My wife, Carly, is a nerd. I just read a discussion elsewhere from some ‘dude’ who claimed since he didn’t game with females and never saw them in any of the gaming stores or such, they didn’t actually exist. Apparently the ‘women’ online are just us dudes pretending to be women because it’s our fantasy or we just don’t like how it seems to be a one-sided sausage fest.
So since she doesn’t exist, then I guess she isn’t someone that will kick the %#@$@ out of you in Team Fortress 2 round after round (as a medic too, haha, you n00b).
There was never a time period of time where she would blow your ship up in Eve-Online, capture your life pod, then force you to pay a ransom because she was a feared lowsec pilot in a damn good pirate alliance. And if you didn’t pay it, you could kiss your life pod and all those precious, expensive implants goodbye. Hello clone vat!
She’s never been ruthless enough to repeatedly wreck her poor, defenseless spouse with shells or stupid stars in Mario Kart (all versions) just so she can always win. (Dr. Mario, Tetris, and Carcassonne also).
She’s not the type of enigma that knows what a ‘replicant’ is, as well as knows what cylons are, the Ark of the Covenant, Jimmy Olsen, Cortanna, wtf a ‘WAAAAAAAGH!’ banner is, what ‘chummer’ means, fell in love with Alistair, cheers Ripley on, still loves Ewoks (remember, she’s a she, so we can forgive her this one transgression), and still hates that Terry Goodkind spent almost 9 of the 12 books re-explaining the story EVERY SINGLE TIME. WE GET IT MR. GOODKIND. She, me, and three others never 5-manned Deathwing.
You should have seen the reaction when she didn’t attend PDXLAN in Portland with me for my job one year. She wasn’t one of maybe twenty females surrounded by 1,000+ man-boys (because, as we’ve established, she doesn’t exist). We never met a guy that she said reminded her of a Skeksis. A SKEKSIS. Who even knows what that is other than a geek?
(the sound of 92% of you looking up what a Skeksis is might possibly be the greatest noise in my universe)
She’s mostly a ‘man’ online because males sometimes haven’t been in social circles that involve females other than moms and grandmas. And teachers. I don’t know. I grew up without the internet, and I’m not all familiar with whatever you kids are hip to these days.
Great thing is, when we start attending some SFF cons, she’ll no longer be one of the .2%. Maybe some of you other invisibles will show up. The Wife That Does Not Exist could use some sister power.
But she won’t cosplay or LARP. If you ask her to do this, she will atomic wedgie you and then have me help her when she hangs you from your underwear on the flag pole outside of the expo center.
*
(tangent)
Actually, we had a really good idea about three weeks ago. We were going to sit down with the video camera and I was going to quiz her about science fiction / fantasy / nerd stuff. The reason this would be rather amusing, is because she thinks, in her own mind, that she’s got enough geek cred to hang with me and mine.
She does not. We made it through about six ‘test’ questions before we had to stop. The stomach cramps from laughing were ridiculously painful.Some answers were so bad, I could feel myself rolling over in my grave from the future. I wish she wasn’t a public school teacher sometimes, as we could do a version of Drunk History except this would be like Drunk Geek Test or something that only other nerds would think is funny.
Except funnier than The Big Bang Theory. That show is so awful I get my virginity back after nine seconds of not being able to find the remote fast enough to change the channel.
Right. Female Nerd Power. You do exist. I’ve met some of you. I married one of you. Maybe if we can get 50-50 at conventions and within genres like science fiction, we can maybe get 50-50 in Congress.