Lately, there are a lot of people tossing the word “geek” around as the new cool label in town.  Personally, I don’t quite remember this to be the case when I was in high school.  I know that many geeks, including myself, wished that being flagged as a “geek” got them the attention of that cute boy or girl, or better yet, the homecoming king or queen title.  Nevertheless, geeks grew up being themselves.  They were devoted to their studies and passionate of all intellectual things, especially science and technology.  They hardly had any time to mingle in social activities that most other teenagers were able to attend or experience, such as homecoming, bonfires, and chaperoned house parties with the cool, popular kids.

Today, geeks can attribute their success through their smarts, hard work, and passion to solve problems.  It is true that geeks shall inherit the earth.  We have already seen a small glimpse of this happening.  The tech geekette Justine Ezarik, also famously known as iJustine, casually hangs out with Ashton Kutcher.  Hollywood celebs, LeVar Burton and Tony Hawk, gave a talk at the Twitter Conference in front of a live audience of tech geeks.  Chamillionaire, a talented rapper, is now a staple at tech events.  The tech community is slowly merging with the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and forming as one.

Is this a good sign for the Silicon Valley geeks and community?  Yes and no.  Hollywood, endearingly referred as Tinseltown, is one of the few superficial central hubs in the U.S. that survives solely on good looks, fame, and money. The glamour of Tinseltown attracts huge mass media, both nation and worldwide.  By combining efforts of tech and Hollywood, the geeks are finally being recognized and praised for their contribution and impact to society.

On the down side, the merge may cause the seemingly innocent and untainted geek world to experience a bit of the superficial Hollywood effect.  In L.A., a single, young, and attractive individual who can turn heads, sometimes can find love to be a bit difficult.  They are competing with other beautiful people that have better surgically enhanced traits.  They are being judged on their looks every day.  Gold diggers, both males and females, run abundant in Hollywood, while the powerful and wealthy men and women have the pick of the crop of the superficially enhanced.  As a result, it’s hard to know whether the person is genuine or not.

Silicon Valley has inherited some of the superficial Hollywood effect.  Sometimes, it feels as though the tech bubble is trapped in a rap video. Scantily-clad dressed women are hired to work at booths at tech conferences to promote new startups and products.  Some of these male geeks have tried creating a special application for the iPhone to locate “geek diggers.”  Instead of a time where smart women should be praised for their mind and not as sexual objects, this outlook is going to have the female geeks work ten times harder than they have already been doing to gain the respect in an industry that is predominantly all male.

Will these geeks be able to find love or be seduced by all the fun of the glitz and glamour that Tinseltown has trickled into Silicon Valley? According to the Wall Street Journal and other blogs, they believe that Silicon Valley is the new hot spot for young professionals to find love.  This comes as good news, but personally, I believe that finding love might be tougher than before.  It’s already hard for an attractive, single person to survive and find love in the superficial world, but to have a geek be sucked into this new found fame and power when they never experienced this kind of attention previously, it’s going to be a bit more brutal and overwhelming.

What does this mean to all of us?  It just means that the tech social scene has been reinvented.  Silicon Valley has been spooning Hollywood over the past few years.  If it were not for the birth of Facebook and Twitter, no one would believe that Silicon Valley and Hollywood have been and are currently forking each other.  Nevertheless, as geeks, we’re smart and able to adapt to situations and find solutions to problems.  Tim Ferriss, for example, outsourced his love life by hiring individuals to set up dates for him.  Developers are constantly creating dating websites and iPhone applications.  There are love coaches that specialize in helping geeks find love.  These methods may not work for all of us, but it’s in the right direction.  Yes, it’s going to be a tough journey, but I truly believe there’s hope in finding love in Silicon Valley and San Francisco.  Don’t you?

Tech networking events are fun and a great place to meet other like-minded individuals to discuss possible partnerships in a new startup and/or investment opportunities with potential investors.   However, there are many others who come there to meet new friends or even, eligible singles to date.  Nothing is wrong with looking at networking events as an outlet to meet quality singles.  As a matter fact, it should be a perfect place.  Smart and ambitious men and women are quite attractive.  Being smart is the *new* sexy.

What if two people (a business networker and a mingling single on the hunt) have different intentions at a networking event?  It can be somewhat disastrous.  Nevertheless, it’s not a lost cause.  Like any business conversations or deals, you always look for confidence, sincerity, and compatibility in the other individual.  You want to make sure you can work with this person. You want to know if you’re making a wise investment in their startup.  So why not do the same thing when you want to meet someone who you want to potentially date?

If you’re a mingling single on the hunt talking to a business networker at a tech event, you need to portray that same confidence, sincerity, and rapport to the other person as you would when pitching to an investor.  If you don’t, things can be a bit sour.

To illustrate, here’s a recent scenario that happened to yours truly, SV Bachelorette, a frequent business networker at tech events.

[*Please note that names have been changed to protect the identity of the individuals.]

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Tech Guy:  Hi, I’m Tech Guy*.  What’s your name?

Me:  I’m SV Bachelorette*.  It’s nice to meet you.

Tech Guy: [Without missing a beat]  Um…I would like to get to know you better.  Um…maybe over lunch, coffee, or dinner?

[A bit surprised with the forward question in such a short amount of time. I’m thinking to myself that he doesn’t even know what I do.  Regardless, I’m willing to go with the flow.]

Me:  Sure.

Tech Guy:  [*Silence*]

Me:  So what would you like to know more about?

[*Pause*  Noticing Tech Guy is gleaming with a huge smile and trying to put on an overdone cool stance. I needed clarification based on his body language and further questioned his intentions.  After all, this is a business networking event.]

Me:  Do you want to know more about me professionally?

Tech Guy:  Well, I can ask you professional questions, but I can also ask you questions that are not professional.

Me: Ok.

[*Silence*  I think I can hear the crickets chirping.]

Tech Guy: [mimicking a cool John Travolta demeanor and tone]  If you give me your number, I may or may not call you.

Me:  [a bit amused]  What? You may or may not call me?

Tech Guy:  [still mimicking the John Travolta stance] Yeah, I may or may not call you.

Me:  Ok.  Well then, do you have Twitter?

Tech Guy: Yeah.

Me:  I’ll make it easy for you, so you don’t have to decide whether you will or will not call me.  You can connect with me on Twitter.  My handle is SVBachelorette*.

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Tech Guy adds me on Twitter and Facebook within a few hours of meeting that night.  He never sent me a message.  It appears as though he wanted to get my contact info for the sake of getting it.  At least with Twitter and Facebook, he can be updated with what’s going on in my life without wondering whether he should or should not call me.

Tech geeks, please don’t let this be you.

[Personally, I would’ve deleted the message, but everyone has different judgment calls.]

Here’s a screenshot of the girl’s comments on his Facebook wall.  Well actually, just an excerpt of it.  Mind you, he never really wrote anything on her wall.  And yes, he just started dating this girl.

After this incident, it just went downhill.  Guys like the chase.  It becomes a turn-off when the girl gets too aggressive early on, especially if the guy is not considering the girl as a fling.

If you’re a girl, don’t make the same mistake as her.  Some things are meant to be said privately.  USE EMAIL!  Don’t try to mark your territory by leaving tons of messages or inappropriate comments on public walls.  Instead of winning the guy over, you are going to lose him.  The same thing goes with guys, too.  Possessive or jealous guys are not sexy.

What do you think of the situation?  Have you had a similar case of territorial marking?

I understand there has been a shift in technology and many men have found it appropriate to text or email a girl to ask her on a date.  I don’t like to accept dates over these forms of communication because I feel it’s impersonal and not chivalrous on the man’s part.  However, I’m not going to lie, I have accepted dates in the past that came in the form of a text.  Does that make me a hypocrite? No.  I never said, “Never.” Plus, how would it qualify me as someone who doesn’t like something when she hasn’t even tried it?  So there, I accepted dates via text and I, particularly, don’t like it.

Why?  Well, it’s already tough going through the dating game process of figuring out what you should do to respond to each other’s actions.  Such as, how many days does a guy need to wait to contact the girl? Or, how many days or hours does a girl need to wait to respond back to the guy?  Ridiculous games that we all play to elevate the other person’s interest.  We all hate it, but we still do it.  Texting adds to the complexity.  It creates more games and higher possibilities of misinterpretations.  Emails are even worse than texting.

My buddy Jon didn’t believe me about the difference between calling, texting, or emailing.  This was our conversation the other day.

Jon:  I really like this girl and I want to ask her out on Facebook.

Me:  What?

Jon:  I want to email her on Facebook and ask her out.

Me:  Have you met her in person before?

Jon: Yes.

Me: Do you have her number?

Jon: Yes.

Me: Then, why won’t you call her?

Jon: I work in tech and the internet is my life, so she should understand that.  It’s me.  It’s who I am.

Me:  I’m sure she respects what you do, but there’s something to be said about a guy calling a girl and asking her out verbally.

Jon:  Ok, I’ll let you know.

A day or two after our conversation, we met up for lunch and he recapped what happened.

Me: So what happened with you and that girl?  Did you call her?

Jon: No, I Facebook messaged her.

Me:  And…..?!

Jon: She said, “No.”

Me:  Oh, Jon.  I’m sorry to hear that.

Jon (shrugs):  It’s cool…

I feel bad for Jon because he’s a good guy and any girl would be lucky to get his attention.  But what was he thinking?!  I know it’s tough being a male.  Having to be the one going out on the limb to ask a girl out and possibly getting rejected each time is not easy.  However, the fear of rejection is not a good reason to not call a girl.  If she specified that she likes to text or email, then you should be attentive to that; otherwise, give her a call. You’ll probably get a better chance of her saying yes on the phone and a better gauge of how she feels about you.  I truly believe that the next best thing to seeing a person live is hearing his/her voice.

If you’re a guy, what’s causing you to call or not call?  Or, why do you call, text, or email a girl?

If you’re girl, do you like one form better than the other?  Why?