A little while ago, in a moment of weakness, I made an OkCupid profile. It couldn’t hurt, I thought: I’m busy, I’m single, and most of the women I run into at game nights and cons either are already with someone or not interested in a commitment. Two weeks into the experiment, I was beginning to think OkCupid needed some basic English proficiency tests before letting people sign up. Even the women who managed to produce messages with decent grammar seemed to always write “your” when they meant “you’re” or use “U” in place of “you,” and when they bothered to mention anything about the TV shows, movies, or games I listed as my favorites, it was usually to ask “What about Twilight?” and never to say anything clever like “So say we all!” or “I’ve got two sheep, and I’m looking for a brick.”
So when I got a message from someone named Alyssa that closed with “May the force be with you,” I figured that, even though she hadn’t used a capital ‘F’ she was probably geeky enough to be interesting. I gave her my name and she gave me hers — I Googled her, of course, but all that came up were a few articles on Salon and Gizmodo, which wasn’t much to go on but I figured anyone who wrote for Gizmodo was probably at least interested in technology.
We met for a drink a few days later. She was fairly attractive — not a supermodel, but they’re too thin anyway. We started talking about the usual first date stuff: family, work, college, hobbies. She said she likes to play tennis. I jokingly replied that I prefer Settlers of Catan; she didn’t react to that, just kind of let it go, as though she didn’t know what I was talking about and didn’t care enough to ask.
Somehow we got onto the topic of TV shows we liked that weren’t around any more. I mentioned Firefly, of course, which she clearly didn’t know anything about, so in an effort to describe it I asked if she’d ever watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She said she’d seen an episode or two but really preferred Twilight.
I laughed. That’s really funny, preferring Twilight to Buffy. She had an ironic sense of humor just like me — this was great.
Then I saw the look on her face. She wasn’t kidding. She really did prefer Twilight. Oy.
Well, OK, so her taste in vampire fiction left something to be desired. That was OK, she’d quoted Star Wars to me. So I asked her who her favorite character from the films was. She said maybe the one played by Natalie Portman, but she hadn’t seen any of the movies in years. I asked her why she’d put “May the force be with you” in her message; she admitted it was the only line she remembered from the movies and had put it there hoping I’d think it was funny.
After our first date I thought about it. Shouldn’t you have to mention in your online profile if you’re hopelessly mundane? Whether or not you like Twilight should be one of the first questions on any woman’s profile. I mean, before asking if you have kids. Still, maybe she still had some geeky qualities that just were hidden somehow. It wouldn’t be fair to write her off without making sure.
So we met for dinner, and I got right down to it. What was her favorite board game? “Monopoly.” Strike one. Her favorite nonfiction TV show? “Dancing With the Stars.” Strike two. Her favorite funny t-shirt? “Oh, I don’t like wearing shirts with words on them.” Strike three. It was clear she was just about the most boringly mundane person I’d ever met. I tried to enjoy dinner, but I wasn’t really interested in hearing about how she thought they were going to deal with replacing Charlie Sheen with Ashton Kutcher on Two and a Half Men, so I knew there was no way this was going anywhere.
Geek moms and dads, warn your kids! You’ll think you’ve found someone who can at least tell the different Star Trek series apart, but she’ll turn out to be a mundane who can’t even explain the difference between Star Trek and Star Wars. Someone who doesn’t care that Han shot first. Someone who likes Twilight. So make sure they ask up front. Because some people are just never going to be geeks.
Note: This article is a work of satire and should in no way be construed as a statement of fact. If you’re unaware of the context, this GeekMom article should help.
Twilight image copyright Little, Brown and Company.
Monopoly image copyright Hasbro.
Dancing With the Stars image copyright ABC.
