I Can't Be With Someone Like Me
Alex Payne, writing in August of last year, about geek girls: “Geek guys endlessly lament the lack of such girls, girls who can really understand them, girls who are smart and interesting.”
Alexander then dismisses the idea that geek guys should seek out only geek girls. I wonder if he would agree with the Seinfeldian idea that dating someone exactly like you is, while loads of fun at first, is something to be avoided rather than sought out. Seinfeld, after bumping in to the woman who had the same jokes as he did, same complaints as he did, same viewpoint on life as he did, started dating her and then, incongruously, proposed to marry her. She accepted, but then he came to realize that that “I can't be with someone like me: I hate myself! If anything I need to get the exact opposite of me!” While there's something to be said about looking for the exact opposite of yourself—are there any serious, progressively-minded black girls into that are into goth who are interested in a silly, fairly conservative white guys that wear t-shirts and jeans? (thought I'd try)—that bipolarity seems a little extreme. Probably better to argue for a complementary life-partner: someone who has some similar interests but also has their own interests which are not only new to you but that you are interested in learning about. Or someone that's red freaking hot.
I do have a problem with people who define themselves in terms of what they consume, and, if I read his final paragraph correctly, Alex has that same problem. While the distinction between a person who is bored and a person who is boring is a fine one, I would say that the people who need to "broaden their horizons" are not from the latter group—it's not their fault that other people think they're boring—but rather the former.
