The Computer Nerd's Survival Guide: Surviving a First Date
- The OSI Reference Model as Related to First Dates
- The OSI Model
- Putting It All Together
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The general public doesn't see computer jobs as interesting positions, and so the people who fill those jobs are often assumed to be just as uninteresting. People don't understand that coding is sometimes like pulling fast, bug-free, and exceedingly memory-efficient rabbits out of thin air. Or that being a sysadmin is like being a mechanic for cars no bigger than a breadbox, yet composed of billions of microscopic combustion chambers. Or that doing tech support is like... well, I can't come up with a glorious euphemism for tech support, but surely somebody out there kinda likes doing it.
For this reason and many others, "normal" people generally just don't get computer nerds, and, frankly, computer nerds don't always understand "normal" people too well, either. When you find yourself fully comprehending the inner workings of an optimizing compiler, yet totally unable to maintain polite conversation with your hairdresser, you have a problem. (And if you can't remember the last time you even went to a hairdresser, you have another problem.) In this article, we'll translate one particularly tricky social situation into language that your average socially inept computer techie can relate to. There are endless "simple" guides regarding things like dating and breaking up and social behavior (Google search for relationship stages and you'll see what I mean), but they're always written to appeal to the general public. This one is just for coders and like-minded computer nerds.
Oh, and please don't take offense at the expression computer nerd. Just look at it as a term for someone whose interest in computers goes well beyond professional need.
NOTE
Thanks to Ben deGonzague for the original development of this topic.
The OSI Reference Model as Related to First Dates
Perhaps the ultimate in uncomfortable social moments, the first date is a thrilling yet horrifying moment for most. In this article, we'll use the OSI model in a way its founders surely never envisioned; taking its seven layers and applying them to seven aspects of a successful first date.
Of course, we're talking about actual, real-life first dates here, not that time you spent three hours running through the Temple of Light with that hot elven ranger you met on the Tallon Zek server. (Surely that was a thrilling yet horrifying moment for you if your level was low at the time, but we're here to talk about the real world... where elves make cookies, not arrows.) Of course, finding a person to invite on a first date is a tricky proposition all to itself, but we'll leave that as a class exercise.