Geek Advice: How to love your non-geek.

Blogged on Tuesday, April 15th, 2008 by Rachael. Filed in Contradictory, Geek Advice, Philosophical.

I was actually going to publish a guide on ‘How To Love Your Geek’ before I published this one, but honestly - I have trouble knowing how to explain to people just exactly how to get to the very bottom of my geeky little heart. It requires far more research that I’ve given it so far, apparently.

However! I am gaining a large amount of experience loving a NON-geek. My fantastic fiance, Troy, is most definitely not a geek. He has a computer, but he actually SHUTS IT OFF when he’s not using it. That alone is enough to throw me for a complete loop. Heh.

Here are some of the things I’ve learned from loving a non-geek:

The Geek’s Guide to Loving Your Non-Geek

Forgive them for not being a geek.

They are not going to treat their computers, their mp3 players, or their pile of programming and HTML manuals like you would. Well, actually, they probably won’t even have a pile of programming and HTML manuals in their possession.  That’s your domain. (Ha! Haha! You probably have one of those too - or five or six.)

But that’s okay! Just because they aren’t a geek too doesn’t make them worth any less, or make them less interesting, or cause them to be less of a hottie. In fact, if you love them, chances are they’re just right for you.

Stop trying to make them into a geek.

Look, just because YOU want to go to Penguicon every year doesn’t mean that THEY want to go to Penguicon every year. They will go with you anyway, because they love you and you’re more important to them than all the geeky stuff you’re having nerd attacks over.

Your non-geek can enjoy geeky things in moderation, but if you overdo it, you’ll ruin it. Take them to con, buy them a shiny mp3 player, install Linux on a spare hard drive for them with a login name of ‘loverpants’ and a password of ‘iloveyou’. But don’t be upset if they don’t orgasm over it like you do.

Let them pick something to do (that’s NOT geeky).

I realize that all of us geeks have ridiculous ADD going on, and if it were up to us, life would be a nonstop barrage of software and code and RSS feeds and blogging and staying up late by the glowing light of our monitors. Also, we would forget to go outside, like, EVER. And we would start to smell funny, and eat all the Doritos in the house and then not go to the store and get more because we are ever so slightly antisocial.

Being non-geek for even part of a day is REALLY good for you! And an added perk is that the love of your life, your non-geek better half, will know just how much you love them for who THEY are, not for who you sometimes might like them to be. Different is good, variety is the spice of life, and so on. For the love of God, just go for a walk already!

Remember that one of the things they love about you is YOUR geekiness.

They’re perfectly fine with you having all the geeky cred. In fact, this is one of the most awesome things about being with a non-geek - no competition on geek-related matters! You are automatically the computer whiz, the software guru, and the deity of code. Enjoy this, and keep being the geek they fell in love with.

Just don’t forget to take a shower once in a while.