Posts tagged with mating.
The mating habits of nerds
Many of the lasting relationships that you form throughout your life will have their genesis in your university years, including your lifelong bond with free food, your love-hate relationship with PowerPoint, and your perennial distrust of the marking of essay-style questions. (Are you really getting all the points you deserve? Really? Do you trust that TA?)
Many of the not-so-lasting relationships will begin - and end - here, too. Some are friendships that expire for various reasons (surely every nerd has shared in the experience of ditching someone upon realizing they were just using you for your notes), while others are of a more personal nature. These short-lived flings are best summarized by a t-shirt the staff of our campus science rag put out many years ago - "Just Because I Slept With You Last Night Doesn't Mean You Can Be My Lab Partner Today".
From a behavioural ecology perspective, the university campus is a microcosm of all nature's mating behaviours. There are the whooping cranes who mate for life. There are the bonobos, whose males and females engage in every type of sexual activity under the sun as often as possible (it is worth noting here that the bonobo society is considered to be one of the most peaceful ones in the animal kingdom). And then there are the hydras who, if they mate at all, take the asexual route and bud ("Uh dude, you've got something on your face." "It's cool, man, I'm just budding.")
On a more serious note, I should also point out that the campus environment is not without its share of bottlenose dolphins, animals who are not above using coercion to force sex upon an unwilling partner*. Sorry to ruin your rosy view of dolphins, but they're actually jerks. Don't feel so bad next time you accidentally eat non-dolphin-safe tuna.
Whether you pair up for a night, a semester, a degree, or the rest of your natural lifespan, university affords untold opportunities for finding a like-minded mate. So where does a nerd go to find their soulmate? That special someone who will never forget to set the PVR for Battlestar Galactica; the person who'll never roll their eyes when the sight of an improbably explosive car in a movie sets you off on a tirade about gasoline's vapour:air flammable range; the person who would never be so foolish as to mistake a satellite for a shooting star?
Statistically speaking, you're most likely to find the Judy to your Gilbert Lowell through your circle of friends. (You're also likely to find your Booger here too, but truly no life is complete without a Booger.)
However, one must not overlook the importance of the lab as a place to make a love connection. Bonding over the Bunsen burner, pairing up over the Petri dish, mating over the microscope - it's remarkably common in the sciences. Sometimes it starts with a little flirtation at the lab meetings, sometimes with an accidental gentle brush of latex-gloved hand against latex-gloved hand at the bench, and sometimes with the deep gaze into each other's eyes as one person rinses some lab shrapnel from the other's cornea at the eye wash station. Next thing you know you're making out on a pile of lab coats in the tissue culture room and covering up your disheveled post-romantic interlude hairdo with a flimsy excuse about a particularly vigorous pass at the vortexer.
Regardless of how they start and progress, lab romances typically go the proverbial distance and end up in cohabitation and/or marriage, probably because breaking up with someone and having to serve out the remainder of one's educational career in their company is a frightening thought, particularly if they harbour a grudge and have access to your experiments. Nobody wants to come in one morning to find that their ex has shaved "TAKE ME BACK JUDY" into the fur of their mice.
Nerds tend to be of two minds when it comes to dipping their wire loop in the company culture medium - some are in favour of scientist:scientist hookups, while others prefer to date outside the pack. I've always been of the latter camp, not out of any dislike for my geeky brethren, but rather because I'm a devoted follower of the arts and like to live vicariously through my partner. Let's take this to the comments section - give me some feedback and let me know if you're one of those science nerds who wants formulae whispered in their ear for pillow talk, or whether you prefer your mates to stare blankly in response to your speeding particle physicist joke.**
*Simon Fraser University has an excellent website with information on preventing sexual assault on campus, complete with tips for both men and women. Check it out at http://www.sfu.ca/security/Personal/Guide_Page3.htm - there's some good info there.
**The speeding physicist joke, which was mentioned in passing in Entry the First and was requested by a few readers is as follows: Heisenberg was driving down the Autobahn whereupon he was pulled over by a policeman. The policeman asked, "Do you know just how fast you were going back there? Heisenberg replied, "No, but I know exactly where I am."
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JENNIFER GARDY 
