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Dear Manly Geek Men,
If you've attended a sci-fi, gaming or comic book convention lately, you've probably noticed a startling trend: girls who claim to be GEEKS! For some unknown reason, these girls pretend to like geeky things to get attention from geeky men. Why do they do this? Is it because they want a smart man to father their children? Is it because they're sick of getting dumped by jerks and heard that geeky men never get laid and thus would definitely stick with the first girl to pay attention to them? Is it an evil continuation of when the pretty girls in high school pretended to like you just to mess with you? One thing is sure, they definitely aren't there because they actually like Doctor Who, Halo or X-Men and just want to have fun and maybe meet like-minded people for friendship and possibly even romance. No, that would never happen.
Most of you are probably smart enough to avoid these transparently fake geek girls, but maybe some woman in your family is pretending to be a geek, or maybe you let your guard down and fell for a girl, momentarily convinced that she might actually be a real nerd because she actually owned some comic books and had a favorite Star Trek captain. Now the holidays are around the corner and you've got to appease her with gifts! Obviously you can't buy her any of the gifts you'd buy for your real geek friends, because she's a girl, but luckily the fake geek girl trend is so common that there are actually companies out there catering to them.
- You can buy them clothes. Not only do some companies actually offer geeky shirts in girl-cuts, but they even make things like TARDIS printed dresses and tights and leggings and knee-high socks and jewelry and such. Yes men, try not to be jealous that you are just limited to t-shirts and maybe hoodies while girls can wear all kinds of things branded with the properties they're pretending to like. Hint: Any fake Whovian worth her salt would love a pair of TARDIS earrings in her stocking.
- Girls like dolls, and while yesterday's girls had to put up with boring Barbie, today there's Monster High and other surprisingly geeky dolls. While a girl is pretending to be a geek, she might also pretend to like toys, because she's heard that's a thing that geeks do.
- But you don't want to make the mistake of giving her BOY toys, oh no! Luckily for you, NERF made a line of girls-only guns called "Rebelle" which have lots of pink accents and feminine names like "Pink Crush Blaster" and "Diva Dart Bag" because you must remind girls at every turn that they are delicate little ladies who need to be pretty, pretty princesses even when shooting people. Try not to be offended when she distresses it and paints it black and brass to be part of her steampunk FEM!Deadpool cosplay.
- Speaking of cosplay, the worst fake geek girls are the ones who spend HOURS and HOURS slaving over a perfectly accurate and super awesome costume of a character from a comic book they couldn't possibly know anything about just to get attention from geek men. If the fake geek girl in your life hasn't already started down that path but you're really hoping she'll make a sexy Harlequin counterpart to your Joker costume at the next comic con, you can encourage her with geeky crafting books. Either start small with simple nerdy crochet and sewn dolls, or go for broke with books on drafting your own patterns, historical garb, machine sewing, prop manufacturing... No wait, maybe you should handle the props yourself, you don't want the little lady getting her hands on your tools, or worse, thinking she deserves her own toolbox.
- Some girls are under the mistaken impression that they actually are geeks, because they actually do like some geeky properties, but if you dig deeply enough you will probably find that the novels and comics they claim to like are actually created by the dreaded Fake Girl Authors (thanks to Real Male Author Jim C Hines for pointing out this very serious problem). Note that Fake Girl Authors are women who pretend to be authors, and not men pretending to be women to write books that girls will read so those girls will pretend to be geeks to go to conventions to meet the authors they like who they think are women but are actually men. Whoa, that just got Inception-level confusing. Anyway, if the silly deluded women in your life have a particular female author they like, maybe you could get them a signed copy of a book.
- Some girls are also under the mistaken impression that they actually are geeks because they like to watch a show that has a handsome man in it. It's already been pointed out that young women will stop watching Dr. Who now that hunky young Matt Smith has been replaced by some older guy. It's no fun daydreaming about traveling through space and time if you aren't doing it with a hotty. So if you can stand being reminded that she thinks someone else is hotter than you, get her a poster of her favorite sexy sci-fi hunk. Too bad she stopped watching Game of Thrones with you when there was no more topless Khal Drogo to ogle.
Yes, if there's one good thing you can say about Fake Geek Girls it's that unlike normal women, they're so easy to shop for because you can just buy them girly versions of the things you like. And if she gets upset that you gave her a Wolverine t-shirt for the holidays, it's obviously proof that she's not really a geek and definitely not proof that she's mad that you didn't pay attention when she said that she liked Avengers better than X-Men.
Disclaimer: In case you didn't catch the sarcastic tone of this article, AJ Reardon is a real geek girl, or has been deluded into thinking she was since she started reading ElfQuest at age 11, although we guess Wendy Pini counts as a Fake Girl Author, but AJ also swears she loved late-90s X-Men too and read all the Song of Ice and Fire long before HBO optioned Game of Thrones. Collector Times is also edited by a real geek woman. If you strip the sarcasm out of this post, the suggestions still work pretty well for real geek girls and women, though seriously, what is up with those pink NERF guns?
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