The box responds to you, you understand the box, the box becomes your lover... Hmm, just realized my double entendre. Oops. :-)

    The Divine Creatrix in a Mortal Shell that stays Crunchy in Milk
  • Except for porn stars who does?

    I mean, 3 weeks out ever every month my wife to be (in 43 days, woohoo) have sex at least once per day. Sometimes I want more, but she's tired. Sometimes she wants more, but I'm tired. Sometimes we're just too exhausted to even think about having more sex.

    If you show me someone who is 100% happy with their sex life I'll show you a liar, prude, or someone who's just plain nuts.

    LK
  • 1) Some people rate sex too highly. Some people don't rate it highly enough.

    2) Efficient in what terms? In orgasms per unit time, probably, but I can think of other measures that favor other activities.

    3) Virgin in what terms? I've found that people have some strange standards for what "counts" as sex. In Lala's case, it sounds like a pretty conservative definition -- oh well, what he's willing to live with is his business.

    Side) The trouble with generalizations is that they're always wrong.
  • *Sigh*

    Those wacky kids these days!

  • Shower! I know more techies with horrible BO than I care to count.

    Groom yourself! Brush your teeth! Jeez! Unless they're total freaks, women don't get turned on by IQs!

    Also, get married to the first woman you can actually stand for more than 5 minutes, cuz guess what? You ain't gonna get any prettier through the years.
  • There are some of us out here who don't chase women -- or wish we were good-looking/rich/whatever enough to have women chase us. I.e., some of us are straight women and some of us are gay men.

    I suppose I have two problems with articles like these. First, they portray geeks as a collection of guys who have an tenth-grade definition of sex (the pinnacle of interpersonal relations, to which they can only aspire). It simply isn't so.

    Second, it makes a whole bunch of assumptions that might or might not be self-perpetuating. For example, all geeks are straight males who never learned to brush their teeth every day whether they need it or not, still wear shoes with twenty Velcro straps apiece, and turn into quivering blobs of matter whenever social interaction is forced upon them.

    I like reading the success stories out there -- about people who have had "relationship success" despite the fact that they find computers more interesting than most people. :)

    -m
  • Looks like egon might end up getting laid after all.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Maybe he doesn't know you're girls because you look like guys.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Pleasure is good. Sex is a great way to get to know people. Don't let guilt tell you that because it's fun it must be Long Term Bad: lots of pleasure can make for a good life.
    --
  • Any other techies gravitate towards non-(computer)techie friends?
    Yes, very much so. In fact, even my techie friends are almost all folks I met thru non-techie connections - karate, music, poetry, paganism, or mutual friends.

    Never have dated a geek girl, though there have been a few I would have tried for if they hadn't been in relationships already.

  • Yet another female that reads /. regularly. I have to point out a few things.

    Scan through the comments above. Right in the top five, there is one from a male student at VA Tech (my alma mater, as a matter of fact) saying there were no females, and promptly getting rather throughly replied to by several of said 'non-existant' females. Not to mention the post from the lady who is bi. all of whom made it past my comments filter, so even that's not an excuse.

    Another thing. There is NO self respecting female techie, or geek grrl or however we choose to style ourselves that would take a job we were totally unqualified for. Not to mention, to be rude, if your school was that good, it wouldn't HAVE to have quota's on gender. Who are you kidding? VA Tech is prolly one of the better schools in the country for CS. And i know for a fact that they don't have a quota. They won't take you unless you are qualified. Period. End of story.

    And one last irritated point. You admit to the fact that you will coddle underqualified chicks because they fit YOUR definition of 'hottie'. If these chicks have a clue (and they prolly do, if you let them) they prolly resent the living daylights out of you and your attitude. And also prolly don't find it worth arguing. Simply because it's rather prevalent. I know that my personal attitude (and i'll admit it's rude) is that if you decide i'm stupid on first sight, because i'm 5'4", and ex dancer and blonde, then you deserve whatever you get. And trust me, that won't be sweetness light and drivel.
  • it's pronounced Eunuchs [eunuchs.org].

    Chuck
  • I think Nested Comments are the way to go...

    my 2 cents

    peace
  • There's lots of them. One of my best friends is one, but she [anaphase.com] is getting married in less than a month, so another one bites the dust. ;)
  • Who are you, what year, info!
  • ...is to remember that beautiful people are people too.

    Sorry, I've seen so many followups to this article discussing strategies for "picking up chicks" and getting enough money to "keep them happy" that I think I have to make this point. Even one-night-stands will be more fun with a person than a sexual object.
    --
  • Speaking as a different than normal geek (I was in a frat. and played football in college) MOST girls are hornier than hell if you care to find out. The thing to do is the exact same thing as when trying to figure out a system, trial and error. Practice makes perfect, or at least gives you a better chance. Taking the first step makes the second a lot easier, ad inifinitum.
  • I'd like to take this moment then to quote two parts from the book "Hackers - Heroes of the computer revolution" by author Steven Levy.

    "[...] for a group of healthy college-age males, there was remarkably little discussion of a topic which commonly obsesses groups of that composition. Females. Though some hackers led somewhat active social lives, the key figures in TMRC-PDP hacking had locked themselves into what would be called 'bachelor mode.' It was easy to fall into -- for one thing -- as opposed to the hopelessly random problems in a human relationship -- which made hacking particularly attractive. But an even weightier factor was the hackers' impression that computing was much more /important/ than getting involved in a romantic relationship. It was a question of priorities. Hacking had replaced sex in their lives."

    "[Hacking] was a mission. You would hack, and you would live by the Hacker Ethic, and you knew that that horribly inefficient and wasteful things like women burned too many cycles, occupied too much memory space. 'Women, even today, are considered grossly unpredictable,' one PDP-6 hacker noted, almost two decades later. 'How can a hacker tolerate such an imperfect being?'"

  • My girlfriend and I live an hour apart, and see each other only on the weekends. We go a week between 'encounters' and then have plenty of opportunity to make up for it. That's the disclaimer.

    Now the point. Techies, with their long hours and cranial leanings, are no different in the relationship department then any other cerebral-oriented discipline. Scientists, college professors, engineers... We all have better things to do than each other. For that matter, artists (arguably the most passionate profession, second only to that which is oldest) would rather create than procreate.

    Why does the media seek so desperately to make us into asexual deviants, simply because we prefer to think about things other than sex. The average male thinks about sex what? 80 times a day?? What about above average? Do they think about it more? Or like us, do they think about it LESS???

    We try to live lives of contentment, of productivity and of benefit to the community. We get gratification out of coding, seeing a system come together, and the occasional 'OhMiGawd!'.

    Let's not be judged by the standards of the average politician - after all, WE don't expect THEM to think rationally, and WE don't GET interns. ;)
  • From the LA Times update:

    Top Ten Reasons Why Working at Microsoft Destroys Your Sex Drive:

    5) You're afraid to get involved for fear everyone just wants free software.

    I imagine this is being tacked on RMS's wall somewhere as we speak...
  • Read down to the bottom of the NewTimesLA article, there you will find...

    "Hey, Don, Head of Security! I don't give a rip about your stupid orders: BILL GATES' OFFICES ARE LOCATED IN BUILDING 8 ON THE SECOND FLOOR IN THE CENTER OF THE EAST WING FACING SOUTH. Damn that felt good."

    ObOnTopic post

    When you first start working 90+ hour weeks in this industry (any demanding industry), you have to sacrifice your sex life.

    Later, when you mature a bit and get your life balanced out, you learn that spending money on women is much more fun than spending it on ALL the latest geek equipment. Balance means you buy some geek equipment, and spend some on the women.

    I would say my sex life has steadily increased over the years. Now I have enough money to keep the women happy, and the social life is properly balanced between partying and geeking. Only sometimes do I miss having a 100% geek life, usually when I watch some young kid right out of school hack circles around me. But he doesn't have a girlfriend, that's my pathetic response.

    the AC
  • >Start cultivating interests in topics outside of comp sci.

    While this is a nice idea in theory and may manage to get you a gf, you'll never be truly happy because you'll have to continue pretending to enjoy these "other activities" you pursued in order to keep your gf. Worse case, you'll eventually quit doing these "other interest" out of boredom and your gf will leave you because you "changed" and "lost interest" in her.

    Besides, geeks ALREADY have interests outside of Comp Sci. They're just not often "mainstream" interests.

    TAKE THE RISK and actually invite girls to do the GEEKY thinks you really like to do. You'd be surprised to find that the offer to try something they've never done before will encourage a few girls to actually try it. Invite a girl to come and watch some Japanese animation (avoid the overly sexist stuff, of course). Or invite her over to drink tea and go swimming in your pool (geeks are often well paid enough to have these choices) listening to '80s girl rock. Invite her to come and see those '80s video game systems and games you've been collecting and challenge her to a game of Atari 2600 combat. Dates don't have to be the stock "dinner and a movie".

    If she thinks this stuff is lame, then oh well, but if she likes you for who you are and likes to do the same things you like to do, believe me, that's a far preferred situation than forever pretending to like some grudingly selected "other intrests" that you really think is boring as all heck. Granted, the former case may happen a lot. Be prepared. But also be patient. Shakespeare was wrong; A life alone, staying true to your ideals, is better than finding a girl by becoming someone you yourself aren't happy to be. - The LasVegas Geek

  • It seems to work better in the BBS world than on the Internet. I suspect this is because there's a smaller group of people, and they all get to know each other well, both online and off. The potential of offline meeting makes people behave a bit better. Also, in the case of most really successful BBSs (The Well, etc), the software was so cryptic to use that only the intelligent survived.

    D

    ----
  • That sounds about right. Get the women to buy you a beer first, it weeds out some of the gold diggers. I got snagged by a digger years ago, she cost me a lot of money, in return for some not very good sex. But it was fun and kept me away from computers for a while, and led me into new things.

    My current GF comes from a very rich family. I didn't know it at the time I met her, so I let her buy the first meal just to be fair. For the first week or so we were together we alternated buying things. I doubted she was a golddigger, since when we first met I was in my hardware geek outfit, old jeans and sneakers, driving my old car. Later I drove my new car, and had the suit on, and it didn't impress her much more than the first look.

    And this weekend I've got to spend with her and her 'rents. Ugh. Yassa, Daddy Warbucks, sah! ;-)

    the AC
  • thanks a lot, egon!!! =P well im my class at VaTech (the same as Egon's) there are more like 20 girls (I am one). And though none of us would consider ourselves beauty queens (though I was in a pageant--yes, geek girl in a pageant) I wouldn't say any of us are all that ugly! (give or take a few) BTW-- I couldn't deal w/ the guys in our class, I hooked myself a junior CS major and damn is our sex life good even though we BOTH have computer jobs and during the summer are in different states. ps.. wondering if egon can guess who this is.. if you can, email me at my tech account.
  • Ah see, now you definately aren't going to get any. All five probably read slashdot, and they're probably busy right now figuring out who you are, and which of them were the four you were talking about so they can snub you. :)

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Just remember, its not the size of your score that impresses the women...
  • > Just for the record, should I be giving up on
    > the idea that any female hackerz exist?

    No, they do exist! I read an article about a female hacker in Weekly World News. It was in the issue that contained sightnings of both Elvis Presley and the Lock Ness monster.

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