…..I never thought I’d marry a geek. There. I’ve said it and I feel a little lighter. Let's face it ladies, little girls rarely, if not never, picture there prince charming waiting for them at the altar wearing D20 cufflinks, knowing that their future holds many a night ordering in a pizza to watch her husband and his friends battle fictitious goblins and save the world, or some world at least, from some sort of impending doom too terrifying to even imagine. But, on July 4, 2009, my father had to keep me from running up the aisle to do just that. A choice I doubt with all my heart that I’ll live to regret.
You see I didn’t start out dating geeks, I just eventually found my way there. Of course I should put in a few qualifiers about myself first.
1. I was raised in a Geek-Rich environment. I had two geek uncles who introduced me to things like Star Wars and Star Trek from an early age. I played with Lego and Star Wars action figures a bit as a kid.
2. Growing up I was never one of the cool popular kids but I did have a small group of friends, many of whom I’m still friends with today.
3. I considered myself a well rounded person in high school. I played sports, I enjoyed reading, and I took piano lessons and eventually played trumpet in my school band. I was on our school parliament (Hey I’m Canadian), but I was also involved with a high school quiz show and got really good grades.
Ok so maybe I was a bit of an over-achiever but I didn’t think of myself as a geek. I mean at least I wasn’t in the chess club…..(kidding!) J
The guys I dated in high school fell into a variety of categories-none of which I would consider to be truly geeky.
When I was 14 I dated the “older guy” who was also a bit of a grease monkey shop type. Coincidentally he’s now a mechanic and though he broke up with me via email (older perhaps but maybe not more mature…) he taught me a valuable lesson. Mostly that 14 year olds probably shouldn’t date 17 year olds.
The next guy I dated was a bit of a band geek but he also played sports and I wouldn’t consider him much of a geek either. Things ended badly.
The last guy I dated in high school was an all out jock. Volleyball, basketball, hockey, track and field-you name it, he did it. We dated into my first year of university-he’d been at college for over a year at that point when he dumped me and broke my heart. Completely. Looking back I can see now how much better off without him I was. He was nice enough but he didn’t treat me well in the end. I made a fool of myself trying to make him happy, trying to make myself the person he wanted. What I should have realized was that I was pretty awesome as I was. It took me a long time to find myself after that.
Here came the epiphany though. I’d spent years chasing after guys who wanted me to be someone I wasn’t. I’d been dating all the wrong kinds of guys. So I decided to give myself a year long hiatus from dating.
Now you’re thinking that maybe this girl had finally gotten her act together-well I’d be lying if I said I did. After a year off I started dating someone I really barely knew at all and went in head first without testing the waters. This was my first taste of dating a true geek, and I was a total jerk. I found myself becoming the things I’d hated about some of the guys I dated. I figured I could fix him, he was broken. He wanted so badly to please me so he tried but I lost respect for him in the process. The biggest regret of my life will probably be the damage I caused and the way I ended things. For what it’s worth, if you ever read this, I never meant to hurt you.
But I did.
I fell in love with one of his friends, who became my perfect match. We shared interests in cooking and music. We went rollerblading together and dreamed of a future-a less complicated one. He made me live in the moment. I loved him for him and he loved me for me. While I didn’t share his love for D&D, I loved watching as this creative person shared his visions and imagination with others. While I didn’t have a passion for video games, I loved watching him play, just as I had loved watching my uncles play as a little girl. Here was a man who didn’t want to change a thing about me, who was willing to fight for me…and he was a total geek.
While I will always wish things had happened differently, with fewer casualties, I will never regret the outcome. I didn’t get to marry my prince charming, or my knight in shining armor like I might have dreamed of as a little girl. I married my equal, my partner, my best friend-my very own geek.
No comments:
Post a Comment