Dork Chic (or Nice Guys Scream Like Girls)

What is it about dorks that appeal to us girls? I'm sure someone somewhere has quantified it. My last post was in part about machismo -- is it as simple as a lack thereof? My MBA-student client thinks the world owes him a living and I'm just here to serve -- being in a Client Services -type position, I can only bitch about this so much. But the Better-Than attitude is unnecessary, and actually counterproductive to getting what you want from a service worker.

Dorks do not pull the Better-Than -- at least not in this way. There's the competitiveness of a I-Can-Remember-Encounter-At-Farpoint-Better-Than-You initiation, but not a I-Have-More-Worth-Than-You thing. Something about Growing Up Geek that makes them humble.

This is all of course a broad generalization, but there you go. I know lots of IT guys that would normally fall under 'Dork' but are assholes with definite superiority complexes. Of course in my F'ed up head, it just makes them more irresistable. The Moderate Asshole Guy is always more desireable than the Super Nice and Treats You Well All The Time Guy.

And what's THAT about? I remember dating this guy when I was 16-17 -- my mom called him Ol' Black Joe, no matter that he was neither Old or Black. He was Joe, however, and he was the nicest guy ever.

Too nice, in fact. WAY too nice. Like put-you-on-a-pedestal nice. Yucky. Gave me the wiggins. But he was soooo nice, and liked me so much, I could only politely decline the date so many times before I figured "WTF. Maybe I'll see something in him on a date that I'm not seeing at work."

We went to a ChiChi's or some such crap for dinner -- it was not a love connection, at least not for me. That became apparent at dinner, but we were scheduled to see a movie after dinner, and rather than feign a headache or cramps or diptheria, I accompanied him to our intended movie nonetheless. The movie? Nightmare On Elm Street III.

If you're a Nightmare On Elm Street afficionado, you know that III is the Dream Warriors, where the kids of all the Elm Street residents are all nutballs and living in a locked facility. Craig Wasson, king of the sleazy horror flick (rent Body Double if you doubt me), is the protagonist-doctor, and Heather Langencamp is back as Nancy Thompson -- all growed up, with a psych degree, and a fakey silver streak in her hair to indicate age and wisdom. Her specialty? Sleep disorders. Duh. It writes itself.

So, if you *really* know these movies, you know there's a scene in III where our lead troubled-teen (portrayed by Patricia Arquette) dreams she is walking into Nancy's old house on Elm Street. It's all dusty and cobwebby and whatnot, and in the formal dining room is a full formal set up, including a dusty roast suckling pig with an apple in its mouth.

So, seen any horror films EVER? Seen any Nightmare films? You see a roast suckling pig on a table, in a Dream where Anything Can Happen -- what do you think happens? Of course. The pig comes to life. I saw it a mile away, you saw it a mile away, people a mile away saw it, um... a mile away. Joe? Joe did not see it.

Pig comes to life. Joe SCREAMS. Not jumps, not gasps -- SCREAMS. And not a big girly shriek, but a Big Deep Manly Bellow, leaving no doubt in the minds of anyone else in the audience that he was a big Horror Movie Puss. The rest of the audience gasped a bit, and a couple of girls shrieked, but Joe was the loudest and most protracted, and the rest of the moviegoers looked over and laughed. I, meanwhile, tried to disappear.

We walked around for a while after and talked, and he drove me home, but that was it. I did not go out with him again. We could have been friends, but he wanted more, and I did not... and I wanted to see horror movies sans mortification. So I blew him off. I suck.

Lest you write me off as a complete bitch, cut to a few months later, and the Let's Be Friends part of me thought of him fondly and wondered what he was up to. So I called him.

MISTAKE!!!

He immediately asked me out. "Want to go out this Friday?" Busy (legitimately). "Saturday?" Also busy (legitimately). "Sunday?" No, I'm sooo busy (not quite as legitimately). "Monday?" Nooooo!

So annoyed that my gesture of kindness and good will was immediately translated into an overture of Date Me, and that he began giving me the full court press to set a date.

I never called him again. Dork.