Our newest guest contributor, Wall-D, is here with a new weekly, geeky dating advice column for BSR!
“Face it Tiger, you just hit the jackpot.” These are the first words Mary Jane Watson ever said to Peter Parker. Peter just stares back, dazed and speechless. And who can blame him? Here’s a guy who has spent the last four years as “Midtown High’s only professional wallflower,” getting kicked around by Flash Thompson and laughed at by Liz Allen, and now the most attractive redhead Steve Ditko ever put to paper just comes out and declares herself his reward, less than a panel after seeing him for the first time. It’s enough to pop anyone’s word bubble.
As astonishingly unlikely as this moment might seem, every man who grew up a geek believes deep in his heart that it’s coming for him. We’re told as much our entire lives. “Just get through high school,” they say. “When you grow up, you’re going to be smart and successful, and girls will be falling all over you.”
Geek media does all it can to reinforce this fantasy. Peter Parker, the nebbishy teen with a heart of gold, dates whip-smart blonde bombshell Gwen Stacy and then trades up (via bridge tragedy) for supermodel/actress Mary Jane Watson. Clark Kent, the awkward farm boy who never quite fit in, ends up with Lois Lane, the coolest girl in Metropolis. Sure, those characters are superheroes, but every geek sees himself in them, and it’s a key component of the story that Lois and MJ are each in love with the man, not the costume.
It’s not just comics. On Star Trek, tortured straight-arrow Odo managed to seduce galactic badass Kira Nerys with just a little help from the holo-suite, and even Data got it on with Tasha Yar before she died. More recently, Judd Apatow has built a movie empire on a foundation of unattractive underachievers landing dream-women. Woody Allen did it a generation earlier.
Wherever geeks turn, there is someone they trust or something they worship telling them that if they just hold on long enough, they will land the girl of their dreams. And eventually, we believe it.
We believe it because we’re told it so often, and we believe it because we have to. It is belief in this fantasy that keeps us going through rejection after rejection from girls who aren’t interested, and through being called “fatass” or “faggot” by the guys they do date. It is belief in this fantasy that propels us through the twin hells of middle school and high school without losing our sanity. It is belief in this fantasy that separates geeks who go to college from the geeks who shot up Columbine.
Here’s the really surprising thing: it’s not a lie. At some point, for many of us, the fantasy comes true. Nerds really do go on to successful careers. Geeks really can outgrow their awkwardness. Years of enduring torment from small-minded bullies often does force weaklings to develop a keen wit. Growing up on the wrong end of the social structure engenders kindness and understanding. Burying oneself in escapist media leads to an appreciation for art and culture. And eventually, more often than not, enough of these factors come together to form an adult man who is pretty solid dating material.
At the same time, women start to see nerds in a different light. They get tired of dating men who don’t treat them well, and they’re willing to overlook a little awkwardness if it means dating a nice guy. Adults tend to value a stable personality and a decent sense of humor more than raw good looks or an air of rebellion.
On top of that, society has been doing all it can to improve a geek’s chances. America’s biggest movies are torn from the pages of comic books. Lovable television characters like Chuck Bartowsky, Seth Cohen, and that Leonard guy on Big Bang Theory have turned gentle dweebs into desirable heartthrobs. Even big screen action movies feature Jake Gyllenhal and Shia LaBouf in roles that used to go to Arnold Swartzenneger and Sylvester Stallone.
All of this adds up to a world where most nerds, sooner or later, will face a real-life jackpot moment.
And then what? Millions of nerds have pored over Spider-Man comics, indulging in the wish-fulfillment fantasies of saving the day and (more importantly) getting the girl. The Ditko panel depicted above boils all that down to one shining moment, a holy grail at the end of our long arduous quest. It appears to be a victory for Peter, and we cheer him on. But has any one of us really considered what it’s like to be in his shoes? As reassuring as it is to read the story, can any of us even contemplate what it’s like to live inside the panel? Is that dazed look on Peter’s face the result of elation, or paralyzing fear?
The paradox of growing up geek is that we spend our entire lives believing the fantasy that we’ll one day hit the jackpot, but nothing prepares us for the eventuality of it actually happening. To us, landing the girl of our dreams is as strange and fantastic as developing the proportional strength of a spider, or being beamed on board the Enterprise. And as much fun as all of those things seem in a story, facing them in reality would be absolutely terrifying.
This is why nerds are terrible at handling adult relationships. We have no idea how to use these strange new powers of attraction we’ve developed. And there are giant obstacles in our way: a lack of confidence born of years of rejection, a dearth of dating experience, too little actual sexual experience combined with too much exposure to pornography, and no conception of our own identity as a boyfriend or partner. A nerd’s first stab at a real relationship will inevitably go something like this:
The challenge we face, then, is to learn how to use our newfound powers and dodge these obstacles. Like this:
How do we get from swinging directly into walls to deftly catapulting ourselves between moving semi-trucks? At this point, your guess is as good as mine, but sooner or later, we’re going to have to figure it out. If we truly are living in the Age of the Nerd, we’ll need to successfully reproduce if we want to keep it going.
So I figured, why not turn to the internet? It’s never failed me before! (Still waiting on that check, Nigerian prince.) Over the coming months, I’ll be blogging about my experiences in dating as a geek. Along the way, I’ll be looking for stories from other nerds facing similar problems. If we’re very lucky, we can apply some of the lessons learned from growing up in pop-obsessed isolation to the now very real challenge of finding someone to love.
Follow along, and maybe together we can figure out how to hit the jackpot and come out alive.
Wall-D is a Utah native and a lifelong geek, who somehow, despite these facts, has recently found some success in the dating game. This column is part of his effort to not screw it up. His favorite comics include Fables, Criminal, and anything by Bryan Lee O’Malley.