What Do Women Want?

Joe Quirk takes a look at the implications of evolutionary biology in the human mating ritual we call “spring break” in the article The Geek’s Guide To Getting Girls. He starts out wondering “what do women want?” I have to sigh a little every time I hear that one.

Women want everything. Just like men. There are some things we want that men don’t, just as there are a few things men want that women don’t. Still, we all want a long happy life, material possessions, someone to love and to enjoy our time with, connections with people whose interests we share, a sense of accomplishment, adventures, good health, admiration from our peers, sexual satisfaction, children who make us proud, and a little ice cream after dinner.

That’s pretty easy to figure out. But that has nothing to do with what men want to know. What they are really asking is, “What do women want from men?” We can all read between the lines when we read such articles. The Geek’s Guide To Getting Girls focuses on what college women on a vacation break in a remote location look for in selecting a sexual partner for a very short-term relationship. Which is pretty much what happens in the animal kingdom, when the females in their prime reproductive years select sexual partners from a number of males competing for their favor. In other words, how to get laid. And here’s a spoiler: the geek can get the girl on spring break.

PS: I sat down and wrote several pages on the difference between mating strategies for spring break vs. strategies for finding a long-term partner, then discarded it. If anyone is interested in the musings of a 51-year-old female geek who’s been married more times than she cares to count, I’d be surprised.

Editor’s note: Miss C’s post today made me thought of an old article we published in 2008. The Geek’s Ultimate Guide to Picking Up Girls takes a humorous (and not too serious) look at strategies male geeks can use to meet women who have similar interests.

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Battlefield Earth Writer Apologizes for “Suckiest Movie Ever”

After receiving (in person!) a Razzie for “Worst Movie of the Decade” for the notoriously awful science fiction film Battlefield Earth, writer J.D. Shapiro wrote this amusing editorial for the New York Post in which he apologized profusely for inflicting such suckiness on the world. They didn’t set out to make a train wreck, he says, though “comparing it to a train wreck isn’t really fair to train wrecks, because people actually want to watch those.” Of course, the ultimate culprit was whoever told him that Scientology center was a great place to pick up women.

Though Shapiro does paint himself to be a sympathetic character, since he blames the downturn of the movie on notes from John Travolta & co., which he refused to incorporate himself – after which he was fired. So why didn’t he take his name off of the film, you might ask? Money, obviously, which is a fair enough reason.

In case you were wondering, this brings the total number of Razzies awarded to Battlefield Earth over the years to nine. The other big winner this year was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, picking up Worst Picture of the Year, Worst Director, and Worst Screenplay.

As for Mr. Shapiro, I contend that any sins should be absolved due to the fact that he also wrote Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

Geeks do good: Twitter users raise $300k+ for charity

Next time someone tells you Twitter is good for nothing, tell them this: thanks to the site, enough money has been raised to build 13 schools for the world’s poorest children.

That’s all thanks to Twestival, a global event held yesterday in 175 cities around the world. Local organizers held parties in venues “hired” without charge, with the aim being to donate all ticket money (plus raffle, auction receipts, and extra donations) to a chosen charity. They then promoted the events primarily through Twitter, though non-users were welcome to attend: a total of 6,740 people took part in the global events.

Last year’s event raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for a water charity, enough to build 55 wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India. This year’s edition aimed to raise money for Concern, which aims to tackle the root causes of extreme poverty, most notably by helping provide for health and education needs.

At the time I wrote this, the total revenues had hit $310,976.29. There are many ways this could be spent, but the best way to picture that total’s effect is this: it’s enough to build THIRTEEN schools, each with a fully-furnished classroom for 30 children, then train a teacher for each class, build a well to give the pupils clean drinking water, AND give each child a meal during the day for a year.

And that’s pretty good going for 140 characters.