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Keep Your Pants On #7: Geeks Need Love, Too

Published Fri, 02 Sep 2011 17:00:55 -0500

Kate Kotler and Elliot Serrano write for Bleeding Cool;

Two columns, one week – we know. We felt the need to respond to an article posted on Gizmodo titled: "My Brief OkCupid Affair With a World Champion Magic: The Gathering Player."

If you don't want to read the entire, long, vapid article we will sum it up for you: Single girl, Alyssa Bereznak, starts an OKCupid dating profile. She gets a lot of spam-jerkoff responses. In amongst the spam-jerkoff responses someone real, a guy named Jon Finkel, asks her out on a date. They go out – twice – then upon discovering that Jon is the world champion of the game Magic: The Gathering, she never speaks to him again and writes a shitty article about him for a tech-geek based website.

You're now up to date. And, go!

Kate says,

I'm so offended by Alyssa Bereznak's Gizmodo blog post about her dates with Magic champ, Jon Finkel, that I'm not even sure what I should start ranting about first… So, I'm going to start by saying this: Alyssa – could you be anymore of a shallow, vapid, HORRIBLE person if you tried?

Seriously, girl. Your attempts at "humor" are worse than some of mine, and that's bad, given I have a whole Encyclopedia Dramatic page devoted to mocking my online behavior.

Second: Is the irony that this woman writes for Gizmodo – a geeky blog – lost on everyone but me? Look at the front page of Gizmodo on any day and you're going to see top stories about tech, design, science, video games… We're talking the website that got in trouble for running a story about a lost iPhone 4 that a Gizmodo writer Jason Chen got his hands on via suspect methods in 2010… WTF is Gizmodo doing employing someone who would trash an individual for having geeky hobbies in the first place? Aren't there actual geek girls Gizmodo could employ in Bereznak's place? Come on!

Third: Jon… You're hot. That you're a champion gamer (and, poker player) is hot. If you're ever in Chicago and want to go see zombie improv or go hang out in a comic store, hit me up.

Okay. Ranting aside. Thankfully, geeky girl writer, Elly Hart wrote a good response to this article, which pretty much says that Gizmodo disavows the piece and doesn't condone Bereznak's trolly mean girl behavior.

The thing that I find most appalling about this whole article is that her assumption that Jon Finkel is a bad dude, an "online predator," even (a bit harsh and hyperbolic, I'd say) is based on her dislike of his hobby.

Look, not that I'm a big Magic fan myself, but everyone has hobbies that their spouses (or, potential spouses) don't like and/or understand. And, as long as they aren't being forced to participate in those hobbies against their will, what the fuck do they care? I mean, I've had guys tell me my love of knitting is archaic and stupid, but all that means is that I don't bother to teach them to knit, knit in front of them or make them cool knit gifts (like a Doctor Who or Harry Potter scarf). Likewise, I've often found the hobbies of my gentlemen friends not to be my cup of tea (like paint balling, watching WWF wrestling, playing WoW or Guitar Hero). Hobbies are for the individual's enjoyment and, really, especially in the case of being the world champion of something – isn't it kind of nice that the person you're out with feels passionately about something?

Here's a novel exercise: Flip it around. Reread the article making the author a dude and the subject a woman. Make the contested hobby a perverse devotion to and love of Sex in the City. Or, leave the gender the same and make the hobby fantasy football.

If Ms. Bereznak had gone out with someone who loved a mainstream hobby like one of those two, would she have even bothered to write this article?

I think not.

Now, I'm going to admit something: I have an OKCupid profile, myself… It's not because I'm desperate (as both Gizmodo articles on this topic suggest,) it's because I'm busy, don't like to go to bars and seem not to meet a lot of single men through my own social circle (which, at the age of 37, consists mainly of coupled people). I've been on OKCupid for about two years and have met several good friends whom I love dearly (shout out to Ray and Matty K!) and gone out on some really weird dates… What floors me about Bereznak's article is that she thinks that a love of Magic: The Gathering is the epitome of creepy behavior to be found on OKC. Really, it's not. Let me run down a few of the situations I've found myself in:

I went out with a German guy from Berkeley, CA who admitted to me on our date that he had been cyberstalking a group of women I socialize with online and his goal was to sleep with all five of us.
There was a guy I went out on two dates with who only could get off if he dressed up like a clown when he was fucking you.
Who can forget the married guy who lied on his profile, saying he was single, only to take me out on a seemingly normal, nice dinner date… Until his wife showed up at the end of the date to rip me a new one for "dating a married man." (Apparently, this is how they kept their love life spicy.)
Then there was the guy who said that he was 6'3" on his profile, yet when I met him in person he was shorter than me (I'm 5'4"). It's not that he was short, it was that he lied.
Have you heard about Jerkoff Joe? He's the guy on OKC who contacts you for a "cyberdate" and then wants you to watch him pleasure himself on webcam.
Let's not forget the countless unemployed, 35 year old, lives with their parents, never had a serious relationship type of guys there are floating around on OKC and every other dating website that there is…

And, she thinks geeky card game loving dude is the worst that she can pull?

Please.

Regardless: This article really depressed me. Because it clearly illustrated that douche bags like Alyssa Bereznak are not only taking hot geeky guys away from women like me (who would appreciate them for what they are) but, also, getting the writing gigs I want. Boo, Gizmodo, boo.

PS: Jon, seriously, if you wanna go out sometime… I'm recently single again! I'll be in NYC in October! ;)

Elliott says,

I would still totally bang Alyssa Bereznak.

Got a geeky romantical problem you need help with? Email us at keepyourpantsonbc@yahoo.com and we'll do our best to help!

Until next week, KYPO!

(Say it "KAPOW!" It's what a Magic player would say when throwing the trump card that wins a tourney.)

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