Contrasting Scotti’s point, a geeky girl does not get excited in order to show off. She does not geek out in order to be objectified or pandered to. She geeks out because that is her way. She fangirls over Neko Case, Ewan McGregor, or Neil deGrasse Tyson because it is in her nature.

A close friend of mine in college said, “Anything worth doing is worth obsessing over!” She is currently a reigning national pie champion in the blueberry Comstock category, as well as one of the top software engineers for a national non-profit. Her husband is totally supportive of her passions and is an outstanding sous chef.

A geek girl’s passion is entirely internally driven. It’s not about her making an effort to be quirky, it’s about expressing herself and her obsessive drives. You either have to appreciate that or get out of the way.

5) Her obsessions are often extremely time-consuming

Have you ever dated a cosplayer? Do you have any idea how much time they spend sewing? That constant time commitment is not just limited to cosplaying, either.

Geeky women are busy. Any woman with a passion that even borders on geekdom finds herself with little downtime. She doesn’t know how to be bored, but she also won’t always be around to do your laundry or cook your dinners. She may bounce around bat caves in Belize for post-doc research or draw comics about Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace for fun. Or she may have geeky interests, which include rewatching the entire Star Trek original series quarterly. These are priorities to her and you must allow her time for these things.

6) Conventional femininity is not the enemy of geekdom

Scotti doesn’t seem to think that geeky girls wear makeup. Of course, he also supposedly praises geeky girls, stating that they’ll likely get prettier in the future. That they’re only a couple of years (or a really great boyfriend like you!) away from their swan moments, when they grow up, learn how to contour, and finally get Lasik surgery.

Please don’t make me name all of the super hot geek celebrity women out there. And in spite of heteronormative, corporate-defined, patriarchy-driven standards, confident geeky what hookup app black girls use in atlanta ga girls tend to make up to their own standards. Some of us don’t like make-up or primping. Some of us do. Whatever space we occupy on the spectrum of conventional attractiveness (and how do you even measure that?), geeky girls have a strong tendency to decide what they like most about themselves and flaunt it, not for sexual purposes but because it makes them happy.

7) Geeky girls have standards, possibly standards you don’t meet

Have you ever perused the Pinterest boards of a really geeky girl? You might find multiple boards devoted to Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, or David Tennant. Heterosexual men have their pin-ups, but geek guy-cons are often lauded not only for their looks but for their brains and hearts, as well.

Geek guy-con obsessions aside, geek girls are realistic, and many geek girls have partners who fart regularly and willfully watch The Expendables and aren’t Benedict Cumberbatch. Our standards are high, but they are not unattainable.

That doesn’t mean you should stop showering or, for crying out loud, expect that a gift card for the mall is a great gift. The opposite is true if you seek to catch a geeky girl, who probably knits or codes or reads circles around you. Any person who seeks to have a partner, either temporarily or long-term, should probably actively pursue self-improvement and self-care as much as possible, as well as creative ways to show affection.