Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
“Tell me thy company, and I’ll tell thee what thou art.” – Miguel de Cervantes
It’s a cold December evening and I’m sitting around this gorgeous, vintage weathered farm table with five of the most beautiful women I know. Snow is gently falling outside. The tiny restaurant’s kitchen’s fire warms up the entire room. I’m a little buzzed from my pre-dinner cocktail. And I am happy. Stupidly. Blissfully. Electrically. I am with my women.
As I sit there, I think: Seven months ago, four of them weren’t in my life. One of them was still in an unhappy marriage and living in California. I’ve just ordered a perfect bottle of Malbec so we can all toast. And what are we toasting to? Our breakups. Our terrible, painful, heart-wrenching breakups. Because somehow, they brought us together. Somehow, we all managed to make March through June of this year our “end long-term loves” period. The following July through December has been the “falling in love with new women” period.
My high school days were entirely devoid of female friendships. It’s a fact that I was always tremendously defensive of, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the rarity of that connection. It wasn’t that there weren’t women around. It was that they weren’t “my” women. The people who saw me. And whom I saw on a soul level. When I went to college, I met the loves of my life. I remember having few boyfriends because I spent so much time trying to plan adventures with Katie and Mollie and Nyssa. They were my original squad. My original sisters. My original soul mates.
As I’ve gotten older and life has taken me from one state to another, I have borne witness to the chapters of these women’s lives. Through marriages. Children. Job changes. Masters Degrees. Terrible breakups. And affairs. Yet our 20s are a funny thing, because they are often the time of our first major distractions. Those first psuedo-marriages with live-in partners. And all the compromises we humans make to make those situations work. Specifically, the compromises women make to make those situations work.
And I don’t resent it. It’s part of humanness. Part of growing up. Part of being. I know that. But I see things like this talk between Lily and Jane and I think: how many times over the decades did they get distracted, only to find the love they most needed in the partnership they have with each other? I would guess it’s in the double, if not triple digits.
So I’m back at that table. Malbec in hand. Toasting to these women. I love, love, love giving a good toast. I love telling people I love them when I do, because it’s a gift so rare. I love sharing words. And tears. And laughter. They are my new set of soul mates. My 30s soul mates. My next chapter soul mates. And even though you never know what is going to last or for how long, it feels like the most perfect little pocket of time. One that I’ll revisit when the first in the group gets married or remarried. One that I’ll remember when that restaurant passes by my rear view mirror. One that I’ll hold onto with precious care and recall in drunken moments of nostalgia.
The women in my life saved me this year. But these women, specifically, saved me. For whatever the future may hold, it is the women in our lives whom we can come back to and be our true selves. A gift so rare, so precious, that we had to give it a proper title. We had to label it with the soul.
To my sisters and soul mates, you are a blessing. Cheers to you.
I have two stupid, irrational fears.
Most people reserve the part of their brain where illogical terror resides for spiders and snakes. I had to go and get creative in that quadrant.
One could argue that the obesity fear isn’t entirely illogical. With my whole “let’s tell the world my most embarrassing secret” thing - it’s really not that big of a surprise. But have you ever seen a news story about a 20-something year old woman who was carrying around an extra 20 pounds suddenly waking up with an extra 1,000? Yeah, illogical.
The other is easier to forgive, because you can’t control your dreams. I blame Facebook. These exes and pseudo-exes show up on my damn newsfeed all the time and I can’t work up the guts to de-friend. I was only recently let free like a butterfly on a spring afternoon by one particularly destructive ex when he up and quit the site altogether.
It’s really the pseudo-ex-boyfriends that torture me though. What’s a pseudo-ex-boyfriend, you ask? Here’s a definition:
1. A boy who you go “out” with. They’re not dates, but it’s just you two single people, doing things couples do. And then he insists on paying.
2. A boy who texts you for advice. Career, family, furniture, otherwise. Never asks about, mentions or indicates he would need advice about women.
3. A boy who you have relations with. No, these are not one night stands. No, they are clearly not “Friends with Benefits” scenarios. Relations is up to your definition.
4. A boy who gets obscenely and zealously angered when another man actually asks you on a proper date.
5. A boy whose friends are so used to you being the only girl around said boy that they start to refer to you as his girlfriend by accident.
See also: Episode 130 of Seinfeld - The Calzone
Origin: Usually College
One can see why this would be a torturous scenario. You meet a guy. He asks you to “hang out” and then tries to kiss you. Then he asks you to “hang out” again. This time with his friends. Then he asks you to “hang out” a third time. With his parents?!
And when you finally just say, “what the hell are we?” he looks at you like a bewildered deer right before he runs back into the woods.
These dudes regularly visit me in my sleep. Sometimes they’re pleasant and I wake up and I think, “oh, that was nice.” Other times it’s destructive and horrible like Godzilla just took hold of my self-esteem and toppled it like a poorly constructed Lincoln Log set. I wake up sweating and confused and in need of Prozac.
A few weeks ago these two fears converged in a nightmare that can only be described as my brain taking a vacation at Lucifer’s summer home. In the dream, one of my pseudo-ex-boyfriends had opened a pizza shop in my home town. It should be noted that the fellow doesn’t actually make pizza for a living either. But, in this particular version of my personal hell, he operated a hockey-themed pizza place. I became a regular patron of said establishment, visiting several times a day and gorging myself on his spicy pepperoni slices. The more I visited, the more obese I became. The more obese I became, the more attention he paid me.
When I finally stopped eating, I bundled up and watched him play hockey from a bench. I couldn’t skate, because my legs had become too fat to properly glide without causing me to topple over on the ice.
And that’s when I woke up.
My first thought? That *might* have hurt more than our original fallout. At least other pseudo-ex-boyfriends have the respect to leave my weight alone while taunting me in my sleep.
Tolkien once said:
I have to give Tolkien credit for tapping into my deepest issues so precisely. Whether it’s the dreams I’ve conceived for my career or the dreams I can’t control in slumber - they’re powerful because they are an amplified version of my life.
Dreams take our old realities and bring them back to the surface and reach into our future and show us possibility. Both force you to look at things differently and perhaps even admit that you have some things to let go.
In the meantime, I need to develop a normal fear or two. Like a bad credit score and semi-trucks. I mean, how could those two ever meet up in a dream?
My favorite thing to do with my boyfriend is go to a movie and then discuss it at an outdoor coffee shop. This summer seems to be presenting plenty of opportunities for us to do this thanks to a wide range of wonderful films for geeky couples like us. Here’s a month by month breakdown of my picks for this summer.
In June, you should see Midnight in Paris.
This movie is romantic, whimsical, historical and hilarious. Do you love Hemingway? Dali? Do you know who Zelda Fitzgerald is? This movie is definitely for you.
For July, is there really any other pick than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2?
The anticipation is building and I would be a terrible nerd if I didn’t make this my July pick. In fact, this movie will definitely be worthy of a midnight showing. Any coffee shops open at 3 AM in MPLS?
August is my birthday month, so I always have high expectations for our date nights in this final summer month. Hopefully, One Day will live up to those expecations.
Adapted from the novel by David Nicholls, this pseudo-love story follows Dex and Emma on the same day of their lives for 20 years. It’s an unconventional story-telling method and somehow manages to fill you in on all the details of their lives each year on July 15th. Strange they didn’t pick July 15th for the release date. It would have been so meta. Either way, I’m looking forward to seeing how this narrative plays out with a British Anne Hathaway.
But if you’re not into love stories, then skip One Day and go to Planet of the Apes instead. It’s sure to please your BF and Tom Felton makes an appearance!
Psychologists at the University of Tennessee studied 165 newly-married couples, most in their twenties, for four years. They found that both husbands and wives were more satisfied throughout the marriage if the wife’s BMI was lower than the husband’s.
Web surfing isn’t really a team activity. With the exception of occasionally forwarded links, I saw our search histories the way I saw my yoga class or Rob’s guitar – independent hobbies rather than couple activities. There have been occasions when we’ve lost hours in silent side-by-side clicking, interrupted only with, “Babe, can you pass the power cord?” (No, we don’t have kids.)
But maybe Internet surfing really could be a couple activity? Maybe if I spent a week dedicating myself to the Internet as Rob saw it, I would have some sort of marital revelation, the way those women do who force their husbands to go to rustic couples retreats or engage in partnered scrapbooking. This experiment would be like that, but I would never have to get off the couch.
