OMGJeremy

Reader Submission Corner: Why That Nerd Girl Hates You

Submitted by Crystal

I know what you’re thinking. “There’s no way that girl hates me. We talk all the time, mostly about video games and anime and I totally let her win at Super Smash Bros. last night. I bet she’s seconds away from ripping her clothes off and making out with me in sheer gratitude.” I’ve seen your type before. It will end in tears. It always does. You may think you are a special and unique snowflake, but believe me, they sell you by the dozen at comic conventions and gaming stores. There is absolute rage behind that smile she keeps giving you. That look in her eyes? That’s not lust, and you are NOT about to score.

For starters, you don’t actually talk with her about these things. You talk AT her about these things. If she starts a conversation about World of Warcraft, you interrupt her mid sentence with something like, “Oh man, my guild totally got Lich King down in two attempts. We’re so awesome.” If she brings up anime, you come back with a gem like “Dude, whatever, Cowboy Bebop is so fucking mainstream. I only watch FLCL or the original RoboTech. You clearly need to learn some stuff about anime.” It never occurs to you to think she might have seen these things and disliked them. It also never occurs to you that she might be in a hardcore raiding guild and know your claim is bullshit. God forbid she mention something you’ve never heard of. You panic, and you either dismiss it out of hand or talk about how much better something else is and how only people who aren’t REALLY into whatever could like what she mentioned..

Nerd Girls typically loathe being placed on pedestals just as much as they detest being talked down to.

Some of you are standing around awkwardly, staring at your shoes and muttering about how you would never do something like that at this point. You know who you are. I’ll put it to you like this; you are so busy trying to sound awesome and knowledgeable, that what you end up sounding is stupid and ignorant. Sounding ignorant is the absolute last thing you want here, since Nerd Girls are most likely to choose to date someone who they think of as an intellectual equal. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to you, considering that you are attracted to this Nerd Girl because she’s smarter than most of the girls you’ve met, but for some reason you never seem to make the connection that she might be looking for the same thing in potential mates that you are.

Secondly, and this may shock you, you didn’t need to let her win. Either she was capable of winning on her own, or she wasn’t. Either way, she knows what you did, and thinks it’s a dick move. Just play. Don’t try and do her a favor by throwing match after match, or get all ego-tastic and feel like you are honor bound not to lose to a girl. Condescending to Nerd Girls never ends well. Neither does showing that you fear that they might be better than you at something. They just end up knowing you are insecure and think they are too dumb to know. So now not only does she think you are a pretentious douche, she thinks you are an idiotic one.

Third, and this is very important, Nerd Girls don’t need you to give them your condescending attention. They really don’t. They have other nerds lined up all the way from here to the booth selling Tribble t-shirts waiting to drool on their shoes. Your drool is neither special nor important. You may be intelligent, funny, good at games, have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the characters in the Star Wars universe and know where the good gaming stores are in your town, but so does she. In fact, she’s been fighting against the assumption she doesn’t know anything about that stuff since she was 8 years old and got chewed out for owning a C3PO figure by some boy who figured she had no idea what it was. So when you patronize and talk down to her, what she in fact hears is what she’s been hearing since birth: “You can’t do that, you’re a girl.”

Finally, look. I get it. This here in front of you is a creature straight out of myth and legend. It’s a GIRL and you can talk to her about Star Trek. Or Star Wars. Or Firefly. Or god only knows what other nerdy passion you personally have. Hell, she has probably even heard of Quantum Physics and has enough of a grasp on it to realize that no one really knows what the fuck is up with that shit. That doesn’t mean you have to spend your whole day either proving yourself over and over to her or bowing at her feet. Neither of these things is an acceptable mode of behavior, dude. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that the surest way to blow your chance is to keep right on doing what you’re doing. Because underneath the pretty shiny hair and the fact that the things under her clothing look nothing like those under yours, there is a person. This person has wants, needs, and a personality of their own. I know that for some of you the concept of someone with a personality is a scary one, since you meet so few of them, but it will work out best if instead of trying to impress her, and I know this is a terrifying thought for most of you, but bear with me, you try and get to know her.

Basically, what I’m saying here is this: the best way to get a Nerd Girl to not hate you is by not assuming she’s different than you. When you start treating her differently just because she happens to have tits, she tends to get a bit angry. And by a bit angry, what I actually mean is RUN, she’s going to knife you one day if you don’t cut that shit out.

Pedestal shattered, nerdy guy about to get his face mutilated: a standard Nerd Girl daydream.