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  1.  (6253.41)
    I've nerdified a few women in my time.

    I've usually been the first person to introduce them to comics, and particularly to the notion that comics are not all superheroes, a notion that still pervades, sadly.

    My most recent Ex got REALLY into LARPing, around the same time I kind of lost interest. She still games pretty regularly, embracing the costuming aspect especially. She was a drag king performer, so showing up in Edwardian spec coats and mourning jackets to hang around being vampires for a night lit a fire for her.

    My current girlfriend (which is not transitory as that reads) got into Firefly, and by extension Buffy. Though I was not a big fan of the latter. She's a voracious reader and has burned through my collection of Ellis, Gaiman, Ellison and Morrison. She's gotten into China Mieville and Frank Herbert too. Her big nerd joy is Eddie Izzard though and that's nothing to do with me.
    • CommentAuthormunin218
    • CommentTimeJun 30th 2009
     (6253.42)
    My mother made certain I could read at a very young age. My aunt gave me my first set of encyclopedias. I think I was 5.

    I was reading Stephen King by 5th or 6th grade. :P

    A girl at a metalhead bonfire party got me into comics. I think it was 9th grade.... she got me reading "The Sandman".... from there, I read a LOT of Vertigo titles...
  2.  (6253.43)
    Interestingly, while my dad may have sent some books my way, my nerdiness is most certainly not from my dad. Then again, I am not a "true" nerd. Obsessive reading? Check. Comics? Check (though I didn't really start till late high school). Obsession with mythology/stories? Check. But a lot of the Science Fiction/Fantasy stuff doesn't really apply to me and I am in no way a gamer, so make of that what you will. I do spend way too much time online.

    Due to moving a lot, being alone was pretty normal for me growing up. So was obsessive drawing (granted I tended to lean towards my fave Disney princesses - Ariel, Belle and Jasmine). Reading came from my mother and my 4th grade teacher (a woman). I really liked stories about fairies and mermaids. I liked Enid Blighton. I was given a book of Greek myths at 12 which started my interest in mythology. I'm pretty sure it was a woman who gave it to me. I was introduced to comics by a high school teacher in 11th grade but didn't really get addicted until a classmate of mine (female) shared comics with me in the watercolor class I was taking at city college during my senior year of high school.

    Anyhow, whatever nerdiness I have is mostly the result of other women/girls, not boys/men. Though I would get distracted by entries in the Encyclopedia when I had to look something up and that was just the way I was. So make of that what you will.
    • CommentAuthorGill
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.44)
    I met my wife through her parents, who were storytelling for a local roleplaying group in the town I lived. In fact, she and I decided to date at a D&D game. She's a geek by virtue of genetics.

    I think being a geek comes mostly from your upbringing or having a slightly altered view of what counts for entertainment. My wife is a huge fan of Gaiman, Whedon and obscure fantasy authors. She's also obsessed with the though of a Zombie apocalypse. Though, really these days who isn't?
    •  
      CommentAuthorAlan Tyson
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009 edited
     (6253.45)
    Very nearly all my friends are nerd girls, and while I do possess a Y chromosome, I've had a pretty interesting view into the creation and development of plenty of nerd girls. Really though, the most interesting girls for this topic are my sisters.

    One thing that I want to mentioned is that my dad didn't really do much to influence my sisters as far as becoming a nerd or not. My dad is one of those guys who has all the nerd interests but around the time I turned thirteen, they all kinda evaporated for some reason. I remember sitting in his lap during ST:TNG when I was four or five, and when the ship went to warp, he'd flip the handle on the recliner and we'd "whoosh," as we called it. But neither of my sisters got that experience - dad had gotten rather "serious business" by then, and they were sorta left to their own devices.

    My middle sister developed juvenile Diabetes when she was eight, and got a crash course on medicine and physiology as a result - but rather than despairing at her disease, she got really fascinated by diseases and biology, and that naturally lead to her being a voracious reader and researcher. One day, I found that one of my Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter novels (yeah, I know, trust me I've stopped reading them) was missing, and found it in her room. At first I was pissed that she'd stolen my book, but I sat down to think about it, and realized that it was the eighth in the series, and she NEVER reads anything out of order. I figured out she'd been stealing them and reading them cover to cover in a single night, then returning them. Keep in mind that she was maybe eleven when this happened. When I confronted her about it, she looked pretty surprised when I asked her how she was liking them. That was really the first time she and I ever got along, and I don't think we've fought about anything since. We practically share a bookshelf now, though she gets annoyed because I take too long to read her books. As soon as I started buying the season DVDs for Buffy, she'd steal those too, which was fine by me, because when I ran out of money, she bought the rest of the series AND Angel AND Firefly. I've tried introducing her to Herbet and Heinlein, and so far it hasn't taken off. I've even tried Gaiman, and that's been a flop so far (though I'm hoping to win her over by lending her Anansi Boys), which is interesting because every other nerd girl I know ADORES Gaiman. She's going off to college next fall to med school, and is smarter than I'll ever hope to be. She's the one who's gonna be lending me money.

    My youngest sister is a stranger case. She's a much more outdoorsy girl, and more and more she's becoming as Valley Girl as you can get in a suburb in the midwest. I'd pretty much given up on her as a lost cause, until I started watching Battlestar Galactica, and she started watching it with me. She kept talking throughout it, asking questions and the like, and I'd answer them on the condition that she go and get us both popcorn for the show. She never asked really big metaplot questions, or how the science fiction elements worked, it was all questions about who was pregnant and who was related and why was that guy in the glasses always freaking out. She was treating the show like what it was at its core - a soap opera. I wouldn't call her a nerd, but I think she's symptomatic of the phenomenon that non-nerds are now able to digest nerd culture in their own way. She's a very interesting mirror to see how things I take for granted are perceived by someone who isn't part of the culture.

    Two interesting, but rather different cases here.
    • CommentAuthor/
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.46)
    Why do we have to be nerds to be intelligent? We don't need society's approval. They need us to approve them.

    Also, um...not to be overly confrontational or anything. I'm just one of the mean geeks, I guess. The martinis add to the inherent anger that comes with social rejection, I suppose. :p
    •  
      CommentAuthorMagnulus
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.47)
    Why do we have to be nerds to be intelligent? We don't need society's approval. They need us to approve them.


    Or how about no one should have to APPROVE of anyone?
    What do I know, I'm a pacifist who tends to sign off with "Peace and love". ^_^
  3.  (6253.48)
    @razrangel I have the same reaction there, and I was about to say I didn't get my nerdiness from my dad when I realised that while I didn't get any of the specific trappings of nerd from him he definitely shaped my sense of humour and outlook on life and love of maths and puns, so there's probably something to that. On the other hand I identify mostly with my dad largely because my mum is... well not a great role model so to speak. So I don't think it does come down to the Y chromosome - I think it's a matter of individuals on a small scale coming out of a general social imprinting on the large scale. I get the impression that our parents generations had a much stronger sense of the geeky stuff is for boys thing, and I bet a generation or two from now it'll be closer to equal whether kids get their nerdiness from their mums or dads.
    • CommentAuthor/
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.49)
    <blockquote>Or how about no one should have to APPROVE of anyone?</blockquote>Yeah. That. What you said. :)
    •  
      CommentAuthorpurly
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.50)
    "I've nerdified a few women in my time. "

    You make it sound like a conquest.
    •  
      CommentAuthorrickiep00h
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.51)
    Since my wife doesn't seem to want to become a member of this particular (insane) community and speak for herself, I'll just say that she was a nerd long before I met her, is significantly more nerdy than me (in some ways), and will probably continue to be for the entire time I know her. I could go on and on about what makes her nerdy, and I could theorize as to why she is, but I don't think I'll ever actually know, and I don't think she does, either. It's a process.

    I will say this though, she played a hell of a lot more WoW than I ever did, and she's actually played some DnD, whereas I have not.
  4.  (6253.52)
    Anecdotaly boys make friends and investigate nerdy pursuits together.


    I don't think so, at least not in my case. Maybe I'm simply the exception. But throughout high school I played hockey (again, I'm from MN) and always tried pulling myself away from the "popular" crowd. I achieved that, by simply becoming an asshole probably to several "popular" people who didn't deserve it but many of whom did. Me getting into comics was more rebellion from my friends than anything else. And, oddly enough, it was my Mom who bought me my very first comic. I was about 8 years old and she came home from the store with an awfully bloody (probably more bloody than she knew) issue of Punisher for me. She probably only did this assuming it was related to X-Men, I was obsessed with the 90's show, as well as Batman: The Animated Series. Honestly, who the fuck drinks Martini's?? Besides rich people, modeling chicks, and hipsters. HAahahahaha... Yup, still an asshole...
    •  
      CommentAuthorLBA
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.53)
    of the many things to be thankful for with regards to the internet is that no matter how isolated, unique and strange you may think that you are, you can find people that share the same interests as you and resources to help you along in that interest

    you're a gothic furry in an remote amazonian village? If you have the internet there will be a community for you out there

    you're a nipple piercing narcoleptic fetishist Inuit? Get online and someone will be there for you

    it is, in my opinion, a great thing, it lets you know you're not alone out there no matter how out of the norm you are.

    of course there is a dark side of that as well, but that's another discussion
  5.  (6253.54)
    The relative lack of nerd/geek girls is mostly because autistic Otakus are usually male, with the exception where females have higher than average testosterone levels.
    At least, if you believe Sasha Baron-Cohen's cousin Simon.
    Then again, it could be a very long-term Academic hoax and I've fallen for it, but I don't think that's the case.
  6.  (6253.55)
    in regards to the compatability issue of having a nerd girl, i think its just more important that they understand the nerd mindset. my lady and i dont like all of the same stuff, hell we cant stand some of the stuff that the other is into. its just that we GET each other, and know what its like to geek out so hard. so while she LOVES the licensed stephen king comics that i think are garbage, and i love terrible, terrible movies that she groans at, it doesnt matter because we know how much the other party is in to it and we just enjoy the fact that we are rad.

    WE ARE I SWEAR
    •  
      CommentAuthorrickiep00h
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.56)
    @joe.distort - Radness is all that matters.
  7.  (6253.57)
    Hmmm
    I grew up with two brothers who were into sci-fi and fantasy. I was the only girl among many boys when my cousins would come over to play. We used to watch movies like Star Wars, Star Trek, Conan, and other sci-fi and fantasy stuff. We would spend entire weekends playing D & D . . . I guess I didn't stand a chance.

    Then I dated and married a guy who is heavy into comics and the sci-fi and fantasy stuff as well . . . and so it continued. Whenever I tease my husband about his Star Wars obsession he reminds me that I'm the one with the Yoda tattoo . . . I'm not fooling anyone.
    • CommentAuthorOddcult
    • CommentTimeJul 1st 2009
     (6253.58)
    A few years ago I had a one night stand with a very cute girl. Come morning, I wasn't much looking forwards to the embarrassed awkwardness that usually comes with waking up with someone you don't really know, when I noticed that by her bed were a box of Delano Hellblazers. We're now married.
  8.  (6253.59)
    And on that note...
 
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