13 January,2009 07:05 AM IST | | Balaji Narasimhan
What did the assembly language programmer tell his girlfriend after their first date? When I heard the answer I laughed out aloud because I was an assembly language programmer once. I could tell you, but if you are not an assembly language programmer, then you won't get the joke anyway.
But most geeks just don't know how to flirt with anybody they are a bit like Trappist monks when it comes to fraternising with the other sex. In order to remedy this, a new flirting course is being offered to IT engineers at Potsdam University south of Berlin. The 440 students enrolled in the master's degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection, says Reuters.
Will the course help? Probably. While we don't want the world to be filled with lecherous geeks, some skills that they will learn may be useful when it comes to interacting with people. As a part of this course, students will also learn body language, public-speaking, stress management and presentation skills.
This is critical because most geeks are good only when it comes to interacting with their computers. They lack people skills and while some may mistake this for shyness, it is not really so. Geeks are just not comfortable with people who don't understand technology. In fact, dating a geek is so difficult that there is actually a book out there called "A Girl's Guide to Dating a Geek" by Omi M Inouye.
But, all said and done, can geeks be really taught a lot of soft skills? Doubtful. Take too much of the geekiness out of a geek and you are left with a normal human. Boring!
Oh, by the way, apropos of the question at the beginning the assembly language programmer asked his girlfriend, "That might have been very good for you, but what did it do for me?"
If you didn't laugh, then you are not a geek.
Is your boyfriend a geek?
Take a ! and check the boxes below.
>>He has no leather shoes and only wears jeans
>>He cancels dates saying "Sorry, honey, got to upgrade."
>>You are jealous of his computer
>>You gift him perfume and he asks where the USB slot is
>>He considers jewellery useless unless said jewellery has a USB slot
>>He cuts his hair only once a year
>>He thinks Stallman is greater than Elvis
>>He has actually met Bjarne Stroustrup
>>If you want to break the relationship he says "I will 9 you." (Especially if he is into UNIX.)
If you checked all the boxes above, chances are high that you are indeed dating a geek. Congratulations and best of luck!
