Well, now you’ve gone and done it. You’ve somehow switched on the gamma rays and provoked the Geek Girl. This normally adventure-loving, laid-back, and usually even-tempered being is suddenly morphing into a steaming, livid, infuriated ball of fire.
In simple terms, whatever you did, you pissed her off and that’s never a smart move.
Here are some of the top reasons why:
We Are Brilliant Wordsmiths With a Penchant for Memorizing One-Liners.
Yes, this does include some of the world’s best insults drawn from sources as varied as Shakespeare to Star Wars, you warthog-faced buffoon. We fangirls are so adept at crafting words, we can cut you to the quick without even resorting to Mamet-style profanity. What this means—and I’ll explain it in small words so you can understand it—is we can do it in public for everyone to hear, you miserable vomitous mass.
Ergo, if you decide to insult us in front of our family, friends, or anyone else, you will find yourself branded a “sanguine coward, bed-presser, huge hill of flesh, bull’s pizzle, stuck-up half-witted, scruffy-looking Nerf herder,” who’s “mother was a hamster, and father smelt of elderberries.”
Try and counter by using worn-out name-calling or dropping words like “bee-yatch” in the mix, then be prepared to be “weighed, measured, and found wanting,” because you are a sad, strange little man (or woman) and you have my pity.
We Don’t Need That Extra Excuse to Carry Out a Good Prank.
It’s not that we’re vengeful; we’re just more than willing to teach a little lesson to those in need of an attitude adjustment. Plus, I’ve always felt pranks are wasted on April 1, as everyone is pretty much expecting them. Of course, that has never stopped me from carrying them out each year. However, it is the prank of, for lack of a kinder word, revenge, that is the sweetest and most unexpected.
Like The Count of Monte Cristo, we are patient and our tormentors’ comeuppance will be slow, well thought-out, and ultimately very satisfying. It may be an embarrassing and very loud computer hack in the office or a well-placed novelty “voice device” whispering random eerie remarks from your air vent. Perhaps you’ll encounter a full-size Slenderman cutout lurking quietly in the garage, waiting to be noticed at just the right moment. Who knew you were such a huge Justin Beiber fan? Everyone in your office, now!
We are waiting and ready to pounce like a Ninja toilet snake, which by the way, might even be waiting for you, too. If you’ve recently been an absolute jerk to a geek girl, including making the ill-fated mistake of pranking us first, it might be smart to look before using the “facilities” or sliding your arm under your pillow at night.
Trust me when I tell you: Don’t let your guard down.
Don’t Assume Your Company Is Preferred Over That Of Fictional Characters.
Geek girls like me have been well aware for years how utterly disgusting it can be for a partner to lust over the airbrushed, gravity-defying, over-endowed feminine ideal no human can ever match without computer or plastic enhancements. Knowing this, we would also never hold up our spouses to those unreasonable levels.
Does this mean we’d pass up the occasional mental journey aboard the Black Pearl, a light-speed scoundrel-heavy trek across the galaxies in the Millennium Falcon, or a tumble through time and space in the TARDIS? No, it does not. If our real-life romantic interest decides a little sympathy for a hard day is not necessary or that there are more important things to do than occasionally listen to details of a traumatic stressed-filled situation, then there’s a magical place in our minds where leather-clad Time Lords (yes, that one!), intergalactic smugglers, and sarcastic pirates are more than willing to extend their arm and take us away for awhile.
This just isn’t a warning for significant others. It’s for all you “overly concerned” friends, who worry we are spending too much time reading comic books and not “real women’s novels” or that we would rather see Pacific Rim for the fifth time than that sappy new rom-com even once. It is these instances that we would prefer to hang out with our butt-kicking gal-pals lopping zombie heads with Michonne from The Walking Dead, climbing mountains and practicing archery with Princess Merida from Brave, or putting bad guys in their place through intelligence and martial arts with Melinda May in Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
So, next time our partner (romantic, business, or other) tries to over-explain why they should never be the one to perform a simple household or office chore, or our pals share a passive-aggressive sympathy for us actually opting to go on a family date night to The Lego Movie over a bland evening of “whine and wine” with them, you might notice us with a blank, faraway look in our eye. This is not the look of complacency with a situation. It’s our escape through the rift into our other world where we are forever welcome—an exciting one, where they know us well and treat us right.
Which brings me to my next brief reason…
We Know Photoshop and We’re Not Afraid to Use It.
Just because I would never think of being unfaithful to my spouse, ditching my friends, or inflicting physical harm on someone out of anger, doesn’t mean there isn’t a little alter ego of myself getting back at the offending parties in the wonderful world of digital manipulation. One nice holiday portrait can be cut and pasted into a pile of space debris, a disembodied head post-zombie massacre or even into a nice tasty snack for Jabberjaw.
Make us angry enough; we’ll even become the subject of our improvised art. If we can place a head on a stake in the midst of Mordor, then how hard is it to re-color some fanart and give The Doctor a more worthy companion?
I love my husband and my friends, but there’s no telling what that naughty little digital me would do when she’s angry…very angry.
We are Generally Easy-going, Happy and Fun-loving.
I think it can safely be said, judging by the first four reasons I’ve given, that geek girls are imaginative and playful. We use any situation to siphon the joy out of life and spread it to all those around us.
One might wonder exactly how this final reason is even a problem. Well, it’s simple: If you’ve made a geek girl angry, you must have really, incredibly, remarkably screwed up.
Seriously, what did you do?
We enjoy good-natured ribbing and fun, can let minor discrepancies slide (who hasn’t forgotten to take the trash out?), and can actually understand how you can, on rare occasions, spend more than three figures on a video game, as long as it’s a limited edition with a great Assassin’s Creed statue.
If you’ve dug deep enough in our inner-core to cause our ire to erupt, then you must have gone way, way too far. If you have messed with our family, destroyed our confidence, or emotionally or physically hurt us or anyone we love, then you have done the near impossible and made…us…MAD.
To that I say both “congratulations on your achievement” and “run,” because Dr. Banner has summed it up splendidly: “Don’t make me angry. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.”
