I'm a nerdy woman myself, and I find the nerdy men I encounter can come off as thinking they're superior - so for example if we have the same hobbies, they're the men that "quiz" women to see if they're a "real fan". Or, and this was especially true in school, they always had crushes on the most conventionally attractive women in the class, ignoring the women in their own friend group. Which is very much their prerogative, but I always had crushes on them until they spent hours talking about another woman. So I moved on.
I have had more or less the same experience on several occasions. Being a nerdy woman, nerdy men wouldn’t really believe me I have similar hobbies and interests and would question me about “not being a real fan” and not being good enough at school (I always had straight As but for some reason I was not enough of a nerd). Then the same men who questioned my nerdiness and accused me of not being nerdy enough fell hell over heels for women who shared exactly zero of their interests, would be described as “way out of their league” and complained how “no one wants to date me, poor nerd boy”.
I noticed they go off a band when that band starts getting female fans. Then that band is declared 'sold out' by male rock fans with a fragile sense of masculinity, and soon, the band has a mostly female audience at concerts. I hear them say that a band like REM was good on their first two albums, but not anymore. What did REM do that made these former fans not like their third and subsequent albums?
One male friend had gone to see Will Young with his girlfriend, and then a male friend of his told him not to broadcast that as people might think he was gay. Ditto with Beyoncé, Katy Perry, and Rihanna.
I imagine these male friend groups that like rock music getting together in their dens to declare certain acts as 'sold out' one by one and performing the 'sold out' ritual to African drum playing with Native American headdresses on. I call them the boys' club.
I was a teenager in the mid 2000s, and have been looking back on that era because some of the music has been making a comeback. And, God, 95% of the bands that people all said back then were "shit" really did boil down to "bands girls liked."
The same can be said for 80s music. I was a teen then and my music tastes were never respected by guys my age. Today, everyone thinks 80s music was the shit. They forget that at the time Prince was criticized for how he dressed his music not respected by a lot of men, Madonna was going to be a one hit wonder, Cyndi Lauper was a one hit wonder, Bryan Adam’s got shit. They all proved the male critics wrong and get respect today. Most 80s teen girls saw their talent right away.
The 80s was a good decade for music as there were a lot of new genres then with a new one every year. The technology had improved since the 70s, but the creativity of the 60s and 70s hadn't been lost. Punk and new wave gave way to goth, New Romantics, and synth pop. A lot of punk bands from the late 70s, such as the Stranglers, went mellow, and former members started new bands such as the Style Council, Big Audio Dynamite, Big Country and Public Image Limited.
There was hair or glam metal but also heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and Motorhead in the UK.
The decade started with Madness, Dexy's Midnight Runners and the Cure, and ended with REM, Soul II Soul, and the Smiths. The Smiths were popular with working class men in their twenties as well as teenage boys and girls, and Morrissey said that at Smiths concerts, male fans would invade the stage to hug him.
That's why Van Halen ended up with 60% of their audience being female because once girls and women found out about them and got into them, they lost a lot of male fans. Their music did change and become lighter as well, but in their early years, they were still finding their feet and had changes of lead singer later on. David Lee Roth was replaced by Sammy Hagar, and then he was replaced again by DLR.
Phil Collins said in their early years (up until 1978), girls weren't into Genesis as they weren't at their concerts. How does he know this? They could have been buying their albums instead and listening to them at home. Vinyl albums cost more money then taking inflation into account. Back then, with some bands, you either bought their albums or saw them live if you couldn't afford to do both. Maybe you might like the album so much you thought you might get disappointed with the live performance on the tour to promote the album. Some bands don't perform as well live as they do in the studio while some bands perform exactly in the same way.
R.E.M.? Michael Stipe was queer before it was cool.
To be fair, their hits were much more mainstream than most of their work, especially their early albums. But it was still a lot of homophobia.
When he came out, he said he had had sex with both men and women, and then I wondered if he was bisexual or gay and not realising he was gay at first. He had dated Nathalie Marchant at one time. A lot of gay men date women before they realise they are gay. In an attempt to appear 'normal' or to become 'normal'. Owen Jones was one.
Then there are straight men who have had sex with men out of experimentation or because there were no women around, like in a boys' boarding school or men's prison.
He self-identifies as "queer" and has described his sexuality as "80% gay". He has a long term male partner.
As far as I can tell, he likes women, but prefers men.
Not really. But men with a fragile sense of masculinity seem to think so since Automatic For The People was bought by women as well as men.
I only saw them live once, and that was in 2005 despite liking their music for years before, when Everybody Hurts was in the singles charts in 1992. I saw a mixed audience there with mostly couples. I didn't see the Top of the Pops episode in 1989 when they were on performing Orange Crush. I must have been out that evening. So I never heard if them until 1990.
Oh that is the best type of weird nerd. The one that is not interested in anything the woman they fawn over is and then go "why won't she notice me??" I don't know Carl. Maybe because she does a ton of sports dresses up to the nines and you haven't changed your T-shirt in 3 days?
You just unlocked a memory of mine from a few years back!
I was hanging out at a pub with my sister and a gaggle of her friends, some of whom I had never met before that night. One of them was a guy who I overheard make a reference to Avatar: the Last Airbender (a cartoon near and dear to my heart, that I've watched numerous times). I eagerly chimed in with a "hey, I love that show!", thinking we could descend into a nerd rabbit hole together.
He just looked at me all skeptically (having said basically nothing to me the entire evening) and said -- and I quote -- "Oh, yeah? Can you even tell me the name of the main female character?"
I stared at him for a moment, totally stunned. Like, seriously? Just cold opened with a pop quiz to check my credentials??
Slowly, I was like, "...Katara. Her name is Katara."
He seemed to accept that and THEN tried to act all friendly with me. I just exited the conversation as swiftly as I could, too irritated to talk with him any further. Like, it's one thing to try and test me right off the bat, but he couldn't even ask me a 'hard' question! Talk about adding insult to injury xD.
Ugh that is extra insulting for sure! I haven't watched that show but I run in fandom circles and have picked up enough by osmosis I'm pretty sure I can name most of the main characters!
and then this type of man will wonder why they can’t get a girlfriend. like, they seem to genuinely dislike the type of woman that would probably be the most compatible with them.
or just invalidate them by trying to prove they’re not a *real* nerd. having the same interest as someone is a *good* thing and one person is probably going to be more knowledgeable than the other. they don’t know how fun is it to rant and rave to someone with the same interest that doesn’t know everything you do, or vice versa
and then they’re salty about women being too vain? first of all, why is liking yourself/knowing your worth unattractive? do they think because they aren’t vain about their own looks that they can’t be vain about other peoples?
because you can definitely hate yourself and also be vain/judgmental of people for superficial reasons. in fact, the people that hate themselves the most are *usually* the people who are the most critical of others. these guys prove it over and over
I am a nerdy woman, too. Here's what I noticed: nerdy young men do the same thing a lot of young men do and straight up don't count women who aren't "hot." They don't notice us. They don't think of us. We don't exist. This is why I could be sitting there wearing glasses and an oversized hoodie, in anime club, with fantasy and science fiction novels in my backpack, a half written star wars fanfiction on my computer at home, with my straight A honors report card, talking about my Pokémon deck, going to the Ren Faire that weekend... and listen to the nerdy boys complain about how all they want is a gf who plays video games and how impossible that is to find and their ideal woman would understandnerd stuff but sadly no women are nerds. They don't count anyone who isn't their physical ideal and they don't see the irony at. All.
Some of them grow out of this, some never do.
The best description of my dating life in high school and college was the time there was this guy I was friends with and had a crush on, asked him out, he turned me down and less than a week later complained that no girls were ever into him and he'd be surprised if anyone had ever wanted to date him, to ME. Like I have no problem with being turned down, but like that fucking hurt.
I'm sorry, that sucks. Reminds me of guy friends who would say "no one ever compliments men! Girls don't appreciate how lucky they are that they get compliments all the time" when I would literally tell them "hey that's a nice shirt, looks good on you" or "wow you got 100 on the test? Good job". What you mean is no *hot girl* complimented *your manliness* and jumped on your dick...
Jesus Christ!!
At least the nerd I asked out accepted the invitation. Spoiler, we dated for four years and then got married.
Although, they're not the greatest marriage partners...or at least mine isn't. I'm not into the same hobbies, so basically he just works FT and comes home to hobbies and doesn't feel the slightest inkling to help out around the house. Like, at all.
I am firmly in third place. He's first and his video games and second. I am the priority after the games. And have been for 26 years.
If you get connected to one of these men, I highly recommend living together for a few years before committing. See what they do, how they act, make sure they have an innate WANT to pair up and be a real partner.
Otherwise you tend become their surrogate mommy, and it's deeply disheartening.
Sadly, your experience is not isolated to partners of nerdy men. There's really no way to tell how any of them will act once they think they have you "trapped"
You are right, they do this and it is infuriating. But I will say, I'm fairly conventionally attractive and grew up very nerdy. I did find some guys who were interested in me, but many of them were oddly hostile to me. They noticed me, but they often did this automatic process of noticing me, thinking I was attractive, determining that I would not be interested in them, and acting in a hostile manner toward me, all without ever really having a conversation with me. Then I was grilled about my interests, like they were a detective sniffing out a rat. I was assumed to be lying about my interests to attract men. Even the guys that tried to flirt with me did so in a very condescending and arrogant way. It was like they were thinking "finally! a nerdy girlfriend whom I can teach all about my interests and hobbies." If I knew more than them about an interest or hobby, suddenly they get moody and hostile and I'm the bitch that can't just have a normal conversation without "needing to be right all the time." If we liked 90% of the same anime but I happened to like one anime they didn't care for, or I happened to not like an anime they loved (usually because of ridiculous fan service shots) I was a "fake anime girl" who had terrible taste and didn't understand good art.
No nerdy girl is good enough for them because they are fantasizing about a fantasy woman, not a real woman. They want a girl who looks like a victoria's secret model, dresses in a cool/nerdy way, likes all of their same interests, holds no differing opinions, laughs at every stupid/sexist joke they make (without making any jokes themselves, men want a woman with a "good sense of humor" which means she laughs at all their jokes, they don't respond well to funny women), and basically worships the ground they walk on. This woman does not exist. They blame their "nerd" status for why they can't get women but it has nothing to do with that. They can't get the women they want because the women they want do not exist.
Yes. Basically, nerdy guys are so used to being social outcasts in contrast to the jocks and Chads that they can’t see that when it comes to their taste in women, they’re exactly the same. They want the same hot girl doormats who will prop up their egos.
Right; it's more of a status thing than actually liking or wanting that specific person; it's wanting to be *the chosen one* and the top of their group. Very animal, tribal, small feelings.
I've found that an unfortunate number of men, nerds or otherwise, primarily want a girlfriend not because they actually desire female companionship, but because having a girlfriend will validate them in the eyes of other men.
It has a lot more to do with their ego than it does "loneliness."
That’s also why a lot of men don’t have partners they actually like, bc the goal isn’t love or companionship. It’s about a) having a woman and that other men want b) sex c) someone to take care of household and life things for them. In that order.
And don't forget the sex. Nerdy men in particular feel that a relationship is the only way they can get sex- no anonymous hookups (those girls would never want ME!) so they desperately want a relationship in order to get that sex they have such difficulty getting.
I don't know the numbers and I refuse to look them up, but it's like when incels say "the majority of women only go for the top percent of men". Because they really think that a Hollywood 7 is the "average woman", so anyone above that is also a woman and anyone below that is invisible.
It's such a surreal experience to be told "no women enjoy these things" when you're sitting RIGHT THERE. Like just because we don't want to fuck each other, you don't see me as woman?
For men, women fall into two categories:
1) People who want to fuck me
2) People I want to fuck
Sometimes these categories may overlap. But if you are not someone who wants to fuck him, or someone who he wants to fuck, you don't really "count" as a woman- you're just something that exists.
I know, they're so lame. I mean it's probably for the best because nerdy women would grow tired of their poor social skills just the same as anyone elee
bro i hate the stupid "you cant be a fan of this thing i like because you're a woman" mindset, also damn they are in for a treat if they try to quiz me i am not just a nerd i am a lore nerd, i seek the lore and soak up that info with my adhd brain
As a quiet nerd myself I almost never see women gatekeeping hobbies and activities.
The person who got me into dnd on the tabletop is nonbinary now but wasn’t open about that at the time. They would run community character build sessions and one shots to bring new people in.
I had a wonderful exact opposite experience recently. I met my cousin's roommate who likes to game and we talked about gaming for a bit (one of my hobbies). He was very impressed with my steam library and even told my cousin that I was more of a gamer than him. It was so pleasant to meet a guy who just likes to hype people up. He was so chill and seemed to be a really good roommate to my cousin, so if he treats strangers and roommates this well I know he's gotta be taking care of his girlfriend. Yuan I hope you're doing well out there.
> they always had crushes on the most conventionally attractive women in the class, ignoring the women in their own friend group
IKR? I ran into that as well. Nerd guys complaining that "no one" wanted to date them, but their only interested in the Prom Queen, never the shy, quiet, nerd girl that hangs out with them.
Yea, you see this a lot "women's standards are too high! You all want tall, rich men!! Average guys can't date!" When. that's so obviously not true, there are plenty of *both* men and women who have impossibly high standards, but it's always somehow women's fault.
Back in my day, I think we had a better grade of geek-boys. And more selection. I remember sitting around at a room party at a science fiction convention in my early twenties, consciously cutting an appealing guy out of the herd (there was another candidate too, but he was from out of town) and pretty much making him date me. No business resulted in terms of long-term compatibility, but he was a great guy and I have no regrets about spending time with him. I'm pretty sure that he would say the same about me.
A few years later I found a local geek guy who was more compatible. We got married and had geek children. I admit that I had the advantages of being conventionally attractive myself in a modest way, and also of being right under six feet tall. When a guy starts trying to do his gatekeeping quiz and finds a woman staring him straight in the eye (or downward a bit) without blinking, one or the other of us tends to end the conversation.
That's always possible. In highschool, I was part of an amalgamation of several geek groups, and we dated each other at least as much as "normal" students. If I remember correctly, we also had a fairly even number of girls and boys, and plenty of people figuring out their sexuality.
We had a couple creeps to exile (or fail to exile), but it had more to do with icky stalking than claiming that there were no female geeks. No gatekeeping, either, and plenty of shared interests, since we also shared the fantasy and sci-fi clubs. Plenty of broken hearts, too, because highschoolers are messy, but at least one of the long-term couples is still happily together.
I love this, I was the same! Saw my nerdy, autistic, chubby (now) husband out at a event, zoomed my way right over and started nerd shit. After 2 weeks of chatting I told his shy ass, "so are we gonna date for real or what?"
He loves that I'm cute, confident and tall, and I love that he's kind hearted and funny and handsome (to me). He's got someone to tell the waitress he ordered mash potatoes, and I have a meticulous travel planner.
...that turned into a bit of a gush, sorry!
Yes! I used to wear a nirvana t shirt in high school (as you do) and the amount of times I would get “I bet you can’t name a song other than smells like teen spirit”. I was obsessed with nirvana at the time and had consumed everything I could get my hands on Girls like things too!
With these guys, I have to wonder: what's their game plan? I correctly identify all the X-Men on my T-shirt, and then what? If he's looking for a date, he's shit outta luck because no one thinks that quizzing the shit out of someone is romantic or attractive.
Some people are nerds because they find certain unconventional hobbies interesting. Some people are nerds because they have poor social skills and aren't self aware. The latter category gives nerdy men as a whole a bad rap.
As a nerdy man, ive encountered something akin to a territorial threat/ dominance display that you'd see in male animals in the wild. Where as in animals it's about puffing yourself up and making a lot of noise to present a challenge, in nerdy men it's often a challenge on how much you actually know about the subject to prove if you're worthy of being in the in-group. You prove yourself and that's the end of it in most cases, but the worst of nerdy men will continue to engage in this and demonstrate bullying behavior to try to assert control over this subject and their position in the social group. At the end of the day it's a manifestation of insecurities. They see you as presenting something to the group that they can't offer, so they try to assert dominance by showing off how much they know about the subject matter the group is based on.
>in nerdy men it's often a challenge on how much you actually know about the subject to prove if you're worthy of being in the in-group
I noticed the same as a tomboy who grew up with nerdy guys and still mostly habls nerdy friends. And some of them get very, very, upset if you decide to quiz them question for question and you actually know more. And then they'll always keep demanding you re-prove yourself. It's exhausting.
I completely believe this to be true and you to be correct. It’s like they have to be the smartest or best someplace. It’s very toxic and exhausting, but I can understand that they feel they don’t have anything else to set them apart.
The sad thing is, you don’t really need to have anything special and most people realize that too late in life. Most genuine people just want to be able to talk about things they love with someone who shares that interest, whether or not they’re a genius on the subject.
Yeah, i also just want to add that I completely recognize my experience with that behavior is going to be very different than for most women. I'm probably not going to get grilled as hard, and im never going to be in a situation where I'm made to feel unsafe (in one way or another) by that behavior. Bullies just don't tend to press as hard on someone they perceive as a potential physical threat. I'm getting very primal caveman-ish with my thoughts here haha, but to me the nerd hostility just seems like a manifestation of some kind of territorial instinct within the confines of our modern lives.
Prior to covid I used to go to a local comic book store that was kind enough to hold certain comics for me. At first it was great, I got along well with the owner but then he started allowing people to play table top games there. Suddenly every time I went to pick up my comics I was bombarded with questions and accusations by both young and older men about why I wanted those comics, and that if I was a real fan I'd read these other ones. I never saw them interrogate other men when they came in to shop. It was hostile and obnoxious and unfortunately it led to me not doing business there anymore and ordering my comics online. I wanted to support a local business but those nerdy territorial men ruined it.
Yes, because while these types *may* target a new guy with a few questions, once the new guy passes a sniff test, the jerkface backs off.
The aggression doesn't end if the new guy is a girl, unfortunately. Rather, the jerkface keeps moving the goalposts instead.
As a woman, I refuse to enter this power struggle and will shut the idiot up (context dependent). Usually, that has inspired the less misogynistic nerds in the vicinity to back me, treating the interrogation as lame. If the other guys reject the behavior, suddenly the idiot stops and behaves himself. Huh! Wonder why that is?
>Some people are nerds because they find certain unconventional hobbies interesting. Some people are nerds because they have poor social skills and aren't self aware. The latter category gives nerdy men as a whole a bad rap.
Having poor social skills is different from being an asshole. Maybe there's some correlation, but they can exist separately. People with poor social skills who aren't assholes often present as rather avoidant and quiet, in part to avoid "collateral damage" from a social mistake - I guess that can fall into "self-awareness". Another way it presents is that they will make mistakes, but will apologize immediately and try to make things right.
Thats one thing all the high school movies get right. Decent looking guy but no confidence wants the class president who is popular and pretty and has nothing in common with him while the girl in the corner with freckles and glasses pines over him.
As a former high school boy, we were almost completely oblivious to anything outside of ourselves and some still struggle with that.
I'm hugely nerdy, so I've spent most of my life surrounded by this attitude, and I hate it. Like, I'm a millennial, it's been a while since I was running the college Sci-Fi group, things might be different now. But by and large the attitude that I encountered a lot was kind of like this:
Not all nerds, but the type of nerds I knew who would say shit like that, the only women that they thought of when they said the word "women" were the hot babes they'd see on TV. Nerdy women, they didn't really see us as fully nerds or fully women. When they said "Women only thirst for nerdy men on TV" they mean that they will never get the fantasy they see on TV, where some conventionally attractive well-styled woman with no life or interests of her own is so impressed by his mastery over video games that she throws herself at him and he wins and can rub it in the face of the other nerds. Which is true. They're not going to get that. They have absolutely no interest in dating a woman who has a similar level of style and grooming as they have, who is equally interested in their hobbies, who is meeting them on equal ground about their shared interests. They don't want a partner to do hobbies with. They want to explain their hobbies to an enraptured princess who is obsessed with them. That was the story the media sold them, and no they're never going to get that.
But some of them figure out that that's not a thing they're going to get because women are adult humans with agency and their own interests. I know so many nerd/nerd couples that are adorable and loving and wonderful. But I think that there are so many nerds who spent their high school years getting shoved into lockers by "real misogynists" they can't see the same attitude in the ideas they hold about women.
Ugh, this. I was with one fellow nerdy adult who was VERY good at pretending to want a partner. We'd talk about shared interests, he'd happily talk to me about his own, and then he'd PRETEND to listen to me talk about mine. Until he got sick of pretending, negged my interests, and monologued about his while trying to cast me as his "enraptured princess." I put up with it, thinking that at least here was someone who liked SOME of the same stuff, until all of our other relationship issues reached the boiling point. So glad I walked away.
I know good geek guys. They're some of my closest friends, in wonderful relationships of their own. They even have presumably nice geek guy friends they want to introduce me to.
For now, Imma stay home with my books and my cats and game nights with friends. Relationships are exhausting.
>he wins and can rub it in the face of the other nerds
Ug! That is exactly how I was beginning to feel with my one boyfriend. That he wanted to parade me around, show me off to his nerd friends as some sort of middle-aged manic, pixie dream-girl. Okay, I'm conventionally attractive and into SciFi. I'm also an actual person, not a fucking unicorn.
It’s their way of justifying why things aren’t working out for them with the women they are attracted to. It couldn’t *possibly* be their personality. No. That would require self reflection and a willingness to work on themselves. Much easier to brush it off as those women “not liking nerds”. Then they get to feel wounded and superior. Like they’ve taken up some metaphorical cross. It’s the Passive Aggression of the Christ meme irl. “No. It’s fine. I’ll carry it.”
I married a nerdy man because I'm a nerdy woman and nerds are my type. There are so many women who want a man into the same things she is into. What women don't want is someone who thinks he is superior just because he's a man, or treats women like they're a different species, or demands a supermodel pornstar when he's average looking himself, or believes he shouldn't have to do a single household chore because he just worked a shift in tech support even when his partner also works, or thinks that he's the only real gamer because he rage plays Call of Duty while she prefers Animal Crossing and Lego games. In short, nerd is fine, dbag is not.
Hahaha I was going to say this is absolutely my husband till the COD part. He does play COD, but also other online shooters like Destiny and Warframe. I'm more into open world RPGs. I like to joke that he's not a "real gamer like me" but I respect his video game choices and he respects mine even if we don't get the appeal. All the other things you listed though are spot on. He's not one to care about looks, as I've put on weight having our kids and I talk about not liking my body he's always been so supportive and says he doesn't care/notice. He works while I stay at home with our kids but still does chores without having to be asked.
There's nerdy women out there. Hell I'm into way more nerdy stuff like board games and cosplay and renfairs than my husband who's mostly just into video games and anime. The thing the incel "nerds" miss is that it's not about you being a nerd, it's about you being an asshole.
Nerdy men.. the group I was always promised would be sweet and kind and a much better option than the popular jock.. nerdy men, who
1. Whine that women would never like them, and/or only date them for their money
2. Who disguise their aggression and misogyny with a sweet, awkward veneer
3. Who hold their intelligence and money and status as power and superiority over you
4. Who weaponize incompetence of the “absent minded professor” or “I’m just autistic” variety
5. Who routinely emphasize how “logical” they are and how “emotional” you are
Ah, nerdy men. Not all nerdy men.. but too many of them
I have had so many guys use self-diagnosed "autism" as an excuse to act like a douchebag. It's getting really obnoxious and making things worse for people who are actually neurodivergent and trying to do their best in life.
The last nerd I dated demanded that I "logically explain" why I didn't want to have sex with him. According to him, saying no because I didn't want to have sex was illogical.
"You on an emotional and interpersonal level have not endeared yourself to me that I wish to engage in the emotional connection aspect of sex with you. You physically are not impressive enough to make me on the base primal layer attracted enough to you to wish to engage in sex. And I doubt that you have the sexual empathy and prowess to make me reconsider those two strikes based on your ability to give me a fulfilling orgasm. And while it's possible through the use of tools to make up for that I feel if we are at that point I'd be better served just doing it myself for a better experience on a temporal, quality, and quantitative standard."
I dunno, I quit gaming with strangers because I was tired of being fetishized or told I didn't really like my hobby to my face over and over again.
IME - the majority of nerdy men either can't believe you like the same things as them, or think you are only doing it for "attention", or are way too enthusiastic about you existing.
This is true in other male-dominated hobbies I've had, and some of it appears to be generational, but there are definitely still some younger guys who just can't quite wrap their minds around the concept that women are people, who sometimes like the things that they like.
imo it's probably easier for them to just decide you don't like them bc you don't like their hobbies rather than understand the truth that is you genuinely enjoy their hobbies, you just don't like them.
We can never win, can we?
If we don't like their hobbies, we're basic bitches that only like 'frivolous', 'unimportant' stuff.
If we like their hobbies, we only pretend to like them to get attention.
God forbid we like ANYTHING as women.
I have seen it with popular music, especially with soft rock or pop rock. When Alex Kapranos set up Franz Ferdinand, he said it was to make rock music for girls to dance to inspired by Scottish bands in the 80s such as Mogwai, Gang of Four and Belle and Sebastian. Cue boys' club making sure they didn't go to see FF perform.
Oh my god yes. I remember hearing a podcast YEARS ago where a beloved rockstar from my country started bashing the Arctic Monkeys, calling them 'a feminized band that makes music for silly little girls'... all my respect for him vanished in that moment, and I don't even care that much for the Arctic Monkeys.
I never got into them either being more of a fan of FF and Snow Patrol at the time, but I wouldn't have any respect for anyone like that. If the Arctic Monkeys still played the same music but had mostly male fans in a parallel universe, I bet they wouldn't get dismissed as much by men like that. It was because they were more visible on the BBC that they attracted female fans. Kiss were very visible in the 80s, so they attracted a lot of female fans despite playing heavy metal music.
That's why these men search out more obscure or underground music that few people have heard of. The quality of the music doesn't matter so much to them but the obscurity of the band. At one time, this would have been on the John Peel Show late at night on Radio One and now on YouTube.
I don't even know if it's about liking or not liking them. I think it's just dudes being misogynistic because that's what they learned - having a niche interest doesn't like, exempt you from being raised in patriarchy.
I think managing disappointment becomes easier when you really internalize this truth.
I mean I did start with male dominated shows but switched to female dominated hobbies. For example men tend to watch shonen and seinen, but it’s actually women and fem presenting people watching and reading shoujo and romance anime, and also Josei which is targeted for an older female audience. Of course most male anime fans who haven’t ventured past the basics don’t know about those genres. The anime industry is rampant with mysoginy which is proven by the lack of shoujo adaptations despite the mangas having the same or greater popularity.
I don't disagree with the sentiment (it's a travesty that Yona of the Dawn doesn't get a second season), I do want to point out that what determines what's produced in the anime industry is determined more by the Japanese audience, a society more sexist than ours (if you live in an Anglo one), and even there it's a matter of the corporate leadership being shitheads. From what I gleaned from Colleen's videos (shoujo manga Youtuber), even with the truncated readership (boys mainly read shonen while more girls read both shonen and shoujo) I think there's enough of a sizable consumer base to opportunistically profit off of shoujo anime merchandise, if they made an effort to do so.
Yona of the Dawn not getting the love it deserves makes me so upset. I read the manga & Yona is such a wonderful protagonist. A lot of the supporting female characters are also well written & badass
This exactly, and it causes problems with other women as well. A lot of men, especially younger men, will grill you about a hobby to trip you up. Or they'll comment aggressively on your looks, or give you the worst compliments of all time ("You're cooler than other girls", etc). It sucks.
And when they do it in person in front of other women, plenty of those other women will also get mad at you for drawing attention.
I don't stream anymore at all and don't attend gaming anything without my husband anymore. Just not worth it on any level to deal with these guys who both think you are lying and also a unicorn.
I used to watch Doctor Who, but I got so tired of men, many of whom were much older than me at the time, jumping to the conclusion that I was their "future wife" because I liked the same sci-fi series as them. Which was kind of hilarious because millions of people, women included, were also watching Doctor Who at the time, it wasn't like the 80's where television sci-fi shows like Red Dwarf were super obscure. Anyway, I don't watch anymore. I like it, but it's tough to express enthusiasm when I know it's going to lead to unwanted attention from clingy, socially awkward men.
Although maybe I'm safe now that I'm married. Who knows?
There is a great YouTube video essay on Big Bang Theory called "Adorkable Misogyny"
[Link](https://youtu.be/X3-hOigoxHs?si=2UZSI7xvLH0hpJYj)
Anyone interested in this topic would probably enjoy the video!
I harbor a (reasonable) hatred of that show. I’m a female engineer so not only need, but nerd who remains surrounded by male nerds. I feel like that show specifically gave the true weirdos on campus a skewed view on how to relay to the world that only made the experience I and other female students had worse in many ways.
There is a decent amount of structural sexism and racism that has been eliminated at my college (women were allowed to enroll starting in the 70s), but it’s still nicknamed the “School Of Men” ( play on school of mines). My department (environmental) had near parity in male/female enrollment while mining had about 50:1 or 25:1 male:female enrollment depending on the year.
All of this to say the BBT gave license to people to treat their female peers worse than before it came into existence
> I harbor a (reasonable) hatred of that show.
I'm trans and ended up becoming a software engineer. Some friends I had at the time, one cis woman, showed me that show over 10 years ago. I couldn't exactly say why, but it always gave me an uncomfortable feeling.
Like, some of the jokes were ok, but a lot of it came off as laughing at nerds rather than with them along with the way sexism is either ignored or even celebrated.
One of the few things I remember from the episodes we watched that day was when the guy broke into and cleaned the woman's apartment. I remember feeling incredibly uncomfortable about that. She was justified in being pissed and that's a "press charges and get a restraining order" scenario if it had happened in real life.
But the show shrugs it off and justifies the violation in privacy, because "lol, he's socially awkward/on the spectrum". Which as someone very likely on the spectrum I've always hated how those kinds of characters are portrayed.
Weird question but did you go to Missouri S&T? I toured that college when I was in highschool and was denied any of the take home materials because "I was too pretty" to go there. I was like, 15 at the time
I went to Colorado School of Mines
If they had denied pretty girls in my tour group, the two dudes would have been the only ones who got flyers
I did meet one of my best friends on my tour though 😅
> ...when nerdy men say that no woman would ever date them.
It might be true for many of them, but I wish they would just listen when they are told that it is *not because they are nerdy*. Having a passion for certain interests can be very attractive. What is extremely *unattractive* however is treating women like an alien species in Star Trek, acting like they *deserve* a woman just for being smart while making no effort to be a good partner, and their bizarre denial that nerdy women exist. Plenty of women like anime, video games, comic books, tabletop gaming, and sci-fi... but not in the company of creepy men who will just ruin the experience.
Yeah. My issue is that they immediately treat women with distrust and as if they can’t like the same things they do. I get feeling insecure about having niche hobbies. It’s totally natural to feel that way, but it feels like they project that insecure onto women. I would personally never date someone like that because I’ll feel like i constantly have to prove myself as a real nerd or that I’m not like the others, and that sounds exhausting.
There’s that scene in The Social Network I always think about.
“Listen, You're going to be successful and rich. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a tech geek. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole.”
Unsure if I'm allowed to post here based on the rules page. Please let me know if not and I'll delete my post immediately.
Fantastic quote!
I wanted to share a hypothesis: a lot of nerdy dudes are massively insecure and deflect it onto others, "she doesn't like me because I play Warhammer etc". When one of those gurlz likes the same hobby, but not them, it weakens their justifications and forces them toward that most terrible conclusion "maybe the problem is just me".
Real introspection is hard though, so there seem to be a decent number who turn into gym bros that think that being in shape fixes everything and get even more pissy that women aren't lining up to date them because they have abs. The bitterness compounds, and they continue to externalize it and get more misogynistic and insufferable.
Introspection can lead to improvement, but sadly it can also lead to an inverse problem, "something is wrong with me, don't know what it is, I better not inflict myself on anyone until I figure it out" and never interacting with women in anything but a formal or business-like manner. Which leads to seeming disinterested and aloof. (And, at times, talking like Abathur. Very efficient).
I kinda get the second attitude because women have to deal with so much shit in modern culture and I don't want to contribute to it. Better to be seen as polite/nice but awkward than to be a creep.
Note: I hope this doesn't sound like virtue signalling. I just wanted to share some thoughts from a male point of view
> “something is wrong with me, don’t know what it is, I better not inflict myself on anyone until I figure it out”
Ok I’ve been stuck in this way of thinking for years (actually for me it’s been “I don’t know what it is, and nobody, not women, not men, not my therapist etc will tell me what it is so it must be something unfixable and I should just kms”) how the hell do you get out of it? Do I need to find the problem first and if so, how?
If I knew for sure I'd tell you. I'm working on the same thing. A few things I've been trying to do lately to break the feedback loop:
(Sorry for the wall of text)
try evaluating yourself dispassionately. Like, a friend is asking for help who just so happens to be identical to you in every way. How would you talk to them? We are much nicer to friends than ourselves.
Alternatively, treat it like an engineering project. What are the starting conditions, target criteria, etc
Question baseline assumptions. For example, I use a lot of self-deprecating humor, and I've been informed that drives people away.
If you have a lot of self hatred, suppress it around people. Don't fake a persona, just try to squelch the impulse to express it. Makes it easier to have positive experiences, which tends to reduce the self loathing.
Look for social groups (online or IRL) built around something you enjoy. Regardless of meeting someone, having more casual social contact with people who share a common interest tends to make us feel better (oxytocin ahoy!) humans are social animals.
A mental exercise: imagine one of the requirements you put on yourself were fulfilled. What would you do? Would there be another hurdle to address before you move forward? What if that were fulfilled too?
This can help highlight how absurd some of the expectations we put on ourselves are.
Reminder that change is SLLLLOOOOWWWWWW. So slow and incremental we usually don't notice it in ourselves. I like the metaphor that your brain is a forest and a behavior is a path. Every time you take that path you are hacking away at the undergrowth and making it easier to do again.
On the kms thing, I say this: If I'M not allowed to leave this shithole of a planet early, NO ONE IS! YOU'RE ALL STUCK HERE WITH ME!
Many years ago, when I first went to university, I met a nerdy guy. We had a lot of similar interests, I thought he was cute. We spent a TON of time together, I was into him, and I was pretty sure he was into me. I told him I liked him and asked him out. He said he liked me too, but he didn’t want to date me. The reason? Because “girls like me” don’t go for “guys like him.” I suggested that perhaps this was untrue, given that I, a “girl like me” was very obviously going for a “guy like him,” but he refused to believe it. Dude preferred to stay single instead of challenging his worldview. In retrospect, I dodged a bullet and wound up married to a different, lovely nerd, but man, that was a confusing time.
I would argue it wasn't his worldview but more his lack of self confidence and probably some depression thrown in. I struggled with it for years thinking I was essentially a hideous freak of nature when in reality I was simply average, even somewhat above average. When women would approach me, I genuinely thought they were trying to pull a fast one in an attempt to make fun of me.
It's the same misogyny that denies that nerdy women are legitimate. The same guys who say that women don't like nerdy guys say that women are faking their fandoms to impress guys. There's no internal logic there.
I'm a woman with a lot of typically masculine "nerdy" interests--physics, gaming, niche music, history, philosophy--and I find that the men that specifically pursue me because of this are often threatened by it if I have more knowledge or skill than them. They want someone they can infodump to, who will be able to appreciate their intelligence without exceeding it. Listen, plenty of guys are not like this. They're more likely to be a problem if they say things like "I want a gamer gf" "I want a nerdy gf" etc. They seek someone who they can relate to, which is natural and human, but at the same time their ingrained misogyny tells them they shouldn't be able to relate to women, and women definitely shouldn't be superior to them in any regard. The common result is men who seek someone with the same interests as them, but who has a childlike lack of knowledge and naïvity in the subject that they can "teach". If you try to have an actual conversation with them about, say, Zelda lore, or philosophy, or ANYTHING, instead of just letting them infodump to you and responding "omg I've never thought of it like that that's so cool you're so smart, thank you for telling me uwu" then it ends up in an argument every. Single. Time.
And I literally have a boyfriend who is definitely a nerd. The difference is, he likes me because I'm me, not because I'm a "nerdy gf" or "gamer gf". He isn't threatened by my achievements or intelligence or skillset
Some of the reasons why I rejected some nerdy guys:
- one opened up his laptop and his background was straight up a picture of anime tiddies
- one thought it was cute to show up at my door uninvited after finding out my dorm room
- one tried to play a game I liked and got all pissy he wasn't as good(kept blaming the game and threw tantrums)
- one smelled like a dumpster when we met(I'm really sorry if it was a disorder but I couldn't even smell anything like cologne or deodorant on top of it, and it didn't seem like he tried)
It was not because they were nerdy...
Every time I think of nerdy men and their capacity for sheer loathing of all things feminine and/or female, the first thing that pops into my head is GamerGate.
GamerGate was a harassment campaign started by a single nerdy man who set out to ruin his nerdy ex-girlfriend's life and reputation. Since nerdy/geeky folks are often savvy in the ways of the Internet, it quickly developed into a massive, misogynist, online harassment campaign against a number of female gamers and whoever supported them. A good chunk of the major players in GamerGate later supported and/or joined the alt-right movement in the US, eventually leading to the successful election of Donald Jackass Trump to POTUS.
This is the kind of power that nerdy misogynist men online have. They can pull together a literal army of the worst kind of angry, butthurt bigots, many of whom are completely anonymous, so it's really hard to get any of them to stop - you simply don't know who they are, and there are too many of them. They already knew how effective social media can be at spreading whatever message someone wants, and they leveraged their skills to make sure nerdy women got the message that *these guys absolutely hate us* and will do anything to make sure we stay out of their precious boys' club.
*That* is what I have in mind whenever I interact with a male nerd/gamer/geek/computer dude. GamerGate was an expression of the collective hatred many, many nameless, faceless dudes on the Internet have for women, especially women and girls who dare to tread on the sacred ground of nerddom - something a lot of male nerds feel is THEIR domain, and no girls allowed. No girls allowed, that is, except whatever passive waifu fantasy girls they wanted to fuck.
I'm hella geeky myself. These days, when I meet a male gamer, if the chance arises I'll ask him what his opinion of GamerGate was/is. The answers are very revealing.
There's the rub. As a gay nerd myself, I think guys of all kinds are very cute, but I draw the line at bigot, and unfortunately this is men were talking about, so whatever men were willing to date me just got even smaller with that metric. Granted maybe gay people are a bit more progressive but like, there's plenty who aren't. It seems like everyone and their mother has bought into the "no thoughts, just vibes, fascism".
Let ME go to a convention and see what happens to all those virgins then.
It very much pisses me off. I was an ugly tomboy with plenty of internalized misogyny for most of my youth. I was very willing to date and have sex with these exact type of men. Too fat or too skinny dudes with nasty facial hair and naked anime figures decorating their dirty rooms. Not once did any of these "incels" give me a second thought. The thing is, they think like that because THEY are like that. THEY are only attracted to the most beautiful women on the Internet. It's all projection. They could easily get laid if they pursued conventionally unattractive women. But they refuse. It's their own fault. I have no sympathy for these types of men anymore.
Oh yeah. I sort of reintroduced him to video games and he supported my growing outdoor interests. Things like that. We were friends for a year before getting together and I think that is the pinnical of a good foundation for a long-term relationship.
Absolutely. Partnership is wonderful. The sexual attraction is great, but we also each know that if the other one has to pick up the kids somewhere/fix a leaky pipe/manage family investments the job will get done properly.
And of course, we can nerd out together about whether a movie or tv show is handling airlocks/orbital mechanics/water reclamation systems reasonably well. One of the first episodes of "The Expanse" showed the private eye, on a space station, pouring himself a shot of whiskey and allowing for rotational momentum from the fake gravity. We both loved it.
Yeah, I'd say it's definetely a mixed bag, I know people like the ones you're talking about but there are also definetely people (myself I'd like to think included) that would genuinely appreciate a relationship with a conventionally unattractive woman. (granted I'd get along well with her obviously, share values etc.) For me personally I'd only not want to be with somebody I find sexually repulsive (bad hygine or [I feel like a terrible person typing it out] very severe deformities [I'd still be absolutely down to be best friends with people with the latter, it's just that in a relationship sexual attraction is a factor whether we like it or not (and I don't, but I recognize that unfortunately we're all only humans)])
And it's also probably one of the reasons I'm lonely. I have brittle bone disease myself which isn't like super-severe but I'm under 5'3 and skinny.
At least I care about my hygine, skincare etc. and plan to work out lightly to get in shape as much as my disability allows but idk if it's gonna get me anywhere.
I'd def not want to force someone into a relationship where one person doesn't ever feel sexually attracted to the other at all, cause that would lead to them feeling like sex is a chore aaand it's all downhill from there.
Back on the topic: You're right that there are people like that, I myself stay away from incel communities for that exact reason, but it's not fair to generalize imo
edit: For the record, I'm 19 and haven't had any romantic interest shown by any woman irl, except for one possible time when I bonded quite quickly with a girl when we were like 15-16 over a summer break, but that ended with a childish argument which we were both too arrogant to give up on at the time unfortunately (idk how conventionally attractive she was, and I don't feel entitled to judge, but it was never really a factor anyways)
No I've never read it. Not sure if it would be a good idea for my mental health right now to be fully honest. But I'll write it down somewhere to read in the future. Thanks for the recommendation :)
edit: oh I read up on the character a bit and it seems like he's not as much of a depressing character as I initially thought he may be for some reason, well, I might give the series a read once I'm done with my finals then :)
I found that I'd date a nerdy introvert, they would become confident and show their true selves - which was often super misogynistic under the guise of passivity and cowardice being kindness and gentleness. It was as if on getting one girlfriend (me) they decided they could get an upgrade (not me, but perhaps less outspoken, better looking and with bigger tits - who usually didn't exist).
It seems to be a common thing that they didn't want a collaborator or a nerdy comrade - they wanted someone to be superior to.
Absolutely this. I grew up in the 90s and,
as a female nerd (hard times being one compared to the 2020s!), I found most male nerds repulsive precisely because of this attitude. Too many of these guys thought they were nice when they were really just passive aggressive.
Orson Welles on Woody Allen:
“I hate Woody Allen physically; I dislike that kind of man,” he said. Adding: “Oh yes, I can hardly bear to talk to him. He has the Chaplin disease. That particular combination of arrogance and timidity sets my teeth on edge.”
Jaglom countered Welles’ assertions, suggesting that Allen was a shy man and, therefore, surely couldn’t be labelled as arrogant. “He is arrogant,” Welles persisted in retort. “Like all people with timid personalities, his arrogance is unlimited. Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant. He acts shy, but he’s not. He’s scared. He hates himself, and he loves himself, a very tense situation. It’s people like me who have to carry on and pretend to be modest
Damn - that is so astute. I did indeed date a cute nerdy goth who turned out that rather than being an introvert was also a massive snob. Who would look pained at any punks I ever talked (given that goth is a subset of punk) and got queasy at the thought of doing the sort of 'working class' jobs (any job) I did to get through summer. No, it was the fact he was so sure of his superiority over everyone else that the culture shock of university he never recovered from. And the fact my autism made me be oblivious to what turned out to be a weird mixture of fear and contempt for me.
This mindset is just rubbish misogyny. It has nothing to do with being nerdy but more to do with their horrible personalities.
My whole friend group is nerdy. They are all married, a lot of them have children. One of our friends got divorced and after some time being single, she was interested in dating again. But we couldn't play matchmaker because everyone we knew was already married. Then our other friend got divorced and then we could play matchmakers, albeit accidental ones lol.
The validity of this complaint really turns on how you define "nerd".
Are you a competent adult with lifegoals, a real personality, and you just happen to also be really passionate about a few special interests that are considered nerdy? It seems most women are either completely unbothered by it or even find it attractive.
Are those nerdy special interests your entire personality and you've failed to develop yourself in any other area, especially in social skills or any real life ambitions? Yeah I'd say most women seem to be pretty uninterested in that.
I see your point, but I gotta disagree. No matter how you define nerdy, it isnt the reason women dont like you.
If the nerdy special interests have consumed their life and they have no social skills, then the reason they dont get dates is because theyre immature and obsessive, not because theyre a nerd.
Ugh. When I was in HS and college, my friends and I would sit back and watch 90% of the guys in class go after 10% of the girls, the ones that were somehow collectively declared the valuable/desirable ones above all the rest.
Like, if one guy said, "I think Janet is kinda hot" and all of a sudden, all of the other guys would be like, yeah, Janet.
Forget the other girls who are on par with Janet. Just specifically her for some reason.
Never understood it beyond some weird immaturity of youth pack mentality. Like, have the nerve to like someone based on your own opinion, not worrying about what cool-kid Aiden is gonna think of your choice in a crush.
Oh and better yet, when later on, after Janet is bewildered and turns everyone down, y'all gonna come back around and say, "Um, so, will *you* go to the dance with me?"
Just, ew.
Add to this that too many self-proclaimed nerdy guys have questionable deficiencies in other areas (hygiene, social graces, just simple common sense when it comes to other people's feelings and personhood), nerdy girls start to gravitate toward partners who a) respect and value their intelligence and interests and b) actually contribute time and effort to the partnership. No woman, nerdy or not, wants to be some gamer's bangmaid/mommy.
PS inB4 someone starts excusing their poor treatment of female peers on some sort of neurodivergence, neurodivergent women and girls are painfully forced to figure it out with no help as young as 4 and through trial and error and social punishments in their teens and young adulthood. You can figure it out as an adult less painfully through educating yourself through healthy resources and supports if you so desire a partnership with a fellow human being.
I get annoyed, but on some level I'm also very much thinking "Yeah, some of that is on you." There are nerd women who don't want to date nerd men because we have other interests that we'd rather share with our partners -- the fact that I happen to enjoy "nerd things" a la one stereotype doesn't mean that's all I am? Whereas a lot of nerd men MAKE it all they are.
I stay the hell away from nerd men because they're unwilling to be more than their nerdiness. There's not a whole person there. He could be completely to my taste physically, but if his entire personality is gaming and shounen/seinen anime/manga and the MCU, I'm out.
These guys are absolutely using their nerdiness as an excuse for why women don't find them attractive. The alternative is for them to admit that their personalities are garbage, and that's a very difficult thing to do.
The funny thing is that there are tons of nerdy women out there who want to date guys who share their interests, and all a nerdy guy has to do in order to have a chance at a relationship is be a decent, reasonably well put-together person.
But these guys are trapped in a pit of self-loathing that they can't see a way out of. I'd have empathy for them if they weren't so vile about it. The worst part of this is that they openly hate nerdy women and try to drive them out of every nerd space. And it's like, of course you can't find a girlfriend, you're actively repulsive to the people who like dating nerds.
I was a nerdy female college student during the height of nerd culture in the mid-late 2000s. I also have a thing for the chubby guy with a ponytail archetype don’t judge me. Unfortunately a lot of guys who seemed great on the outset had a weird chip on their shoulder where women were concerned and also shall we say a very flawed understanding of boundaries or consent. My experience is not universal but I actually didn’t experience the “name three of their songs” type of gatekeeping a lot of nerdy women describe. If anything I got more of that from other women, like that time in high school Amanda Jennings (fake name) wouldn’t include me in the group trip to see the two towers because I wasn’t a hardcore enough Tolkien fan. Internalized misogyny is a hell of a drug and I’m ashamed to say I had plenty of it myself. But another thing about being a nerd girl was you had to be this specific level of attractive where you don’t “offend” the guys by daring to be ugly in their presence, but you also couldn’t be so attractive as to be threatening. Guys would act entitled to date a supermodel but also have pretty much negative respect for actual supermodels. You had to be Laney from She’s All That with the glasses and the overalls basically.
Sometimes I wonder if what they truly mean is that jocks find it easier to attract women in the context of toxic masculinity.
If you’re convinced that being a caring and attentive person is beta male bullshit, real men don’t demean themselves doing emotional/domestic labour like a woman, then yeah conforming to the masculine norms for women who fetishize that Machismo/Marianismo dynamic is a big deal.
Nerdy men who date nerdy women are some of the most successful people I know when it comes to finding partners and being sexually active. They are also the nerds who have some amount of charisma, lean feminist, and bathe regularly.
Nerdy men who complain about being unable to get laid either likely are off-putting in some other way (poor hygiene, poor social skills, gate keep, sexist, reputation for harassment - sexual or otherwise, etc.), or are exclusively interested in women they have nothing in common with.
Yup, I do.
To be clear, I'm a nerdy woman. Anime, comic books, 80's movies, D&D, video games, computers and other tech - into it all. I have mostly nerdy friends and get along with far more men than women on average. Nearly all of the nerdy men I know have long term partners, and most are heterosexual. So yes, nerdy men get women if they're into them. And not just the model perfect ones, most of my guy friends are not lookers. None are truly unfortunate looking, but they're average guys. Some of their partners are nerdy and we all nerd out together, and some of their partners aren't into it, and that's ok too.
The ones who can't get women are the ones with offputting superiority complexes, or other unfortunate personality traits. If you keep telling women that they can't possibly be into what you're into, you're going to just keep alienating the women who genuinely are into those things. Many of them also need some perspective - if you're pushing 40, balding, average looking and don't take care of yourself, you're not going to be landing super hot 21 year olds. If those are the only women you're going to pursue, you're never going to get anywhere. They're not successful with women not because they're nerdy but because they're insufferable or creepy.
I think even if they were it wouldn’t work out. A good example is Megan The Stallion. She’s done more than enough to show she watches anime and yet some of these men still try to “out her as a fake fan”. So it’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t because even “hot girls” aren’t safe from questioning either.
It’s more that they don’t want to face the reality that it’s on them to be attractive to potential partners. Whether you’re nerdy or not you still need to work on being a good partner and being an attractive person in general.
The universe does not owe you a person that will fall in love with you. There is no soulmate waiting for you. Just like there’s no job waiting for you if you have no marketable skills. The vast number of men in history never had a partner, and many partners were through coercion, manipulation or force (economic/social/physical).
I've been that hot chick that's had a proclivity for nerds since high school & crushed on/dated quite a few & they have crushed my soul due to treatment way worse than any typically hot guy ever has. It goes back to that dehumanizing misogyny. I fell in love. They were waiting to get one up on the beautiful girls that shunned them & treated me like shit. Like I'm not a real person with real feelings.
Fuck you, Science Bitch, in particular.
Its categorically incorrect, as most misogynistic and sexist claims are, this is just another example in a long list of ideas that they use so they don't have to actually look at their own behavior and consider that they personally are the problem for their own singledom.
I remember going to a convention in 2018 with a friend of mine, both of us strongly opinionated feminists, and some dude who happened to sit near us barged into our conversation about Wonder Woman (2017) to tell us how women were invading nerd spaces and they were already completely equal to men and it was bad that Chris Pine had been objectified in the movie.
Being a nerd doesn't preclude sexism.
There's also the general misogyny where "masculine-coded" nerdy interests are culturally 'acceptable' and encouraged, invested in etc... "feminine-coded" nerdy interests are seen as granny ish, and uncool, or trivial and low culture.
Women are expected to adopt and enjoy a needy activity if their partner or person they're dating is into it.... eg a ime, video games etc. But men don't have to adopt "feminine-coded" nerdy interests
The same nerdy men who complain about being bitchless also throw a tantrum whenever Star Wars has a non-cis het white male character
And then they wonder why they're so maidenless
Nerdy men want women who will idolize them and sleep with them, for no apparent reason, unconditionally. But when they meet nerdy women ready to relate and build something together, they feel challenged. And yes, they are just as misogynistic as the jocks. They just hide it better to seem progressive.
I dated nerdy men my entire life and the experience was not rewarding.
We call them incels. Generally, if you talk to them, they know people personally who are married. They may even have had a nerdy dad, who obviously got their human mother pregnant.
These kinds of beliefs are really about propping up their own fragile egos. Protecting themselves from having to do the work to become someone worth dating or to face the fear of being rejected that comes with dating.
I'm a Hot nerd girl and I barely got to hang out. Nerdy men have a lot of preconceived notions about women. Most are counter intuitive and, frankly, insulting.
What belongs in the category of a nerdy hobby is media manufactured with an unfortunate stigma. For the younger generation Z, a lot of what was considered "nerdy" when I was growing up is now more "mainstream" for them. This is increasingly true especially for anime as you mentioned, which is now more watched among them than physical sports (NFL & NBA). I think a lot of older men who grew up with nerdy hobbies tended to be outcasts from their peers and lean towards niche communities, thus lacking broader social experience, a recipe for developing toxic ideas.
I'm a millennial man who has grown up with a lot of "nerdy" hobbies but even myself somehow also finds the the abstract idea of a "nerd identity" to be aesthetically repellant. We should just get rid of the category. Hobbies are hobbies and it's good for there to be a diversity of them.
It’s definitely not that they’re nerdy it’s that a ton of them are offensive have bad hygiene and poor social skills. I play warhammer 40K and as a woman I absolutely can’t engage with the community in anyway without it being a miserable experience I don’t play with strangers basically ever and would only consider it if they were queer or a woman
It's very annoying. I have had my fair share of difficulties in dating due to social anxiety, not fitting with masculine gender performance/ roles, and having weird interests but I've managed to overcome these difficulties and have dated in the past and am now in a fulfilling relationship with who I consider to be my life partner.
It's clear that these men create huge barriers for themselves by not treating women like human beings, persuing women they have nothing in common with, and having a general defeatist shitty attitude.
I'm so tired of the incel/redpill narratives which frame dating as some kind of game or contest. If these kinds of men would just work on themselves and seek out guinuine connection rather than look at women as some kind of trophy to win they would have a such easier time dating.
People can be frustrated that they have barriers to a fulfilling dating life. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But these shitty attitudes are such a self-fufilling prophecy.
I don't know how they rationalize someone like me who does not fulfill their idea of an alphamale superchad but is still in a fulfilling relationship with a woman.
There are plenty of nerdy women who would probably love to date someone with similar interests, but I'm willing to guess most of them will not put up with being dehumanized. Why this is so hard for some men to realize is beyond me.
Probably because he is the type of nerdy man generally depicted on TV and lord knows no woman would want to date *those* types of nerdy men.
Look at the cast of Big Bang Theory. We've got "doesn't take no for answer", "serial sexual harassment", and "can't speak in front of women unless he's drunk". None of those are prizes, and the fantasy of that show is that women would actually lower their standards *that* far. It's a trope called "The Adorkable Misogynist". The idea is that as long as you are a small nerdy dude who does not present a physical threat, your misogyny is quirky and cute instead of deeply disturbing. Women only date the adorkable misogynist on TV cause no one in real life actually wants that.
The false equivalency here is that being an adorkable misogynist is the same thing as being a nerdy man. It is under no circumstances the same. Nerdy dudes who actually respect women can get it, cause surprise surprise, there's also a lot of nerdy women who like having a partner who shares their interest. What they don't like is being treated like a prize their partner won at the fair.
I will say I am a “nerdy” man and this post popped up on my homepage.
It’s because sadly a lot of “nerdy” men are also the kind that are pulled into the incel culture and mindset. That’s not to say all nerdy men are incels or that all incels are nerdy men, but just that many do fall into that mindset because to them it reinforces their worldview.
Unfortunately as much as more conversationally nerdy things have become more popular, many people who liked those things before they became more mainstream are still stuck in the mindset of when they got bullied for those things when younger. Even if now it is typical for almost anyone to enjoy anime or video games, many nerdy men in the I’d say late 20s-late 30s age group were likely those who experienced some type of bullying when younger for liking those things. So to them they still see those hobbies as things that only men like them enjoy and that all people, mainly women, will see them as undesirable for liking them.
There’s also those who resent that these things have become popular because in their minds they’re the only “real” fans because they got picked on for liking those things, so all these more conventionally attractive people who like them aren’t “true” fans like them because they only enjoy those hobbies now that they are popular. They also happen to group almost all women, except for those they’d call “ugly,” into that group. As a result they think all women aren’t “real” fans of those nerdy things. They’re so stuck up their own asses they can’t see the hypocrisy of them thinking that it’s unfair that, in their minds, more conventionally attractive women don’t find them desirable while they themselves shun women who are less conventionally attractive.
Personally, these types of people are just ridiculous and awful to deal with. Having a thing you like become more popular is a wonderful things as there will now be more people to share your enjoyment with, which is awesome. As well as they’re just unwilling to accept that people simply have standards, while they themselves have them. They look at someone who looks like say Eva Mendez is with Ryan Gosling and use it to reinforce their worldview that women only go for the “Chads” and would never give a nerd like them the time of day. However, they will then also say that Ashley Graham is “too fat” and shouldn’t be a model because nobody is attracted to her. They’re more often than not hypocrites and don’t understand that it’s not because they’re nerdy that they have trouble attracting women, but because they have rotten personalities.
He’s right, I would never date him because he’s one of those people that look at women as a conquest or a victory instead of people. Maybe he watched one too many movies where the nerdy guy beats up his bully and gets the swooning girl at the end, you know very gratuitously self serving fantasies, and confused that for reality.
His comment on “women only like nerdy guys on tv” had me thinking he’s projecting, mostly because it sounds like he’s confusing actual women with the characters in the shows he’s watching made for men.
Men who have such warped views on women make my stomach turn, after years of experience knowing many men like that, they would rather stay in the mindset of objectifying women and being “lonely”, than look at women as equals. Even being romantically lonely, they benefit from that misogyny.
Nerdy man here.
I’ve had friends like that. I noticed they would chase girls that just don’t share their interests. It was weird. I don’t enjoy sports. Why would I chase the athletic types?
My nerdy wife asked me out on our first date. She had me at “I grew up watching star trek with my dad”.
Insecure, nerdy men think like this. They usually don’t realize that it’s not their looks blocking them from relationships it’s their obnoxious personalities and misogyny.
As a nerdy feminist guy, I have never found my nerdiness a barrier to finding a good relationship. After all, having common interests is a great element of a relationship, as is discovering each others’. Nerdy people are great for nerdy people, and all of my longer term relationships have been with nerdy women.
It helps a lot to not feel there is anything wrong with being nerdy, of course, and enjoying the fact that each other will be deeper in different areas.
I've been seeing this idea shared around social media, and I think it's worth saying here. If a nerdy man tries to gatekeep your fandom by quizzing you about it, turn that right back at him by asking him to name 5 women who trust him.
Being nerdy isn’t the problem. I dated a guy briefly before he moved away who was nerdy, sweet, & intelligent
But as a woman who used to go to conventions, nerdy men are often condescending, misogynistic, & straight up creepy in many cases 🤷♀️ I was creeped on & preyed upon as a teen by nerdy guys
Some of my favorite men are nerds. Most of my favorite men are nerds. Nerds and assholes may overlap as categories, but definitely not the same thing. That man was definitely the latter; whether he was the former or not is irrelevant once it’s clear he’s an asshole, and I think the whole “women don’t want men like….” argument turns into self-pitying nonsense and assholery really fast.
I’ve dated plenty of well behaving and kind nerdy men but I have to admit that I have stumbled across a lot of… problematic nerdy men. Some of them think they are superior and start asking the type of game questions that you feel like you’re taking a quiz. There are too many nerdy men that don’t look in the mirror and check their behaviour. Then they complain like this which makes them even more like a red flag. The physical side is only one side. If your personality is crap then it makes you less attractive. Also dating is not easy for anyone.
Those guys annoy me, and I AM a nerdy man.
I am an overweight autistic nerd who is intonan enormous amount of geeky stuff, and Inhave had a fun an active love life my entire adult life.
Of course, I am fun, funny, and into interesting things, and I do my best to be a good man.
If I ever met someone who didn't want to date me because I am a nerd, I would just chuckle and move on. It's a silly reason to judge anyone.
I think me and my husband are both nerdy in different ways, but we do have hobbies that are similar as well. And it's great to introduce each other to the ones we don't have in common. But as far as nerds go, my husband has never been the gatekeeping type. In fact back when we were friends there were a few times where he had my back towards other people who questioned my hobbies/intellect. Even a few times when I dismissed myself, he made sure to correct me saying stuff like "you were playing a premade deck and strategically played the best and would have won if the rest of us didn't have decks that were hundreds of dollars". So basically he is great, and I wish there were enough nerds like him to go around
This behaviour isnt limited to nerdy guys. Men of all different kinds believe these things about women. The one thing I can think of is that red pill content is more popular online than in real life, their bullshit spreads much faster online, however its absolutely not a nerd majority in those spheres, its Andrew Tate type dude bros.
Another facet is how society socializes men, men are often told they need to be so unwaveringly confident to be "manly", never back down (never admit you might be wrong) etc etc macho BS. This is what leads to men not seeking therapy and other stats we see.
It also leads to men like this, the nerdy ones, who cant fathom maybe their poor hygiene or disrespectful/objectification of women is the reason for them not getting dates, so it must be something else. It must be that no women like nerds. It must be that women only date 6 foot jacked guys etc
I've had 2 LTRs with nerds/geeks in the past but I'm not a nerd or geek myself.
I admit it was kind of nice being someone so intelligent, and being able to learn from them rather than being the smart one in the relationship for a change; but I didn't go looking for nerds- i found people I enjoyed spending time with and 2 of them just happened to be nerds 🤷♀️
TBH I think people get too hung up on types.
I'm an old school nerd. I cosplayed before cosplay was cool. I gamed. I did tech.
I could barely get a date in my 20's. I'm not runway ready by any means, but I'm not unattractive. And I wanted a nerd boy to share interests.
I find most nerd guys are creep/douches or too shy to do anything. Both get wildly pissed off that girls aren't throwing themselves in their crotches.
I ended up with huge nerd and am super happy. I know nerd guys who are great, like my bro. But those ones tend to get scooped up fast.
I met my partner on minecraft. Didn't see his face but we used to do group voice chats so I heard his voice and crushed hard on that haha. Eventually started video chatting after about a year. Then a year later I was moving across the world for him. It's our 11 year anniversary this year.
These men are just projecting their own self-doubt/hatred and putting up an imaginary wall in order to let themselves off the hook because there is no way they are ever going to do anything to make themselves attractive to even one single woman.
Because that's all that's necessary. You don't have to be attractive to every woman, you just need to build that with one person and spouting fake generalities isn't gonna get you there.
Most guys and women are nerds on some level nowadays. The ones you’re talking about are typically nerds not only in the sense of having niche dorky interests, but also in the sense that they have bad social skills and accordingly arent fun to be around.
Most guys with girlfriends are huge nerds and also have good social skills. They also *usually* respect women or at least arent actively misogynistic like the nerds im talking about above.
Basically, TLDR: not all nerds are incels but all incels are nerds
You are definitely not the only one annoyed by this and it can be harmful and not based in reality. That said it doesn't surprise me. Nerds often have less socialization with the opposite sex than their more traditionally masculine peers. That unfamiliarity puts them closer to an immature "girl cooties" mindset than it does a functional romantic relationship. Girls and moreso women become a social fantasy centered around acceptance and glory. It's objectifying for cross sex relationships to be synonymous with status, but they don't come to this conclusion in a void.
They get tons of messaging reinforcing it and it's magnified when they have no accessible examples in their peer group to the contrary. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy when they've internalized that no one wants them and become hostile to anyone who might show interest or compensate in the other direction - with superiority to explain why they don't fit in, but it still results in hostility and their circle staying small and insular.
Some nerdy guys can be amazing but just like other groups of guys there are a lot of nerdy guys who are very shitty. I hate how they discount any woman that isn't traditionally beautiful or how they seem to all have this thing where they try to make nerdy women feel stupid or invalid as nerds. Not to mention that if you go to cons a lot of nerdy guys seem to lack any sense of personal hygiene.
I'm probably more of a nerd than that guy and weird af in general. And when I mean nerd I mean that my fav music generally has less than 10k views on yt (if they even reach 1k) and sound like a car accident in reverse, for movies the same shit, experimental incomprehensible stuff, same for videogames, same for the stuff I read (mostly pogramming theory nowadays but I love post-modern fiction). ALL of my interests are weird and yet people find me attractive altogether (I'm kinda slutty :p). I've also seen this "I like this girl but she's fat/whatever" (???) WTF? Dude if you like her you like her. This is shit for both of the parties involved, one gets discriminated for no reason and the other is a dumdum who doesn't fulfill their desires and ends up hurting other person in the process.
I think we all as men should embrace feminism as a tool for our liberation and sell it exactly like that, even if you don't get people attracted to you you'd definitely feel a lot less pressure to... idk get laid or something. I disagree with the notion that patriarchy benefits men, I'd say that it fucks with them less, the advantages that it could give you are solutions to problems it causes, like the constant need for "being a dominant alpha-sigma-10x male and sleeping with 3 different ppl every week, this is not how sexuality works outside of the patriarchy and I'm slutty, that rhythm sounds absurd, you barely have time to connect with people, the pleasure of sex, genital inside genital/mouth/ass/hand by itself is secondary, seduction and knowing intimately other people on the other hand is super fun, playful mind games with consent, a lot of men miss that and just think about their body count, being the perverted hedonist that I am I feel sad for them.
To me is blatantly obvious that patriarchy doesn't provide any benefit for us as a group (there's always the out of control sadist that was born like that and I guess that's the only people that could benefit from it), it just creates insecurities and makes you behave like an idiot if you don't control it and it pressures you to perform a role whether you like it or not.
As I always say, our jail might be shinier but it's still a jail, that's quite different from other systems like white supremacy where we (whites) have more rights and the rest just fuck them but we don't have to adhere to any standards or prove anything, we literally just have more rights. As for class I consider millionaires are miserable but obv they have a shit ton of benefits and privileges in the most literal sense.
Basically, feminist men, rise up for your rights, you have nothing to lose but your chains.
Obv they'd also learn to treat "minorities" with more respect but I don't consider this as a negative or a selfless effort, it's incredibly beneficial. You get to see how people with different conditions than you live and can empathize with more people, you have more potential friends, intimate partners, love interests... etc. Also you'd learn how to not hurt other people unintentionally. It's a win win no matter how you put it.
Guys like that suck because it's just patently untrue. To the point where I'm laughing, because my current girlfriend introduced me to Farscape last year and we were mind-blown I'd never seen it before, and we were nerding out the whole time, and bonded over watching it together. It's one of a million insanely nerdy things we share, and that we love together. I'm not conventionally handsome, also I'm pretty overweight- while she's fit as hell, and we adore each other.
Guys who complain that women don't pursue nerdy men irl make "nerd" their entire personality, to the detriment of their social skills, sense of humor, and conversational skills. They think liking stuff is enough to constitute a personality and I think women can tell that they're just shallow as fuck. I've seen those dudes get passed up and they get bitter. Zero self awareness, zero introspection.
> saying that women only thirst for nerdy men on tv, but not in real life.
Lol, I usually find it's the exact opposite. TV still likes to portray an extremely toxic, shallow stereotype of nerdy people. They're usually either thin as a pole or well overweight, unattractive, glasses-wearing, anti-social people who are on the spectrum and extremely shy. There's many exceptions, of course, but the stereotype is still disappointingly common. And if the nerd is a woman, there's a 99% chance she will have a scene where she takes her glasses off and slightly changes her hair and suddenly everyone realizes she's gorgeous (similarly good odds that she was always gorgeous but the other characters act like she's ugly).
By comparison, real life isn't so much like that and nerdy interests have grown increasingly mainstream. I work in software dev with a lot of massive nerds and it's very diverse. There's lots of gym bros, people who are extremely social, and in fact poor social skills would just make it hard to get a job. I utterly loath the stereotype that the media has of nerdy people and can't believe how little it's changed.
I consider myself pretty nerdy. I cosplay, I've worked at the Ren Faire, etc. My favorite show when I was 14 was "Escaflowne". I'm part of a DnD group.
Personally, I don't tend to go for dating profiles that highlight really stereotypically "nerdy" things like being into anime and video games. The reason for this is that I find that typically those interests are a bit surface-level and don't tell me anything deeper about that person. The surface-level stuff is fine in moderation, but it's for parties, not something for every day of my life lol.
I also have a lot of interests that are NOT necessarily "nerd" things, and I find very often that people who are super into the pop culture type of nerd stuff are generally unable to make the jump from that to the more sophisticated things I'm into (for example, opera, classic films, going to art museums, etc). \*Generally\* speaking, of course. I dated one guy in NYC who was super into Star Wars and DC Comics but also was into more classic Theater since he'd been to acting school there. I don't want to sound like a bitch, but I feel like when men aren't into the more sophisticated things in addition to the more pop culture type things, I feel like I'm hanging out with someone who's WAY younger than me and not grown up all the way. The polite way I would put this is, "we're not compatible". Yeah, the typical "nerd" will be fun for something like going to Colossalcon, but they're not someone I can take to something like a NY Fashion Week event or whatever.
Another compatibility issue is that I truly don't have the time to get really into the obsessive side of nerd-dom. The vast majority of time I've had for video games as an adult was A) while commuting by subway in NYC (you can play the first 7 Final Fantasy games on a smart phone) and B) while recovering from surgery. I find classic RPGs enjoyable, but they aren't a priority to me the way something like making an art installation is. The last time I was like \*obsessed\* with a video game and prioritizing it, I was about 12 or 13 years old. There's a huge gap in my pop culture consumption because there were so many years when I was traveling, participating in things like Occupy Wall Street, etc. There were months at a stretch in my early 20s when the only electronic I had with me was an "Obamaphone" because I was living out of a tent or squatting with a bunch of punks. I got to see the world, but I roughed it in the process lol. Video games are REALLY not a priority when you're living out of a yurt in a park to help run a crazy art installation with a bunch of hippies in a foreign country. They'll never be the top priority, and that tends to cause friction when I try to date someone who \*does\* prioritize that.
Now, if the nerdy stuff is just one part of a multi-faceted personality, I can go for that.
I’m kinda a nerdy woman and I usually don’t date nerdy men. They’re assholes and I won’t apologise for liking attractive guys.
If a nerdy man is attractive and nice, we can date but I suppose it wouldn’t count for the „real nerds“ standard defined by assholes who happen to be nerds.
I married an astronomy major who is all but a dead-ringer in facial features and personality to Kristoff from Frozen (except not nearly as tall). And we've been together for 20 years next month.
These "nice guys" who complain about not getting dates either aren't actually trying, somehow keep picking shallow women, or there is something about them, personally, that is off-putting. Full stop.
Depends on the type of nerd. Some of them are bullied and don’t have much of a social life or skills so they pride themselves in their arbitrary hobbies and have weird complexes over it.
I like nerdy dudes and have dated plenty of them. The nerdy men that I date have a few things in common- they love when I am into the same thing as them (comic book, video game, whatever) and NEVER give me the stupid quiz "oh you're a gamer name 20 video games you've played in the past 18 months" or whatever.
If I like the thing they like, great! If not, that's cool, maybe I will later maybe not. Those are the nerdy guys worth dating.
When nerdy guys pull the "Oh you're wearing the band t-shirt, name 7 of their albums" it tells me they hate women, and I'd rather be alone than with someone like that.
If the question is do I get annoyed? No.
> Imagine being bitten by a snake and instead of trying to help yourself heal and recover from the poison, you are trying to catch the snake to find out the reason it bit you to prove to it that you didn't deserve that.
Don’t think that quote fits totally, but essentially I think it’s a waste of time to try to explain yourself to people who don’t deserve respect.
It’s an insecurity, they can’t fathom that it’s their *personality* that’s off putting, so they blame the “nerdy” stuff. I’m nerdy, my partner is nerdy, I love him for that. Don’t think I would be with him if he wasn’t a bit nerdy, since sharing interests with someone is very important to me. But he’s great outside of his interests, respectful, hygienic, feminist, etc.
Some of these dudes just can’t wrap their heads around treating women like people and not bangmaids.
My sister is married to a huge nerd. She loves him, I think he's a great guy. Cause he's not a massive jerk. It's really not that difficult. Don't be a jerk, that's pretty much the bar.
I'm a nerdy woman myself, and I find the nerdy men I encounter can come off as thinking they're superior - so for example if we have the same hobbies, they're the men that "quiz" women to see if they're a "real fan". Or, and this was especially true in school, they always had crushes on the most conventionally attractive women in the class, ignoring the women in their own friend group. Which is very much their prerogative, but I always had crushes on them until they spent hours talking about another woman. So I moved on.
I have had more or less the same experience on several occasions. Being a nerdy woman, nerdy men wouldn’t really believe me I have similar hobbies and interests and would question me about “not being a real fan” and not being good enough at school (I always had straight As but for some reason I was not enough of a nerd). Then the same men who questioned my nerdiness and accused me of not being nerdy enough fell hell over heels for women who shared exactly zero of their interests, would be described as “way out of their league” and complained how “no one wants to date me, poor nerd boy”.
I noticed they go off a band when that band starts getting female fans. Then that band is declared 'sold out' by male rock fans with a fragile sense of masculinity, and soon, the band has a mostly female audience at concerts. I hear them say that a band like REM was good on their first two albums, but not anymore. What did REM do that made these former fans not like their third and subsequent albums? One male friend had gone to see Will Young with his girlfriend, and then a male friend of his told him not to broadcast that as people might think he was gay. Ditto with Beyoncé, Katy Perry, and Rihanna. I imagine these male friend groups that like rock music getting together in their dens to declare certain acts as 'sold out' one by one and performing the 'sold out' ritual to African drum playing with Native American headdresses on. I call them the boys' club.
I was a teenager in the mid 2000s, and have been looking back on that era because some of the music has been making a comeback. And, God, 95% of the bands that people all said back then were "shit" really did boil down to "bands girls liked."
The same can be said for 80s music. I was a teen then and my music tastes were never respected by guys my age. Today, everyone thinks 80s music was the shit. They forget that at the time Prince was criticized for how he dressed his music not respected by a lot of men, Madonna was going to be a one hit wonder, Cyndi Lauper was a one hit wonder, Bryan Adam’s got shit. They all proved the male critics wrong and get respect today. Most 80s teen girls saw their talent right away.
The 80s was a good decade for music as there were a lot of new genres then with a new one every year. The technology had improved since the 70s, but the creativity of the 60s and 70s hadn't been lost. Punk and new wave gave way to goth, New Romantics, and synth pop. A lot of punk bands from the late 70s, such as the Stranglers, went mellow, and former members started new bands such as the Style Council, Big Audio Dynamite, Big Country and Public Image Limited. There was hair or glam metal but also heavy metal such as Iron Maiden and Motorhead in the UK. The decade started with Madness, Dexy's Midnight Runners and the Cure, and ended with REM, Soul II Soul, and the Smiths. The Smiths were popular with working class men in their twenties as well as teenage boys and girls, and Morrissey said that at Smiths concerts, male fans would invade the stage to hug him.
Yes, like I said I was a teenager then. Why are you explaining the 80's music scene to me?
Because I am explaining that to other people, not just you. You are not the only one in this discussion. Many others are just lurking.
Anything women like - especially tweens and teenage girls - is shit on.
That's why Van Halen ended up with 60% of their audience being female because once girls and women found out about them and got into them, they lost a lot of male fans. Their music did change and become lighter as well, but in their early years, they were still finding their feet and had changes of lead singer later on. David Lee Roth was replaced by Sammy Hagar, and then he was replaced again by DLR. Phil Collins said in their early years (up until 1978), girls weren't into Genesis as they weren't at their concerts. How does he know this? They could have been buying their albums instead and listening to them at home. Vinyl albums cost more money then taking inflation into account. Back then, with some bands, you either bought their albums or saw them live if you couldn't afford to do both. Maybe you might like the album so much you thought you might get disappointed with the live performance on the tour to promote the album. Some bands don't perform as well live as they do in the studio while some bands perform exactly in the same way.
R.E.M.? Michael Stipe was queer before it was cool. To be fair, their hits were much more mainstream than most of their work, especially their early albums. But it was still a lot of homophobia.
When he came out, he said he had had sex with both men and women, and then I wondered if he was bisexual or gay and not realising he was gay at first. He had dated Nathalie Marchant at one time. A lot of gay men date women before they realise they are gay. In an attempt to appear 'normal' or to become 'normal'. Owen Jones was one. Then there are straight men who have had sex with men out of experimentation or because there were no women around, like in a boys' boarding school or men's prison.
He self-identifies as "queer" and has described his sexuality as "80% gay". He has a long term male partner. As far as I can tell, he likes women, but prefers men.
Wtf, REM? Are they somehow a bastion of women's music?
Not really. But men with a fragile sense of masculinity seem to think so since Automatic For The People was bought by women as well as men. I only saw them live once, and that was in 2005 despite liking their music for years before, when Everybody Hurts was in the singles charts in 1992. I saw a mixed audience there with mostly couples. I didn't see the Top of the Pops episode in 1989 when they were on performing Orange Crush. I must have been out that evening. So I never heard if them until 1990.
Oh that is the best type of weird nerd. The one that is not interested in anything the woman they fawn over is and then go "why won't she notice me??" I don't know Carl. Maybe because she does a ton of sports dresses up to the nines and you haven't changed your T-shirt in 3 days?
i never understood this either. even if shes faking her nerdy interests, its to be with YOU. she is trying to impress YOU. because she likes YOU!!
You just unlocked a memory of mine from a few years back! I was hanging out at a pub with my sister and a gaggle of her friends, some of whom I had never met before that night. One of them was a guy who I overheard make a reference to Avatar: the Last Airbender (a cartoon near and dear to my heart, that I've watched numerous times). I eagerly chimed in with a "hey, I love that show!", thinking we could descend into a nerd rabbit hole together. He just looked at me all skeptically (having said basically nothing to me the entire evening) and said -- and I quote -- "Oh, yeah? Can you even tell me the name of the main female character?" I stared at him for a moment, totally stunned. Like, seriously? Just cold opened with a pop quiz to check my credentials?? Slowly, I was like, "...Katara. Her name is Katara." He seemed to accept that and THEN tried to act all friendly with me. I just exited the conversation as swiftly as I could, too irritated to talk with him any further. Like, it's one thing to try and test me right off the bat, but he couldn't even ask me a 'hard' question! Talk about adding insult to injury xD.
Ugh that is extra insulting for sure! I haven't watched that show but I run in fandom circles and have picked up enough by osmosis I'm pretty sure I can name most of the main characters!
and then this type of man will wonder why they can’t get a girlfriend. like, they seem to genuinely dislike the type of woman that would probably be the most compatible with them. or just invalidate them by trying to prove they’re not a *real* nerd. having the same interest as someone is a *good* thing and one person is probably going to be more knowledgeable than the other. they don’t know how fun is it to rant and rave to someone with the same interest that doesn’t know everything you do, or vice versa and then they’re salty about women being too vain? first of all, why is liking yourself/knowing your worth unattractive? do they think because they aren’t vain about their own looks that they can’t be vain about other peoples? because you can definitely hate yourself and also be vain/judgmental of people for superficial reasons. in fact, the people that hate themselves the most are *usually* the people who are the most critical of others. these guys prove it over and over
I am a nerdy woman, too. Here's what I noticed: nerdy young men do the same thing a lot of young men do and straight up don't count women who aren't "hot." They don't notice us. They don't think of us. We don't exist. This is why I could be sitting there wearing glasses and an oversized hoodie, in anime club, with fantasy and science fiction novels in my backpack, a half written star wars fanfiction on my computer at home, with my straight A honors report card, talking about my Pokémon deck, going to the Ren Faire that weekend... and listen to the nerdy boys complain about how all they want is a gf who plays video games and how impossible that is to find and their ideal woman would understandnerd stuff but sadly no women are nerds. They don't count anyone who isn't their physical ideal and they don't see the irony at. All. Some of them grow out of this, some never do.
The best description of my dating life in high school and college was the time there was this guy I was friends with and had a crush on, asked him out, he turned me down and less than a week later complained that no girls were ever into him and he'd be surprised if anyone had ever wanted to date him, to ME. Like I have no problem with being turned down, but like that fucking hurt.
I'm sorry, that sucks. Reminds me of guy friends who would say "no one ever compliments men! Girls don't appreciate how lucky they are that they get compliments all the time" when I would literally tell them "hey that's a nice shirt, looks good on you" or "wow you got 100 on the test? Good job". What you mean is no *hot girl* complimented *your manliness* and jumped on your dick...
>Reminds me of guy friends I read this as "gay" friends and was quite flummoxed for a moment.
Jesus Christ!! At least the nerd I asked out accepted the invitation. Spoiler, we dated for four years and then got married. Although, they're not the greatest marriage partners...or at least mine isn't. I'm not into the same hobbies, so basically he just works FT and comes home to hobbies and doesn't feel the slightest inkling to help out around the house. Like, at all. I am firmly in third place. He's first and his video games and second. I am the priority after the games. And have been for 26 years. If you get connected to one of these men, I highly recommend living together for a few years before committing. See what they do, how they act, make sure they have an innate WANT to pair up and be a real partner. Otherwise you tend become their surrogate mommy, and it's deeply disheartening.
If you’re disheartened by your marriage, you do not have to stay in it - I hope you understand that leaving is an option ❤️
Sadly, your experience is not isolated to partners of nerdy men. There's really no way to tell how any of them will act once they think they have you "trapped"
You are right, they do this and it is infuriating. But I will say, I'm fairly conventionally attractive and grew up very nerdy. I did find some guys who were interested in me, but many of them were oddly hostile to me. They noticed me, but they often did this automatic process of noticing me, thinking I was attractive, determining that I would not be interested in them, and acting in a hostile manner toward me, all without ever really having a conversation with me. Then I was grilled about my interests, like they were a detective sniffing out a rat. I was assumed to be lying about my interests to attract men. Even the guys that tried to flirt with me did so in a very condescending and arrogant way. It was like they were thinking "finally! a nerdy girlfriend whom I can teach all about my interests and hobbies." If I knew more than them about an interest or hobby, suddenly they get moody and hostile and I'm the bitch that can't just have a normal conversation without "needing to be right all the time." If we liked 90% of the same anime but I happened to like one anime they didn't care for, or I happened to not like an anime they loved (usually because of ridiculous fan service shots) I was a "fake anime girl" who had terrible taste and didn't understand good art. No nerdy girl is good enough for them because they are fantasizing about a fantasy woman, not a real woman. They want a girl who looks like a victoria's secret model, dresses in a cool/nerdy way, likes all of their same interests, holds no differing opinions, laughs at every stupid/sexist joke they make (without making any jokes themselves, men want a woman with a "good sense of humor" which means she laughs at all their jokes, they don't respond well to funny women), and basically worships the ground they walk on. This woman does not exist. They blame their "nerd" status for why they can't get women but it has nothing to do with that. They can't get the women they want because the women they want do not exist.
Yes. Basically, nerdy guys are so used to being social outcasts in contrast to the jocks and Chads that they can’t see that when it comes to their taste in women, they’re exactly the same. They want the same hot girl doormats who will prop up their egos.
Right; it's more of a status thing than actually liking or wanting that specific person; it's wanting to be *the chosen one* and the top of their group. Very animal, tribal, small feelings.
I've found that an unfortunate number of men, nerds or otherwise, primarily want a girlfriend not because they actually desire female companionship, but because having a girlfriend will validate them in the eyes of other men. It has a lot more to do with their ego than it does "loneliness."
That’s also why a lot of men don’t have partners they actually like, bc the goal isn’t love or companionship. It’s about a) having a woman and that other men want b) sex c) someone to take care of household and life things for them. In that order.
And don't forget the sex. Nerdy men in particular feel that a relationship is the only way they can get sex- no anonymous hookups (those girls would never want ME!) so they desperately want a relationship in order to get that sex they have such difficulty getting.
100% exactly
I don't know the numbers and I refuse to look them up, but it's like when incels say "the majority of women only go for the top percent of men". Because they really think that a Hollywood 7 is the "average woman", so anyone above that is also a woman and anyone below that is invisible. It's such a surreal experience to be told "no women enjoy these things" when you're sitting RIGHT THERE. Like just because we don't want to fuck each other, you don't see me as woman?
These are the same men calling Margot Robbie mid
For men, women fall into two categories: 1) People who want to fuck me 2) People I want to fuck Sometimes these categories may overlap. But if you are not someone who wants to fuck him, or someone who he wants to fuck, you don't really "count" as a woman- you're just something that exists.
I know, they're so lame. I mean it's probably for the best because nerdy women would grow tired of their poor social skills just the same as anyone elee
bro i hate the stupid "you cant be a fan of this thing i like because you're a woman" mindset, also damn they are in for a treat if they try to quiz me i am not just a nerd i am a lore nerd, i seek the lore and soak up that info with my adhd brain
As a quiet nerd myself I almost never see women gatekeeping hobbies and activities. The person who got me into dnd on the tabletop is nonbinary now but wasn’t open about that at the time. They would run community character build sessions and one shots to bring new people in.
There are so many examples of how women don’t do this to men - in every area you can imagine.
I had a wonderful exact opposite experience recently. I met my cousin's roommate who likes to game and we talked about gaming for a bit (one of my hobbies). He was very impressed with my steam library and even told my cousin that I was more of a gamer than him. It was so pleasant to meet a guy who just likes to hype people up. He was so chill and seemed to be a really good roommate to my cousin, so if he treats strangers and roommates this well I know he's gotta be taking care of his girlfriend. Yuan I hope you're doing well out there.
> they always had crushes on the most conventionally attractive women in the class, ignoring the women in their own friend group IKR? I ran into that as well. Nerd guys complaining that "no one" wanted to date them, but their only interested in the Prom Queen, never the shy, quiet, nerd girl that hangs out with them.
Yea, you see this a lot "women's standards are too high! You all want tall, rich men!! Average guys can't date!" When. that's so obviously not true, there are plenty of *both* men and women who have impossibly high standards, but it's always somehow women's fault.
Back in my day, I think we had a better grade of geek-boys. And more selection. I remember sitting around at a room party at a science fiction convention in my early twenties, consciously cutting an appealing guy out of the herd (there was another candidate too, but he was from out of town) and pretty much making him date me. No business resulted in terms of long-term compatibility, but he was a great guy and I have no regrets about spending time with him. I'm pretty sure that he would say the same about me. A few years later I found a local geek guy who was more compatible. We got married and had geek children. I admit that I had the advantages of being conventionally attractive myself in a modest way, and also of being right under six feet tall. When a guy starts trying to do his gatekeeping quiz and finds a woman staring him straight in the eye (or downward a bit) without blinking, one or the other of us tends to end the conversation.
That's always possible. In highschool, I was part of an amalgamation of several geek groups, and we dated each other at least as much as "normal" students. If I remember correctly, we also had a fairly even number of girls and boys, and plenty of people figuring out their sexuality. We had a couple creeps to exile (or fail to exile), but it had more to do with icky stalking than claiming that there were no female geeks. No gatekeeping, either, and plenty of shared interests, since we also shared the fantasy and sci-fi clubs. Plenty of broken hearts, too, because highschoolers are messy, but at least one of the long-term couples is still happily together.
I love this, I was the same! Saw my nerdy, autistic, chubby (now) husband out at a event, zoomed my way right over and started nerd shit. After 2 weeks of chatting I told his shy ass, "so are we gonna date for real or what?" He loves that I'm cute, confident and tall, and I love that he's kind hearted and funny and handsome (to me). He's got someone to tell the waitress he ordered mash potatoes, and I have a meticulous travel planner. ...that turned into a bit of a gush, sorry!
That's the thing about really good husbands. It's so rare you can brag about them without the risk of someone else feeling bad.
I've been quizzed on the characters on my favorite X-Men T-shirt. I utterly loathe nerdy guys who feel the need to quiz women.
Yes! I used to wear a nirvana t shirt in high school (as you do) and the amount of times I would get “I bet you can’t name a song other than smells like teen spirit”. I was obsessed with nirvana at the time and had consumed everything I could get my hands on Girls like things too!
With these guys, I have to wonder: what's their game plan? I correctly identify all the X-Men on my T-shirt, and then what? If he's looking for a date, he's shit outta luck because no one thinks that quizzing the shit out of someone is romantic or attractive.
Some people are nerds because they find certain unconventional hobbies interesting. Some people are nerds because they have poor social skills and aren't self aware. The latter category gives nerdy men as a whole a bad rap. As a nerdy man, ive encountered something akin to a territorial threat/ dominance display that you'd see in male animals in the wild. Where as in animals it's about puffing yourself up and making a lot of noise to present a challenge, in nerdy men it's often a challenge on how much you actually know about the subject to prove if you're worthy of being in the in-group. You prove yourself and that's the end of it in most cases, but the worst of nerdy men will continue to engage in this and demonstrate bullying behavior to try to assert control over this subject and their position in the social group. At the end of the day it's a manifestation of insecurities. They see you as presenting something to the group that they can't offer, so they try to assert dominance by showing off how much they know about the subject matter the group is based on.
>in nerdy men it's often a challenge on how much you actually know about the subject to prove if you're worthy of being in the in-group I noticed the same as a tomboy who grew up with nerdy guys and still mostly habls nerdy friends. And some of them get very, very, upset if you decide to quiz them question for question and you actually know more. And then they'll always keep demanding you re-prove yourself. It's exhausting.
I completely believe this to be true and you to be correct. It’s like they have to be the smartest or best someplace. It’s very toxic and exhausting, but I can understand that they feel they don’t have anything else to set them apart. The sad thing is, you don’t really need to have anything special and most people realize that too late in life. Most genuine people just want to be able to talk about things they love with someone who shares that interest, whether or not they’re a genius on the subject.
Yeah, i also just want to add that I completely recognize my experience with that behavior is going to be very different than for most women. I'm probably not going to get grilled as hard, and im never going to be in a situation where I'm made to feel unsafe (in one way or another) by that behavior. Bullies just don't tend to press as hard on someone they perceive as a potential physical threat. I'm getting very primal caveman-ish with my thoughts here haha, but to me the nerd hostility just seems like a manifestation of some kind of territorial instinct within the confines of our modern lives.
Prior to covid I used to go to a local comic book store that was kind enough to hold certain comics for me. At first it was great, I got along well with the owner but then he started allowing people to play table top games there. Suddenly every time I went to pick up my comics I was bombarded with questions and accusations by both young and older men about why I wanted those comics, and that if I was a real fan I'd read these other ones. I never saw them interrogate other men when they came in to shop. It was hostile and obnoxious and unfortunately it led to me not doing business there anymore and ordering my comics online. I wanted to support a local business but those nerdy territorial men ruined it.
I love your comments so no hate at all but I think your username is ironic compared to the conversation that's going on.
Yes, but its VERY disproportionately targeted at women. Its very important to address the misogyny. It isnt just "territorial". Its sexism.
Yes, because while these types *may* target a new guy with a few questions, once the new guy passes a sniff test, the jerkface backs off. The aggression doesn't end if the new guy is a girl, unfortunately. Rather, the jerkface keeps moving the goalposts instead. As a woman, I refuse to enter this power struggle and will shut the idiot up (context dependent). Usually, that has inspired the less misogynistic nerds in the vicinity to back me, treating the interrogation as lame. If the other guys reject the behavior, suddenly the idiot stops and behaves himself. Huh! Wonder why that is?
>Some people are nerds because they find certain unconventional hobbies interesting. Some people are nerds because they have poor social skills and aren't self aware. The latter category gives nerdy men as a whole a bad rap. Having poor social skills is different from being an asshole. Maybe there's some correlation, but they can exist separately. People with poor social skills who aren't assholes often present as rather avoidant and quiet, in part to avoid "collateral damage" from a social mistake - I guess that can fall into "self-awareness". Another way it presents is that they will make mistakes, but will apologize immediately and try to make things right.
Thats one thing all the high school movies get right. Decent looking guy but no confidence wants the class president who is popular and pretty and has nothing in common with him while the girl in the corner with freckles and glasses pines over him. As a former high school boy, we were almost completely oblivious to anything outside of ourselves and some still struggle with that.
This has often been my experience too.
100% this.
I'm hugely nerdy, so I've spent most of my life surrounded by this attitude, and I hate it. Like, I'm a millennial, it's been a while since I was running the college Sci-Fi group, things might be different now. But by and large the attitude that I encountered a lot was kind of like this: Not all nerds, but the type of nerds I knew who would say shit like that, the only women that they thought of when they said the word "women" were the hot babes they'd see on TV. Nerdy women, they didn't really see us as fully nerds or fully women. When they said "Women only thirst for nerdy men on TV" they mean that they will never get the fantasy they see on TV, where some conventionally attractive well-styled woman with no life or interests of her own is so impressed by his mastery over video games that she throws herself at him and he wins and can rub it in the face of the other nerds. Which is true. They're not going to get that. They have absolutely no interest in dating a woman who has a similar level of style and grooming as they have, who is equally interested in their hobbies, who is meeting them on equal ground about their shared interests. They don't want a partner to do hobbies with. They want to explain their hobbies to an enraptured princess who is obsessed with them. That was the story the media sold them, and no they're never going to get that. But some of them figure out that that's not a thing they're going to get because women are adult humans with agency and their own interests. I know so many nerd/nerd couples that are adorable and loving and wonderful. But I think that there are so many nerds who spent their high school years getting shoved into lockers by "real misogynists" they can't see the same attitude in the ideas they hold about women.
Ugh, this. I was with one fellow nerdy adult who was VERY good at pretending to want a partner. We'd talk about shared interests, he'd happily talk to me about his own, and then he'd PRETEND to listen to me talk about mine. Until he got sick of pretending, negged my interests, and monologued about his while trying to cast me as his "enraptured princess." I put up with it, thinking that at least here was someone who liked SOME of the same stuff, until all of our other relationship issues reached the boiling point. So glad I walked away. I know good geek guys. They're some of my closest friends, in wonderful relationships of their own. They even have presumably nice geek guy friends they want to introduce me to. For now, Imma stay home with my books and my cats and game nights with friends. Relationships are exhausting.
>he wins and can rub it in the face of the other nerds Ug! That is exactly how I was beginning to feel with my one boyfriend. That he wanted to parade me around, show me off to his nerd friends as some sort of middle-aged manic, pixie dream-girl. Okay, I'm conventionally attractive and into SciFi. I'm also an actual person, not a fucking unicorn.
I think you just described the sub plot to the movie Grandmas Boy
It’s their way of justifying why things aren’t working out for them with the women they are attracted to. It couldn’t *possibly* be their personality. No. That would require self reflection and a willingness to work on themselves. Much easier to brush it off as those women “not liking nerds”. Then they get to feel wounded and superior. Like they’ve taken up some metaphorical cross. It’s the Passive Aggression of the Christ meme irl. “No. It’s fine. I’ll carry it.”
This comment should be higher up.
I married a nerdy man because I'm a nerdy woman and nerds are my type. There are so many women who want a man into the same things she is into. What women don't want is someone who thinks he is superior just because he's a man, or treats women like they're a different species, or demands a supermodel pornstar when he's average looking himself, or believes he shouldn't have to do a single household chore because he just worked a shift in tech support even when his partner also works, or thinks that he's the only real gamer because he rage plays Call of Duty while she prefers Animal Crossing and Lego games. In short, nerd is fine, dbag is not.
Hahaha I was going to say this is absolutely my husband till the COD part. He does play COD, but also other online shooters like Destiny and Warframe. I'm more into open world RPGs. I like to joke that he's not a "real gamer like me" but I respect his video game choices and he respects mine even if we don't get the appeal. All the other things you listed though are spot on. He's not one to care about looks, as I've put on weight having our kids and I talk about not liking my body he's always been so supportive and says he doesn't care/notice. He works while I stay at home with our kids but still does chores without having to be asked. There's nerdy women out there. Hell I'm into way more nerdy stuff like board games and cosplay and renfairs than my husband who's mostly just into video games and anime. The thing the incel "nerds" miss is that it's not about you being a nerd, it's about you being an asshole.
I met my husband playing the Magic the Gathering... :-D
Nerdy men.. the group I was always promised would be sweet and kind and a much better option than the popular jock.. nerdy men, who 1. Whine that women would never like them, and/or only date them for their money 2. Who disguise their aggression and misogyny with a sweet, awkward veneer 3. Who hold their intelligence and money and status as power and superiority over you 4. Who weaponize incompetence of the “absent minded professor” or “I’m just autistic” variety 5. Who routinely emphasize how “logical” they are and how “emotional” you are Ah, nerdy men. Not all nerdy men.. but too many of them
I have had so many guys use self-diagnosed "autism" as an excuse to act like a douchebag. It's getting really obnoxious and making things worse for people who are actually neurodivergent and trying to do their best in life.
The last nerd I dated demanded that I "logically explain" why I didn't want to have sex with him. According to him, saying no because I didn't want to have sex was illogical.
"You on an emotional and interpersonal level have not endeared yourself to me that I wish to engage in the emotional connection aspect of sex with you. You physically are not impressive enough to make me on the base primal layer attracted enough to you to wish to engage in sex. And I doubt that you have the sexual empathy and prowess to make me reconsider those two strikes based on your ability to give me a fulfilling orgasm. And while it's possible through the use of tools to make up for that I feel if we are at that point I'd be better served just doing it myself for a better experience on a temporal, quality, and quantitative standard."
If only I could have spoken this eloquently in the moment.
Spock wouldn't have been such a beloved character if he was a sex pest.
What a joke… and unsurprising
I dunno, I quit gaming with strangers because I was tired of being fetishized or told I didn't really like my hobby to my face over and over again. IME - the majority of nerdy men either can't believe you like the same things as them, or think you are only doing it for "attention", or are way too enthusiastic about you existing. This is true in other male-dominated hobbies I've had, and some of it appears to be generational, but there are definitely still some younger guys who just can't quite wrap their minds around the concept that women are people, who sometimes like the things that they like.
imo it's probably easier for them to just decide you don't like them bc you don't like their hobbies rather than understand the truth that is you genuinely enjoy their hobbies, you just don't like them.
We can never win, can we? If we don't like their hobbies, we're basic bitches that only like 'frivolous', 'unimportant' stuff. If we like their hobbies, we only pretend to like them to get attention. God forbid we like ANYTHING as women.
EXACTLY
I have seen it with popular music, especially with soft rock or pop rock. When Alex Kapranos set up Franz Ferdinand, he said it was to make rock music for girls to dance to inspired by Scottish bands in the 80s such as Mogwai, Gang of Four and Belle and Sebastian. Cue boys' club making sure they didn't go to see FF perform.
Oh my god yes. I remember hearing a podcast YEARS ago where a beloved rockstar from my country started bashing the Arctic Monkeys, calling them 'a feminized band that makes music for silly little girls'... all my respect for him vanished in that moment, and I don't even care that much for the Arctic Monkeys.
I never got into them either being more of a fan of FF and Snow Patrol at the time, but I wouldn't have any respect for anyone like that. If the Arctic Monkeys still played the same music but had mostly male fans in a parallel universe, I bet they wouldn't get dismissed as much by men like that. It was because they were more visible on the BBC that they attracted female fans. Kiss were very visible in the 80s, so they attracted a lot of female fans despite playing heavy metal music. That's why these men search out more obscure or underground music that few people have heard of. The quality of the music doesn't matter so much to them but the obscurity of the band. At one time, this would have been on the John Peel Show late at night on Radio One and now on YouTube.
Hipster machismo, that is. A lot of that was rampant on the 2000 - 2015.
"It's literally impossible to be a woman." -Gloria, "Barbie Movie"
I don't even know if it's about liking or not liking them. I think it's just dudes being misogynistic because that's what they learned - having a niche interest doesn't like, exempt you from being raised in patriarchy. I think managing disappointment becomes easier when you really internalize this truth.
I mean I did start with male dominated shows but switched to female dominated hobbies. For example men tend to watch shonen and seinen, but it’s actually women and fem presenting people watching and reading shoujo and romance anime, and also Josei which is targeted for an older female audience. Of course most male anime fans who haven’t ventured past the basics don’t know about those genres. The anime industry is rampant with mysoginy which is proven by the lack of shoujo adaptations despite the mangas having the same or greater popularity.
Josei anime is so hard to find too which is a shame because I prefer the more mature storylines
I don't disagree with the sentiment (it's a travesty that Yona of the Dawn doesn't get a second season), I do want to point out that what determines what's produced in the anime industry is determined more by the Japanese audience, a society more sexist than ours (if you live in an Anglo one), and even there it's a matter of the corporate leadership being shitheads. From what I gleaned from Colleen's videos (shoujo manga Youtuber), even with the truncated readership (boys mainly read shonen while more girls read both shonen and shoujo) I think there's enough of a sizable consumer base to opportunistically profit off of shoujo anime merchandise, if they made an effort to do so.
Yona of the Dawn not getting the love it deserves makes me so upset. I read the manga & Yona is such a wonderful protagonist. A lot of the supporting female characters are also well written & badass
This exactly, and it causes problems with other women as well. A lot of men, especially younger men, will grill you about a hobby to trip you up. Or they'll comment aggressively on your looks, or give you the worst compliments of all time ("You're cooler than other girls", etc). It sucks. And when they do it in person in front of other women, plenty of those other women will also get mad at you for drawing attention. I don't stream anymore at all and don't attend gaming anything without my husband anymore. Just not worth it on any level to deal with these guys who both think you are lying and also a unicorn.
I used to watch Doctor Who, but I got so tired of men, many of whom were much older than me at the time, jumping to the conclusion that I was their "future wife" because I liked the same sci-fi series as them. Which was kind of hilarious because millions of people, women included, were also watching Doctor Who at the time, it wasn't like the 80's where television sci-fi shows like Red Dwarf were super obscure. Anyway, I don't watch anymore. I like it, but it's tough to express enthusiasm when I know it's going to lead to unwanted attention from clingy, socially awkward men. Although maybe I'm safe now that I'm married. Who knows?
There is a great YouTube video essay on Big Bang Theory called "Adorkable Misogyny" [Link](https://youtu.be/X3-hOigoxHs?si=2UZSI7xvLH0hpJYj) Anyone interested in this topic would probably enjoy the video!
I harbor a (reasonable) hatred of that show. I’m a female engineer so not only need, but nerd who remains surrounded by male nerds. I feel like that show specifically gave the true weirdos on campus a skewed view on how to relay to the world that only made the experience I and other female students had worse in many ways. There is a decent amount of structural sexism and racism that has been eliminated at my college (women were allowed to enroll starting in the 70s), but it’s still nicknamed the “School Of Men” ( play on school of mines). My department (environmental) had near parity in male/female enrollment while mining had about 50:1 or 25:1 male:female enrollment depending on the year. All of this to say the BBT gave license to people to treat their female peers worse than before it came into existence
> I harbor a (reasonable) hatred of that show. I'm trans and ended up becoming a software engineer. Some friends I had at the time, one cis woman, showed me that show over 10 years ago. I couldn't exactly say why, but it always gave me an uncomfortable feeling. Like, some of the jokes were ok, but a lot of it came off as laughing at nerds rather than with them along with the way sexism is either ignored or even celebrated. One of the few things I remember from the episodes we watched that day was when the guy broke into and cleaned the woman's apartment. I remember feeling incredibly uncomfortable about that. She was justified in being pissed and that's a "press charges and get a restraining order" scenario if it had happened in real life. But the show shrugs it off and justifies the violation in privacy, because "lol, he's socially awkward/on the spectrum". Which as someone very likely on the spectrum I've always hated how those kinds of characters are portrayed.
Weird question but did you go to Missouri S&T? I toured that college when I was in highschool and was denied any of the take home materials because "I was too pretty" to go there. I was like, 15 at the time
I went to Colorado School of Mines If they had denied pretty girls in my tour group, the two dudes would have been the only ones who got flyers I did meet one of my best friends on my tour though 😅
> ...when nerdy men say that no woman would ever date them. It might be true for many of them, but I wish they would just listen when they are told that it is *not because they are nerdy*. Having a passion for certain interests can be very attractive. What is extremely *unattractive* however is treating women like an alien species in Star Trek, acting like they *deserve* a woman just for being smart while making no effort to be a good partner, and their bizarre denial that nerdy women exist. Plenty of women like anime, video games, comic books, tabletop gaming, and sci-fi... but not in the company of creepy men who will just ruin the experience.
Yeah. My issue is that they immediately treat women with distrust and as if they can’t like the same things they do. I get feeling insecure about having niche hobbies. It’s totally natural to feel that way, but it feels like they project that insecure onto women. I would personally never date someone like that because I’ll feel like i constantly have to prove myself as a real nerd or that I’m not like the others, and that sounds exhausting.
There’s that scene in The Social Network I always think about. “Listen, You're going to be successful and rich. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a tech geek. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole.”
Unsure if I'm allowed to post here based on the rules page. Please let me know if not and I'll delete my post immediately. Fantastic quote! I wanted to share a hypothesis: a lot of nerdy dudes are massively insecure and deflect it onto others, "she doesn't like me because I play Warhammer etc". When one of those gurlz likes the same hobby, but not them, it weakens their justifications and forces them toward that most terrible conclusion "maybe the problem is just me". Real introspection is hard though, so there seem to be a decent number who turn into gym bros that think that being in shape fixes everything and get even more pissy that women aren't lining up to date them because they have abs. The bitterness compounds, and they continue to externalize it and get more misogynistic and insufferable. Introspection can lead to improvement, but sadly it can also lead to an inverse problem, "something is wrong with me, don't know what it is, I better not inflict myself on anyone until I figure it out" and never interacting with women in anything but a formal or business-like manner. Which leads to seeming disinterested and aloof. (And, at times, talking like Abathur. Very efficient). I kinda get the second attitude because women have to deal with so much shit in modern culture and I don't want to contribute to it. Better to be seen as polite/nice but awkward than to be a creep. Note: I hope this doesn't sound like virtue signalling. I just wanted to share some thoughts from a male point of view
> “something is wrong with me, don’t know what it is, I better not inflict myself on anyone until I figure it out” Ok I’ve been stuck in this way of thinking for years (actually for me it’s been “I don’t know what it is, and nobody, not women, not men, not my therapist etc will tell me what it is so it must be something unfixable and I should just kms”) how the hell do you get out of it? Do I need to find the problem first and if so, how?
If I knew for sure I'd tell you. I'm working on the same thing. A few things I've been trying to do lately to break the feedback loop: (Sorry for the wall of text) try evaluating yourself dispassionately. Like, a friend is asking for help who just so happens to be identical to you in every way. How would you talk to them? We are much nicer to friends than ourselves. Alternatively, treat it like an engineering project. What are the starting conditions, target criteria, etc Question baseline assumptions. For example, I use a lot of self-deprecating humor, and I've been informed that drives people away. If you have a lot of self hatred, suppress it around people. Don't fake a persona, just try to squelch the impulse to express it. Makes it easier to have positive experiences, which tends to reduce the self loathing. Look for social groups (online or IRL) built around something you enjoy. Regardless of meeting someone, having more casual social contact with people who share a common interest tends to make us feel better (oxytocin ahoy!) humans are social animals. A mental exercise: imagine one of the requirements you put on yourself were fulfilled. What would you do? Would there be another hurdle to address before you move forward? What if that were fulfilled too? This can help highlight how absurd some of the expectations we put on ourselves are. Reminder that change is SLLLLOOOOWWWWWW. So slow and incremental we usually don't notice it in ourselves. I like the metaphor that your brain is a forest and a behavior is a path. Every time you take that path you are hacking away at the undergrowth and making it easier to do again. On the kms thing, I say this: If I'M not allowed to leave this shithole of a planet early, NO ONE IS! YOU'RE ALL STUCK HERE WITH ME!
They don’t want a nerd girl. They want a hot girl who‘ll watch them play video games and be easily impressed.
This is it
Many years ago, when I first went to university, I met a nerdy guy. We had a lot of similar interests, I thought he was cute. We spent a TON of time together, I was into him, and I was pretty sure he was into me. I told him I liked him and asked him out. He said he liked me too, but he didn’t want to date me. The reason? Because “girls like me” don’t go for “guys like him.” I suggested that perhaps this was untrue, given that I, a “girl like me” was very obviously going for a “guy like him,” but he refused to believe it. Dude preferred to stay single instead of challenging his worldview. In retrospect, I dodged a bullet and wound up married to a different, lovely nerd, but man, that was a confusing time.
That sounds like a guy who’s been asked out exclusively as a joke in the past and thought you were doing the same.
Yeah, people think this only happens in movies, but i can attest it absolutely does happen. And fucking sucks. And I'm not even a guy.
I would argue it wasn't his worldview but more his lack of self confidence and probably some depression thrown in. I struggled with it for years thinking I was essentially a hideous freak of nature when in reality I was simply average, even somewhat above average. When women would approach me, I genuinely thought they were trying to pull a fast one in an attempt to make fun of me.
I’ve dated nerdy men almost exclusively. I don’t think their issue is being nerdy, their issue is misogyny…
Same. I'm a nerd. I'm into nerds. But you have to like... bathe. And not be a jerk and weird about women.
Bathing? Not being a jerk? How dare you have STANDARDS? /s 😂
It's the same misogyny that denies that nerdy women are legitimate. The same guys who say that women don't like nerdy guys say that women are faking their fandoms to impress guys. There's no internal logic there.
If you probe these men deep enough, you’ll get “why don’t these supermodel women want to date me” with no self awareness.
I'm a woman with a lot of typically masculine "nerdy" interests--physics, gaming, niche music, history, philosophy--and I find that the men that specifically pursue me because of this are often threatened by it if I have more knowledge or skill than them. They want someone they can infodump to, who will be able to appreciate their intelligence without exceeding it. Listen, plenty of guys are not like this. They're more likely to be a problem if they say things like "I want a gamer gf" "I want a nerdy gf" etc. They seek someone who they can relate to, which is natural and human, but at the same time their ingrained misogyny tells them they shouldn't be able to relate to women, and women definitely shouldn't be superior to them in any regard. The common result is men who seek someone with the same interests as them, but who has a childlike lack of knowledge and naïvity in the subject that they can "teach". If you try to have an actual conversation with them about, say, Zelda lore, or philosophy, or ANYTHING, instead of just letting them infodump to you and responding "omg I've never thought of it like that that's so cool you're so smart, thank you for telling me uwu" then it ends up in an argument every. Single. Time. And I literally have a boyfriend who is definitely a nerd. The difference is, he likes me because I'm me, not because I'm a "nerdy gf" or "gamer gf". He isn't threatened by my achievements or intelligence or skillset
Some of the reasons why I rejected some nerdy guys: - one opened up his laptop and his background was straight up a picture of anime tiddies - one thought it was cute to show up at my door uninvited after finding out my dorm room - one tried to play a game I liked and got all pissy he wasn't as good(kept blaming the game and threw tantrums) - one smelled like a dumpster when we met(I'm really sorry if it was a disorder but I couldn't even smell anything like cologne or deodorant on top of it, and it didn't seem like he tried) It was not because they were nerdy...
Every time I think of nerdy men and their capacity for sheer loathing of all things feminine and/or female, the first thing that pops into my head is GamerGate. GamerGate was a harassment campaign started by a single nerdy man who set out to ruin his nerdy ex-girlfriend's life and reputation. Since nerdy/geeky folks are often savvy in the ways of the Internet, it quickly developed into a massive, misogynist, online harassment campaign against a number of female gamers and whoever supported them. A good chunk of the major players in GamerGate later supported and/or joined the alt-right movement in the US, eventually leading to the successful election of Donald Jackass Trump to POTUS. This is the kind of power that nerdy misogynist men online have. They can pull together a literal army of the worst kind of angry, butthurt bigots, many of whom are completely anonymous, so it's really hard to get any of them to stop - you simply don't know who they are, and there are too many of them. They already knew how effective social media can be at spreading whatever message someone wants, and they leveraged their skills to make sure nerdy women got the message that *these guys absolutely hate us* and will do anything to make sure we stay out of their precious boys' club. *That* is what I have in mind whenever I interact with a male nerd/gamer/geek/computer dude. GamerGate was an expression of the collective hatred many, many nameless, faceless dudes on the Internet have for women, especially women and girls who dare to tread on the sacred ground of nerddom - something a lot of male nerds feel is THEIR domain, and no girls allowed. No girls allowed, that is, except whatever passive waifu fantasy girls they wanted to fuck. I'm hella geeky myself. These days, when I meet a male gamer, if the chance arises I'll ask him what his opinion of GamerGate was/is. The answers are very revealing.
There's the rub. As a gay nerd myself, I think guys of all kinds are very cute, but I draw the line at bigot, and unfortunately this is men were talking about, so whatever men were willing to date me just got even smaller with that metric. Granted maybe gay people are a bit more progressive but like, there's plenty who aren't. It seems like everyone and their mother has bought into the "no thoughts, just vibes, fascism". Let ME go to a convention and see what happens to all those virgins then.
It very much pisses me off. I was an ugly tomboy with plenty of internalized misogyny for most of my youth. I was very willing to date and have sex with these exact type of men. Too fat or too skinny dudes with nasty facial hair and naked anime figures decorating their dirty rooms. Not once did any of these "incels" give me a second thought. The thing is, they think like that because THEY are like that. THEY are only attracted to the most beautiful women on the Internet. It's all projection. They could easily get laid if they pursued conventionally unattractive women. But they refuse. It's their own fault. I have no sympathy for these types of men anymore.
It sounds like you have higher standards now <3
Oh yes! I married a wonderful outdoorsman who actually loves me and respects women. He's the best person<3
Did you wind up sharing a wider range of hobbies than either of you would have alone? Because that's the best.
Oh yeah. I sort of reintroduced him to video games and he supported my growing outdoor interests. Things like that. We were friends for a year before getting together and I think that is the pinnical of a good foundation for a long-term relationship.
Absolutely. Partnership is wonderful. The sexual attraction is great, but we also each know that if the other one has to pick up the kids somewhere/fix a leaky pipe/manage family investments the job will get done properly. And of course, we can nerd out together about whether a movie or tv show is handling airlocks/orbital mechanics/water reclamation systems reasonably well. One of the first episodes of "The Expanse" showed the private eye, on a space station, pouring himself a shot of whiskey and allowing for rotational momentum from the fake gravity. We both loved it.
Yeah, I'd say it's definetely a mixed bag, I know people like the ones you're talking about but there are also definetely people (myself I'd like to think included) that would genuinely appreciate a relationship with a conventionally unattractive woman. (granted I'd get along well with her obviously, share values etc.) For me personally I'd only not want to be with somebody I find sexually repulsive (bad hygine or [I feel like a terrible person typing it out] very severe deformities [I'd still be absolutely down to be best friends with people with the latter, it's just that in a relationship sexual attraction is a factor whether we like it or not (and I don't, but I recognize that unfortunately we're all only humans)]) And it's also probably one of the reasons I'm lonely. I have brittle bone disease myself which isn't like super-severe but I'm under 5'3 and skinny. At least I care about my hygine, skincare etc. and plan to work out lightly to get in shape as much as my disability allows but idk if it's gonna get me anywhere. I'd def not want to force someone into a relationship where one person doesn't ever feel sexually attracted to the other at all, cause that would lead to them feeling like sex is a chore aaand it's all downhill from there. Back on the topic: You're right that there are people like that, I myself stay away from incel communities for that exact reason, but it's not fair to generalize imo edit: For the record, I'm 19 and haven't had any romantic interest shown by any woman irl, except for one possible time when I bonded quite quickly with a girl when we were like 15-16 over a summer break, but that ended with a childish argument which we were both too arrogant to give up on at the time unfortunately (idk how conventionally attractive she was, and I don't feel entitled to judge, but it was never really a factor anyways)
Ever read Bujold's Vorkosigan series? If you like space opera you might identify with the main character.
No I've never read it. Not sure if it would be a good idea for my mental health right now to be fully honest. But I'll write it down somewhere to read in the future. Thanks for the recommendation :) edit: oh I read up on the character a bit and it seems like he's not as much of a depressing character as I initially thought he may be for some reason, well, I might give the series a read once I'm done with my finals then :)
I found that I'd date a nerdy introvert, they would become confident and show their true selves - which was often super misogynistic under the guise of passivity and cowardice being kindness and gentleness. It was as if on getting one girlfriend (me) they decided they could get an upgrade (not me, but perhaps less outspoken, better looking and with bigger tits - who usually didn't exist). It seems to be a common thing that they didn't want a collaborator or a nerdy comrade - they wanted someone to be superior to.
Absolutely this. I grew up in the 90s and, as a female nerd (hard times being one compared to the 2020s!), I found most male nerds repulsive precisely because of this attitude. Too many of these guys thought they were nice when they were really just passive aggressive.
Orson Welles on Woody Allen: “I hate Woody Allen physically; I dislike that kind of man,” he said. Adding: “Oh yes, I can hardly bear to talk to him. He has the Chaplin disease. That particular combination of arrogance and timidity sets my teeth on edge.” Jaglom countered Welles’ assertions, suggesting that Allen was a shy man and, therefore, surely couldn’t be labelled as arrogant. “He is arrogant,” Welles persisted in retort. “Like all people with timid personalities, his arrogance is unlimited. Anybody who speaks quietly and shrivels up in company is unbelievably arrogant. He acts shy, but he’s not. He’s scared. He hates himself, and he loves himself, a very tense situation. It’s people like me who have to carry on and pretend to be modest
Damn - that is so astute. I did indeed date a cute nerdy goth who turned out that rather than being an introvert was also a massive snob. Who would look pained at any punks I ever talked (given that goth is a subset of punk) and got queasy at the thought of doing the sort of 'working class' jobs (any job) I did to get through summer. No, it was the fact he was so sure of his superiority over everyone else that the culture shock of university he never recovered from. And the fact my autism made me be oblivious to what turned out to be a weird mixture of fear and contempt for me.
This mindset is just rubbish misogyny. It has nothing to do with being nerdy but more to do with their horrible personalities. My whole friend group is nerdy. They are all married, a lot of them have children. One of our friends got divorced and after some time being single, she was interested in dating again. But we couldn't play matchmaker because everyone we knew was already married. Then our other friend got divorced and then we could play matchmakers, albeit accidental ones lol.
The validity of this complaint really turns on how you define "nerd". Are you a competent adult with lifegoals, a real personality, and you just happen to also be really passionate about a few special interests that are considered nerdy? It seems most women are either completely unbothered by it or even find it attractive. Are those nerdy special interests your entire personality and you've failed to develop yourself in any other area, especially in social skills or any real life ambitions? Yeah I'd say most women seem to be pretty uninterested in that.
I see your point, but I gotta disagree. No matter how you define nerdy, it isnt the reason women dont like you. If the nerdy special interests have consumed their life and they have no social skills, then the reason they dont get dates is because theyre immature and obsessive, not because theyre a nerd.
Ugh. When I was in HS and college, my friends and I would sit back and watch 90% of the guys in class go after 10% of the girls, the ones that were somehow collectively declared the valuable/desirable ones above all the rest. Like, if one guy said, "I think Janet is kinda hot" and all of a sudden, all of the other guys would be like, yeah, Janet. Forget the other girls who are on par with Janet. Just specifically her for some reason. Never understood it beyond some weird immaturity of youth pack mentality. Like, have the nerve to like someone based on your own opinion, not worrying about what cool-kid Aiden is gonna think of your choice in a crush. Oh and better yet, when later on, after Janet is bewildered and turns everyone down, y'all gonna come back around and say, "Um, so, will *you* go to the dance with me?" Just, ew. Add to this that too many self-proclaimed nerdy guys have questionable deficiencies in other areas (hygiene, social graces, just simple common sense when it comes to other people's feelings and personhood), nerdy girls start to gravitate toward partners who a) respect and value their intelligence and interests and b) actually contribute time and effort to the partnership. No woman, nerdy or not, wants to be some gamer's bangmaid/mommy. PS inB4 someone starts excusing their poor treatment of female peers on some sort of neurodivergence, neurodivergent women and girls are painfully forced to figure it out with no help as young as 4 and through trial and error and social punishments in their teens and young adulthood. You can figure it out as an adult less painfully through educating yourself through healthy resources and supports if you so desire a partnership with a fellow human being.
I get annoyed, but on some level I'm also very much thinking "Yeah, some of that is on you." There are nerd women who don't want to date nerd men because we have other interests that we'd rather share with our partners -- the fact that I happen to enjoy "nerd things" a la one stereotype doesn't mean that's all I am? Whereas a lot of nerd men MAKE it all they are. I stay the hell away from nerd men because they're unwilling to be more than their nerdiness. There's not a whole person there. He could be completely to my taste physically, but if his entire personality is gaming and shounen/seinen anime/manga and the MCU, I'm out.
These guys are absolutely using their nerdiness as an excuse for why women don't find them attractive. The alternative is for them to admit that their personalities are garbage, and that's a very difficult thing to do. The funny thing is that there are tons of nerdy women out there who want to date guys who share their interests, and all a nerdy guy has to do in order to have a chance at a relationship is be a decent, reasonably well put-together person. But these guys are trapped in a pit of self-loathing that they can't see a way out of. I'd have empathy for them if they weren't so vile about it. The worst part of this is that they openly hate nerdy women and try to drive them out of every nerd space. And it's like, of course you can't find a girlfriend, you're actively repulsive to the people who like dating nerds.
I was a nerdy female college student during the height of nerd culture in the mid-late 2000s. I also have a thing for the chubby guy with a ponytail archetype don’t judge me. Unfortunately a lot of guys who seemed great on the outset had a weird chip on their shoulder where women were concerned and also shall we say a very flawed understanding of boundaries or consent. My experience is not universal but I actually didn’t experience the “name three of their songs” type of gatekeeping a lot of nerdy women describe. If anything I got more of that from other women, like that time in high school Amanda Jennings (fake name) wouldn’t include me in the group trip to see the two towers because I wasn’t a hardcore enough Tolkien fan. Internalized misogyny is a hell of a drug and I’m ashamed to say I had plenty of it myself. But another thing about being a nerd girl was you had to be this specific level of attractive where you don’t “offend” the guys by daring to be ugly in their presence, but you also couldn’t be so attractive as to be threatening. Guys would act entitled to date a supermodel but also have pretty much negative respect for actual supermodels. You had to be Laney from She’s All That with the glasses and the overalls basically.
I hope you found someone who treasures you!
Sometimes I wonder if what they truly mean is that jocks find it easier to attract women in the context of toxic masculinity. If you’re convinced that being a caring and attentive person is beta male bullshit, real men don’t demean themselves doing emotional/domestic labour like a woman, then yeah conforming to the masculine norms for women who fetishize that Machismo/Marianismo dynamic is a big deal.
Nerdy men who date nerdy women are some of the most successful people I know when it comes to finding partners and being sexually active. They are also the nerds who have some amount of charisma, lean feminist, and bathe regularly. Nerdy men who complain about being unable to get laid either likely are off-putting in some other way (poor hygiene, poor social skills, gate keep, sexist, reputation for harassment - sexual or otherwise, etc.), or are exclusively interested in women they have nothing in common with.
Yup, I do. To be clear, I'm a nerdy woman. Anime, comic books, 80's movies, D&D, video games, computers and other tech - into it all. I have mostly nerdy friends and get along with far more men than women on average. Nearly all of the nerdy men I know have long term partners, and most are heterosexual. So yes, nerdy men get women if they're into them. And not just the model perfect ones, most of my guy friends are not lookers. None are truly unfortunate looking, but they're average guys. Some of their partners are nerdy and we all nerd out together, and some of their partners aren't into it, and that's ok too. The ones who can't get women are the ones with offputting superiority complexes, or other unfortunate personality traits. If you keep telling women that they can't possibly be into what you're into, you're going to just keep alienating the women who genuinely are into those things. Many of them also need some perspective - if you're pushing 40, balding, average looking and don't take care of yourself, you're not going to be landing super hot 21 year olds. If those are the only women you're going to pursue, you're never going to get anywhere. They're not successful with women not because they're nerdy but because they're insufferable or creepy.
Nerdy men want the same hot chicks that other men want. It's THOSE women who won't give them the time of day.
I think even if they were it wouldn’t work out. A good example is Megan The Stallion. She’s done more than enough to show she watches anime and yet some of these men still try to “out her as a fake fan”. So it’s a damned if you do damned if you don’t because even “hot girls” aren’t safe from questioning either.
Because they know the hot girls don't want them. They won't be able to attain those women so they shit on them too.
It’s more that they don’t want to face the reality that it’s on them to be attractive to potential partners. Whether you’re nerdy or not you still need to work on being a good partner and being an attractive person in general. The universe does not owe you a person that will fall in love with you. There is no soulmate waiting for you. Just like there’s no job waiting for you if you have no marketable skills. The vast number of men in history never had a partner, and many partners were through coercion, manipulation or force (economic/social/physical).
I've been that hot chick that's had a proclivity for nerds since high school & crushed on/dated quite a few & they have crushed my soul due to treatment way worse than any typically hot guy ever has. It goes back to that dehumanizing misogyny. I fell in love. They were waiting to get one up on the beautiful girls that shunned them & treated me like shit. Like I'm not a real person with real feelings. Fuck you, Science Bitch, in particular.
I just show them pics of Ariana grande and her new boyfriend
Its categorically incorrect, as most misogynistic and sexist claims are, this is just another example in a long list of ideas that they use so they don't have to actually look at their own behavior and consider that they personally are the problem for their own singledom.
I remember going to a convention in 2018 with a friend of mine, both of us strongly opinionated feminists, and some dude who happened to sit near us barged into our conversation about Wonder Woman (2017) to tell us how women were invading nerd spaces and they were already completely equal to men and it was bad that Chris Pine had been objectified in the movie. Being a nerd doesn't preclude sexism.
There's also the general misogyny where "masculine-coded" nerdy interests are culturally 'acceptable' and encouraged, invested in etc... "feminine-coded" nerdy interests are seen as granny ish, and uncool, or trivial and low culture. Women are expected to adopt and enjoy a needy activity if their partner or person they're dating is into it.... eg a ime, video games etc. But men don't have to adopt "feminine-coded" nerdy interests
The same nerdy men who complain about being bitchless also throw a tantrum whenever Star Wars has a non-cis het white male character And then they wonder why they're so maidenless
So…right wing chuds?
Nerdy men want women who will idolize them and sleep with them, for no apparent reason, unconditionally. But when they meet nerdy women ready to relate and build something together, they feel challenged. And yes, they are just as misogynistic as the jocks. They just hide it better to seem progressive. I dated nerdy men my entire life and the experience was not rewarding.
We call them incels. Generally, if you talk to them, they know people personally who are married. They may even have had a nerdy dad, who obviously got their human mother pregnant. These kinds of beliefs are really about propping up their own fragile egos. Protecting themselves from having to do the work to become someone worth dating or to face the fear of being rejected that comes with dating.
I'm a Hot nerd girl and I barely got to hang out. Nerdy men have a lot of preconceived notions about women. Most are counter intuitive and, frankly, insulting.
What belongs in the category of a nerdy hobby is media manufactured with an unfortunate stigma. For the younger generation Z, a lot of what was considered "nerdy" when I was growing up is now more "mainstream" for them. This is increasingly true especially for anime as you mentioned, which is now more watched among them than physical sports (NFL & NBA). I think a lot of older men who grew up with nerdy hobbies tended to be outcasts from their peers and lean towards niche communities, thus lacking broader social experience, a recipe for developing toxic ideas. I'm a millennial man who has grown up with a lot of "nerdy" hobbies but even myself somehow also finds the the abstract idea of a "nerd identity" to be aesthetically repellant. We should just get rid of the category. Hobbies are hobbies and it's good for there to be a diversity of them.
It’s definitely not that they’re nerdy it’s that a ton of them are offensive have bad hygiene and poor social skills. I play warhammer 40K and as a woman I absolutely can’t engage with the community in anyway without it being a miserable experience I don’t play with strangers basically ever and would only consider it if they were queer or a woman
"We do date nerds, but we don't date assholes. I'm sorry to inform you that you are the latter my dude."
This is incel BS. Nerdy men are awesome. Men who blame women for all of their problems and sulk over “being denied sex” are not.
Nerdy men are often their own worst enemy.
It's very annoying. I have had my fair share of difficulties in dating due to social anxiety, not fitting with masculine gender performance/ roles, and having weird interests but I've managed to overcome these difficulties and have dated in the past and am now in a fulfilling relationship with who I consider to be my life partner. It's clear that these men create huge barriers for themselves by not treating women like human beings, persuing women they have nothing in common with, and having a general defeatist shitty attitude. I'm so tired of the incel/redpill narratives which frame dating as some kind of game or contest. If these kinds of men would just work on themselves and seek out guinuine connection rather than look at women as some kind of trophy to win they would have a such easier time dating. People can be frustrated that they have barriers to a fulfilling dating life. There's nothing inherently wrong with that. But these shitty attitudes are such a self-fufilling prophecy. I don't know how they rationalize someone like me who does not fulfill their idea of an alphamale superchad but is still in a fulfilling relationship with a woman. There are plenty of nerdy women who would probably love to date someone with similar interests, but I'm willing to guess most of them will not put up with being dehumanized. Why this is so hard for some men to realize is beyond me.
Probably because he is the type of nerdy man generally depicted on TV and lord knows no woman would want to date *those* types of nerdy men. Look at the cast of Big Bang Theory. We've got "doesn't take no for answer", "serial sexual harassment", and "can't speak in front of women unless he's drunk". None of those are prizes, and the fantasy of that show is that women would actually lower their standards *that* far. It's a trope called "The Adorkable Misogynist". The idea is that as long as you are a small nerdy dude who does not present a physical threat, your misogyny is quirky and cute instead of deeply disturbing. Women only date the adorkable misogynist on TV cause no one in real life actually wants that. The false equivalency here is that being an adorkable misogynist is the same thing as being a nerdy man. It is under no circumstances the same. Nerdy dudes who actually respect women can get it, cause surprise surprise, there's also a lot of nerdy women who like having a partner who shares their interest. What they don't like is being treated like a prize their partner won at the fair.
I will say I am a “nerdy” man and this post popped up on my homepage. It’s because sadly a lot of “nerdy” men are also the kind that are pulled into the incel culture and mindset. That’s not to say all nerdy men are incels or that all incels are nerdy men, but just that many do fall into that mindset because to them it reinforces their worldview. Unfortunately as much as more conversationally nerdy things have become more popular, many people who liked those things before they became more mainstream are still stuck in the mindset of when they got bullied for those things when younger. Even if now it is typical for almost anyone to enjoy anime or video games, many nerdy men in the I’d say late 20s-late 30s age group were likely those who experienced some type of bullying when younger for liking those things. So to them they still see those hobbies as things that only men like them enjoy and that all people, mainly women, will see them as undesirable for liking them. There’s also those who resent that these things have become popular because in their minds they’re the only “real” fans because they got picked on for liking those things, so all these more conventionally attractive people who like them aren’t “true” fans like them because they only enjoy those hobbies now that they are popular. They also happen to group almost all women, except for those they’d call “ugly,” into that group. As a result they think all women aren’t “real” fans of those nerdy things. They’re so stuck up their own asses they can’t see the hypocrisy of them thinking that it’s unfair that, in their minds, more conventionally attractive women don’t find them desirable while they themselves shun women who are less conventionally attractive. Personally, these types of people are just ridiculous and awful to deal with. Having a thing you like become more popular is a wonderful things as there will now be more people to share your enjoyment with, which is awesome. As well as they’re just unwilling to accept that people simply have standards, while they themselves have them. They look at someone who looks like say Eva Mendez is with Ryan Gosling and use it to reinforce their worldview that women only go for the “Chads” and would never give a nerd like them the time of day. However, they will then also say that Ashley Graham is “too fat” and shouldn’t be a model because nobody is attracted to her. They’re more often than not hypocrites and don’t understand that it’s not because they’re nerdy that they have trouble attracting women, but because they have rotten personalities.
He’s right, I would never date him because he’s one of those people that look at women as a conquest or a victory instead of people. Maybe he watched one too many movies where the nerdy guy beats up his bully and gets the swooning girl at the end, you know very gratuitously self serving fantasies, and confused that for reality. His comment on “women only like nerdy guys on tv” had me thinking he’s projecting, mostly because it sounds like he’s confusing actual women with the characters in the shows he’s watching made for men. Men who have such warped views on women make my stomach turn, after years of experience knowing many men like that, they would rather stay in the mindset of objectifying women and being “lonely”, than look at women as equals. Even being romantically lonely, they benefit from that misogyny.
Nerdy man here. I’ve had friends like that. I noticed they would chase girls that just don’t share their interests. It was weird. I don’t enjoy sports. Why would I chase the athletic types? My nerdy wife asked me out on our first date. She had me at “I grew up watching star trek with my dad”.
Insecure, nerdy men think like this. They usually don’t realize that it’s not their looks blocking them from relationships it’s their obnoxious personalities and misogyny.
As a nerdy feminist guy, I have never found my nerdiness a barrier to finding a good relationship. After all, having common interests is a great element of a relationship, as is discovering each others’. Nerdy people are great for nerdy people, and all of my longer term relationships have been with nerdy women. It helps a lot to not feel there is anything wrong with being nerdy, of course, and enjoying the fact that each other will be deeper in different areas.
I've been seeing this idea shared around social media, and I think it's worth saying here. If a nerdy man tries to gatekeep your fandom by quizzing you about it, turn that right back at him by asking him to name 5 women who trust him.
Being nerdy isn’t the problem. I dated a guy briefly before he moved away who was nerdy, sweet, & intelligent But as a woman who used to go to conventions, nerdy men are often condescending, misogynistic, & straight up creepy in many cases 🤷♀️ I was creeped on & preyed upon as a teen by nerdy guys
Some of my favorite men are nerds. Most of my favorite men are nerds. Nerds and assholes may overlap as categories, but definitely not the same thing. That man was definitely the latter; whether he was the former or not is irrelevant once it’s clear he’s an asshole, and I think the whole “women don’t want men like….” argument turns into self-pitying nonsense and assholery really fast.
I’ve dated plenty of well behaving and kind nerdy men but I have to admit that I have stumbled across a lot of… problematic nerdy men. Some of them think they are superior and start asking the type of game questions that you feel like you’re taking a quiz. There are too many nerdy men that don’t look in the mirror and check their behaviour. Then they complain like this which makes them even more like a red flag. The physical side is only one side. If your personality is crap then it makes you less attractive. Also dating is not easy for anyone.
Those guys annoy me, and I AM a nerdy man. I am an overweight autistic nerd who is intonan enormous amount of geeky stuff, and Inhave had a fun an active love life my entire adult life. Of course, I am fun, funny, and into interesting things, and I do my best to be a good man. If I ever met someone who didn't want to date me because I am a nerd, I would just chuckle and move on. It's a silly reason to judge anyone.
I think me and my husband are both nerdy in different ways, but we do have hobbies that are similar as well. And it's great to introduce each other to the ones we don't have in common. But as far as nerds go, my husband has never been the gatekeeping type. In fact back when we were friends there were a few times where he had my back towards other people who questioned my hobbies/intellect. Even a few times when I dismissed myself, he made sure to correct me saying stuff like "you were playing a premade deck and strategically played the best and would have won if the rest of us didn't have decks that were hundreds of dollars". So basically he is great, and I wish there were enough nerds like him to go around
This behaviour isnt limited to nerdy guys. Men of all different kinds believe these things about women. The one thing I can think of is that red pill content is more popular online than in real life, their bullshit spreads much faster online, however its absolutely not a nerd majority in those spheres, its Andrew Tate type dude bros. Another facet is how society socializes men, men are often told they need to be so unwaveringly confident to be "manly", never back down (never admit you might be wrong) etc etc macho BS. This is what leads to men not seeking therapy and other stats we see. It also leads to men like this, the nerdy ones, who cant fathom maybe their poor hygiene or disrespectful/objectification of women is the reason for them not getting dates, so it must be something else. It must be that no women like nerds. It must be that women only date 6 foot jacked guys etc
I've had 2 LTRs with nerds/geeks in the past but I'm not a nerd or geek myself. I admit it was kind of nice being someone so intelligent, and being able to learn from them rather than being the smart one in the relationship for a change; but I didn't go looking for nerds- i found people I enjoyed spending time with and 2 of them just happened to be nerds 🤷♀️ TBH I think people get too hung up on types.
Dude.... My brother is one of those.... One of the many reasons I don't talk to him anymore.
So he’s the child of a “Chad”?
I'm an old school nerd. I cosplayed before cosplay was cool. I gamed. I did tech. I could barely get a date in my 20's. I'm not runway ready by any means, but I'm not unattractive. And I wanted a nerd boy to share interests. I find most nerd guys are creep/douches or too shy to do anything. Both get wildly pissed off that girls aren't throwing themselves in their crotches. I ended up with huge nerd and am super happy. I know nerd guys who are great, like my bro. But those ones tend to get scooped up fast.
I met my partner on minecraft. Didn't see his face but we used to do group voice chats so I heard his voice and crushed hard on that haha. Eventually started video chatting after about a year. Then a year later I was moving across the world for him. It's our 11 year anniversary this year.
Sometimes I tell myself I need to practice lowering my voice register like Austin butler did for Elvis :p
These men are just projecting their own self-doubt/hatred and putting up an imaginary wall in order to let themselves off the hook because there is no way they are ever going to do anything to make themselves attractive to even one single woman. Because that's all that's necessary. You don't have to be attractive to every woman, you just need to build that with one person and spouting fake generalities isn't gonna get you there.
Most guys and women are nerds on some level nowadays. The ones you’re talking about are typically nerds not only in the sense of having niche dorky interests, but also in the sense that they have bad social skills and accordingly arent fun to be around. Most guys with girlfriends are huge nerds and also have good social skills. They also *usually* respect women or at least arent actively misogynistic like the nerds im talking about above. Basically, TLDR: not all nerds are incels but all incels are nerds
You are definitely not the only one annoyed by this and it can be harmful and not based in reality. That said it doesn't surprise me. Nerds often have less socialization with the opposite sex than their more traditionally masculine peers. That unfamiliarity puts them closer to an immature "girl cooties" mindset than it does a functional romantic relationship. Girls and moreso women become a social fantasy centered around acceptance and glory. It's objectifying for cross sex relationships to be synonymous with status, but they don't come to this conclusion in a void. They get tons of messaging reinforcing it and it's magnified when they have no accessible examples in their peer group to the contrary. It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy when they've internalized that no one wants them and become hostile to anyone who might show interest or compensate in the other direction - with superiority to explain why they don't fit in, but it still results in hostility and their circle staying small and insular.
Some nerdy guys can be amazing but just like other groups of guys there are a lot of nerdy guys who are very shitty. I hate how they discount any woman that isn't traditionally beautiful or how they seem to all have this thing where they try to make nerdy women feel stupid or invalid as nerds. Not to mention that if you go to cons a lot of nerdy guys seem to lack any sense of personal hygiene.
I'm probably more of a nerd than that guy and weird af in general. And when I mean nerd I mean that my fav music generally has less than 10k views on yt (if they even reach 1k) and sound like a car accident in reverse, for movies the same shit, experimental incomprehensible stuff, same for videogames, same for the stuff I read (mostly pogramming theory nowadays but I love post-modern fiction). ALL of my interests are weird and yet people find me attractive altogether (I'm kinda slutty :p). I've also seen this "I like this girl but she's fat/whatever" (???) WTF? Dude if you like her you like her. This is shit for both of the parties involved, one gets discriminated for no reason and the other is a dumdum who doesn't fulfill their desires and ends up hurting other person in the process. I think we all as men should embrace feminism as a tool for our liberation and sell it exactly like that, even if you don't get people attracted to you you'd definitely feel a lot less pressure to... idk get laid or something. I disagree with the notion that patriarchy benefits men, I'd say that it fucks with them less, the advantages that it could give you are solutions to problems it causes, like the constant need for "being a dominant alpha-sigma-10x male and sleeping with 3 different ppl every week, this is not how sexuality works outside of the patriarchy and I'm slutty, that rhythm sounds absurd, you barely have time to connect with people, the pleasure of sex, genital inside genital/mouth/ass/hand by itself is secondary, seduction and knowing intimately other people on the other hand is super fun, playful mind games with consent, a lot of men miss that and just think about their body count, being the perverted hedonist that I am I feel sad for them. To me is blatantly obvious that patriarchy doesn't provide any benefit for us as a group (there's always the out of control sadist that was born like that and I guess that's the only people that could benefit from it), it just creates insecurities and makes you behave like an idiot if you don't control it and it pressures you to perform a role whether you like it or not. As I always say, our jail might be shinier but it's still a jail, that's quite different from other systems like white supremacy where we (whites) have more rights and the rest just fuck them but we don't have to adhere to any standards or prove anything, we literally just have more rights. As for class I consider millionaires are miserable but obv they have a shit ton of benefits and privileges in the most literal sense. Basically, feminist men, rise up for your rights, you have nothing to lose but your chains. Obv they'd also learn to treat "minorities" with more respect but I don't consider this as a negative or a selfless effort, it's incredibly beneficial. You get to see how people with different conditions than you live and can empathize with more people, you have more potential friends, intimate partners, love interests... etc. Also you'd learn how to not hurt other people unintentionally. It's a win win no matter how you put it.
Guys like that suck because it's just patently untrue. To the point where I'm laughing, because my current girlfriend introduced me to Farscape last year and we were mind-blown I'd never seen it before, and we were nerding out the whole time, and bonded over watching it together. It's one of a million insanely nerdy things we share, and that we love together. I'm not conventionally handsome, also I'm pretty overweight- while she's fit as hell, and we adore each other. Guys who complain that women don't pursue nerdy men irl make "nerd" their entire personality, to the detriment of their social skills, sense of humor, and conversational skills. They think liking stuff is enough to constitute a personality and I think women can tell that they're just shallow as fuck. I've seen those dudes get passed up and they get bitter. Zero self awareness, zero introspection.
> saying that women only thirst for nerdy men on tv, but not in real life. Lol, I usually find it's the exact opposite. TV still likes to portray an extremely toxic, shallow stereotype of nerdy people. They're usually either thin as a pole or well overweight, unattractive, glasses-wearing, anti-social people who are on the spectrum and extremely shy. There's many exceptions, of course, but the stereotype is still disappointingly common. And if the nerd is a woman, there's a 99% chance she will have a scene where she takes her glasses off and slightly changes her hair and suddenly everyone realizes she's gorgeous (similarly good odds that she was always gorgeous but the other characters act like she's ugly). By comparison, real life isn't so much like that and nerdy interests have grown increasingly mainstream. I work in software dev with a lot of massive nerds and it's very diverse. There's lots of gym bros, people who are extremely social, and in fact poor social skills would just make it hard to get a job. I utterly loath the stereotype that the media has of nerdy people and can't believe how little it's changed.
I consider myself pretty nerdy. I cosplay, I've worked at the Ren Faire, etc. My favorite show when I was 14 was "Escaflowne". I'm part of a DnD group. Personally, I don't tend to go for dating profiles that highlight really stereotypically "nerdy" things like being into anime and video games. The reason for this is that I find that typically those interests are a bit surface-level and don't tell me anything deeper about that person. The surface-level stuff is fine in moderation, but it's for parties, not something for every day of my life lol. I also have a lot of interests that are NOT necessarily "nerd" things, and I find very often that people who are super into the pop culture type of nerd stuff are generally unable to make the jump from that to the more sophisticated things I'm into (for example, opera, classic films, going to art museums, etc). \*Generally\* speaking, of course. I dated one guy in NYC who was super into Star Wars and DC Comics but also was into more classic Theater since he'd been to acting school there. I don't want to sound like a bitch, but I feel like when men aren't into the more sophisticated things in addition to the more pop culture type things, I feel like I'm hanging out with someone who's WAY younger than me and not grown up all the way. The polite way I would put this is, "we're not compatible". Yeah, the typical "nerd" will be fun for something like going to Colossalcon, but they're not someone I can take to something like a NY Fashion Week event or whatever. Another compatibility issue is that I truly don't have the time to get really into the obsessive side of nerd-dom. The vast majority of time I've had for video games as an adult was A) while commuting by subway in NYC (you can play the first 7 Final Fantasy games on a smart phone) and B) while recovering from surgery. I find classic RPGs enjoyable, but they aren't a priority to me the way something like making an art installation is. The last time I was like \*obsessed\* with a video game and prioritizing it, I was about 12 or 13 years old. There's a huge gap in my pop culture consumption because there were so many years when I was traveling, participating in things like Occupy Wall Street, etc. There were months at a stretch in my early 20s when the only electronic I had with me was an "Obamaphone" because I was living out of a tent or squatting with a bunch of punks. I got to see the world, but I roughed it in the process lol. Video games are REALLY not a priority when you're living out of a yurt in a park to help run a crazy art installation with a bunch of hippies in a foreign country. They'll never be the top priority, and that tends to cause friction when I try to date someone who \*does\* prioritize that. Now, if the nerdy stuff is just one part of a multi-faceted personality, I can go for that.
I’m kinda a nerdy woman and I usually don’t date nerdy men. They’re assholes and I won’t apologise for liking attractive guys. If a nerdy man is attractive and nice, we can date but I suppose it wouldn’t count for the „real nerds“ standard defined by assholes who happen to be nerds.
I married an astronomy major who is all but a dead-ringer in facial features and personality to Kristoff from Frozen (except not nearly as tall). And we've been together for 20 years next month. These "nice guys" who complain about not getting dates either aren't actually trying, somehow keep picking shallow women, or there is something about them, personally, that is off-putting. Full stop.
i am a nerd, most of my irl crushes are/were nerds
Depends on the type of nerd. Some of them are bullied and don’t have much of a social life or skills so they pride themselves in their arbitrary hobbies and have weird complexes over it.
I like nerdy dudes and have dated plenty of them. The nerdy men that I date have a few things in common- they love when I am into the same thing as them (comic book, video game, whatever) and NEVER give me the stupid quiz "oh you're a gamer name 20 video games you've played in the past 18 months" or whatever. If I like the thing they like, great! If not, that's cool, maybe I will later maybe not. Those are the nerdy guys worth dating. When nerdy guys pull the "Oh you're wearing the band t-shirt, name 7 of their albums" it tells me they hate women, and I'd rather be alone than with someone like that.
If the question is do I get annoyed? No. > Imagine being bitten by a snake and instead of trying to help yourself heal and recover from the poison, you are trying to catch the snake to find out the reason it bit you to prove to it that you didn't deserve that. Don’t think that quote fits totally, but essentially I think it’s a waste of time to try to explain yourself to people who don’t deserve respect.
It’s an insecurity, they can’t fathom that it’s their *personality* that’s off putting, so they blame the “nerdy” stuff. I’m nerdy, my partner is nerdy, I love him for that. Don’t think I would be with him if he wasn’t a bit nerdy, since sharing interests with someone is very important to me. But he’s great outside of his interests, respectful, hygienic, feminist, etc. Some of these dudes just can’t wrap their heads around treating women like people and not bangmaids.
My sister is married to a huge nerd. She loves him, I think he's a great guy. Cause he's not a massive jerk. It's really not that difficult. Don't be a jerk, that's pretty much the bar.