One battered old-faithful dictionary on my shelves, published circa 1975, defines a geek as “a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken. ” You may be deeply relieved to know that I’ve upgraded to a squeaky-new Canadian Oxford, although I can’t claim it’s a whole lot more flattering:

geek noun esp. N. Amer. informal 1. An uninteresting, ineffectual, socially inept person; a nerd. 2. A person thoroughly devoted to one usu. technical interest, study, etc., often at the expense of social interaction (computer geek).

Whatever.

Point is, the 1970s chicken-beheading freak is not at all what I have in mind here (try wikipedia, maybe) when I say that 80% of the most fabulous men I’ve ever known were geeks.

Other top contenders leaned towards the arts or construction trades, but that’s a shaggy-dog story for another place and time.

Geeks? You may well ask, O-mouthed with shock and doubt — geeks are sexy?

Absolutely.

Consider the facts.

To begin with, and on the most facile level, all those years of hunkering down with twelve-sided dice or closeted with computers, far from the damaging sun, means that adult geeks — those mercifully past the curse of teen acne — have the softest, most touchable skin any woman would envy. (If our own complexions are showing the effect of too much quality time at the beach, second-best is to be able to enjoy someone else’s baby-smooth skin, am I right? Tactile enjoyment. It goes a long way to explain why you can still find clothing made of velour.)

Secondly, as oodles of experts on women’s mating preferences will attest, intelligence is pretty darned sexy. And the defining characteristic of the geek is, of course, intelligence.

True, as my dictionary points out, the geeks among us are often behind-hand in developing the social savoire-faire of other types of men — but is that necessarily a bad thing? Many have evolved over time to compensate with a quick wit (sexy), attentive listening skills (very sexy), and a keen if transient interest in absolutely everything (also sexy) including what the woman he’s with is thinking (devastatingly sexy)!

To all their other fine attributes, add the fact that many high-functioning adult geeks have a significant potential for long-term rewarding employment. Let’s be practical: a steady income is not a bad attribute.

Fashion sense? — Ah, that’s nothing. That can be bought — or learned. Geeks love to learn new things and problem-solve, of course. It just all depends on what they consider the most urgent (or intriguing) topic to get their undivided attention at any given moment…

And if you’re lucky, sister, that undivided attention could be on you!

Fact is, geeks are fairly unlikely to have spent their teen years mingling with perky cheerleaders and sinful intent. As a result, the young geek reaches his maturity without an inflated BMOC ego — in fact, without too much at all in the way of annoying habits trained into him by Barbie and Tiffany girlfriends in his formative years.

Moving out into the working world, where his skills and qualities are more widely appreciated, the geek gains a quiet confidence. He begins to come into his own — yet retains a deep appreciation of his female companions that is seldom seen in other subgroups of the modern male.

Geeks don’t take women for granted: they pay attention.
And that, my friends, is the bottom line for any relationship.

I rest my case.

Rebuttal, anyone?
Comments?
David Krumholtz‘s private phone number?

Commitment. What an old-fashioned word!
I think we all can agree on the definition: a pledge, that’s what it’s supposed to be… a firm undertaking to do something or other.

So, at what point did “if I feel like it, maybe” get added on?

This bit of wondering comes on the heels of a phone call, just now, from the Occupational Therapist at a local nursing home. The person who had committed to visiting the old folks tonight, with her therapy dog, has decided to blow off the old folks and catch a movie with her new boyfriend instead.

Honestly, I’m absolutely floored by this.

Therapy dog visits are scheduled a year in advance, with a reminder email sent out the week before, so it’s not like it comes as a surprise.

And this person has only committed to one nursing-home visit a month. You’d think you could work a date in around that, wouldn’t you?

Especially on a Thursday.
For one hour.

And it’s not like the boyfriend is about to be shipped off overseas in the morning, either — he’s a civil servant, for pete’s sake, and last time I looked they did have weekends off.

Now, usually we travel in teams of three or four dogs and their handlers. In this case, it’s a small nursing home and only one dog is booked in to appear. So, when the scheduled visitor decided to bail at the last minute, she knew there were no other dogs booked in to go instead.

Meanwhile, the old folks always start gathering in their TV lounge a good hour before the appointed dog visit time, peering out the windows and bugging the attendants to dash out into the parking lot and take a look…

Some of the residents have Alzheimers, or other types of dementia, so the poor attendants tend to be asked the same questions every 38 seconds: “Are they here yet? Are the puppies coming?”

You can see why the Occupational Therapist who phoned me was, well, somewhere in that shaky queasy area where distressed meets royally pissed-off!

Want to try explaining to a room full of eager senior dog-lovers that they will have to miss their once-a-month dose of furry love? Watching Jeopardy is no substitute.

So, I’m about to wind up work early for the day, here, and gear up the therapeutic greyhound, and go step up.

It means the end of my hope to do a little late-day gardening, and a quick sandwich instead of the lovely roast chicken supper that I’d planned, and a hour’s round-trip to town that was not planned at all — but in joining the therapy dog program, I made a commitment.

I can do my gardening later; I can see a movie any time; but for those lonely seniors who are longing for the press of a happy wet doggie nose against their thin old hands, time is not unlimited. Each visit, familiar faces are missing from the circle. Each visit, a formerly sharp mind has lost its way in memories…

The commitment, really, is not to a time and place, but to these people.

No, I don’t resent being called to fill in. Because, all too soon, I’m likely to be one of them.

Instead of walking joyfully in the spring sunshine with my dogs, I’ll have my face pressed up to a nursing home window, watching hopefully for someone to bring a furry friend to visit.

But you’ll forgive me, won’t you, if I’m just mean-spirited enough to hope that someone chokes on her movie-theatre popcorn?