A few days back I was talking to a friend of mine. He sounded all aghast and distraught. Though knowing better to mind my own business, curiosity got better of my judgment, and I asked him about the source of his despair. And his answer was the very obvious one- Trouble of the broken heart. Not surprised but acting surprised, I asked him the cause of this tragedy.
Apparently, his girlfriend thought that this techie dude was more in relationship with his smart phone and his macbook than her and dumped him last night. Being a entrepreneur running a promising startup developing biometric response systems, he obviously had his hands full and definitely didn’t need more life-based complications. However, being human, he had a heart, which was crushed mercilessly last night. And, now he found a better use for his computer – to listen to sentimental sad songs by Air Supply and Lobo. Looking at his sad plight but more dreading at the prospect of listening to more of Air Supply and Lobo, I decided that this world needed a check point for girls to decide whether they have it in them to date techie entrepreneurs. If not, they should let those miserable lost souls live in their own world developing great ideas and products and changing the world.
So here it is – a List of pointers you need to keep in mind before you fall/select your next techie entrepreneur beau ........
- 1. Most techie entrepreneurs would be bootstrapping for the first couple of years. Their ventures would be unprofitable and most probably, the guy would be a cash strapped. So, don’t expect him to buy you a diamond necklace for your birthday or take you out on lavish dinners at the best addresses in town very soon. Rather, get used to microwave food and second hand birthday gifts bought obviously on auction from ebay.
- 2. You shouldn’t be offended, if eventually you both schedule to get married, and he forgets to show up because he just had an eureka moment in his “world changing/path breaking” technology idea.
- 3. You need to be terrific at attention grabbing because your boyfriend’s attention is definitely more focused to his high end smart phone where he is twitting, updating his facebook status and at the same time videoconferencing with his investors. Also, you need to empathize if all this happens during a date.
- 4. 90% of startups fail. This means, there is 9 out of 10 chance that your boyfriend might fail. So be prepared that your techie boy friend might fail in building the next facebook.com. So, don’t expect him to be the next Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs or Bill Gates. If lucky, he would be able to buy a house and car with the cash flow from his venture.
- 5. Moreover, always remember that success could be a doubled edged sword for you. If your beau makes it big, then there will bullock carts of attention. Suddenly, hot models will find your geeky, bony, freckled face boyfriend very attractive and sexy. There might be a possibility that these geeky boyfriends would want to upgrade to the latest “models”.
- 6. Nonetheless, never forget that your boyfriend is a human though he behaves like a zombie. He also has feelings and need to be loved and felt wanted (mostly only when their smartphone batteries are down). So you also gotta be patient, understanding and caring, and in return they might once in a while switch off their smart phones and give you attention.
If you are a single girl looking for love and live in the Silicon Valley or anywhere close to geeky zones like the backyard of MIT or RDU area, my suggestion or strict advice to you is, to take a printout of the above mentioned pointers and stick it on your mirror at home. You want to ensure that you read this every morning before you take the step into geekyland.