Jane2011 Posted October 7, 2012 Posted October 7, 2012 Almost two years ago, I was attracted to a guy who was an engineer. That was just from having brief conversation with him, though. His girlfriend joined us a few minutes after I started talking to him, and hence it was a no-go. I might have liked him and I might not have. I don't know. But generally speaking, I haven't been attracted to engineers. I've gone on a date with one and wasn't too into him. And I've just known a few others who seemed similarly not my type. I'm into education, artsy and/or humanities men.
stillafool Posted October 7, 2012 Posted October 7, 2012 I have a degree in computer science myself, so don't think I'm trying to throw an insult. The sad fact is that the female preference goes something like this: Drug dealer with 'swag'>>> musician who can hardly make rent >>>>> American psycho marketeer>>>>>>>> blue colar highschool dropout >>>>>>>>>>>> scientist Ironically, the overall benefit society gets from each of these stereotypes is the exact opposite. I see what you are saying, and it seems mens preferences are just as sad because most men prefer something like this: Drama queen who is hot......waitress who is hot........secretary who is hot.... girls who are hot no matter what they do.
florence of suburbia Posted October 7, 2012 Posted October 7, 2012 I think the way an engineer's mind has to work is sexy: visualizing an end product and then following through on the steps to create, whether it's writing code or building a structure.
Leigh 87 Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Almost two years ago, I was attracted to a guy who was an engineer. That was just from having brief conversation with him, though. His girlfriend joined us a few minutes after I started talking to him, and hence it was a no-go. I might have liked him and I might not have. I don't know. But generally speaking, I haven't been attracted to engineers. I've gone on a date with one and wasn't too into him. And I've just known a few others who seemed similarly not my type. I'm into education, artsy and/or humanities men. I feel the same; I am more into men who are on my wave length intellectually. I hate math, I cannot fathom doing it in depth for a living. Although I would not relate to their job, I am still always up for learning new things and listening to something different. I too prefer social workers or teachers to engineer's. Even scientists are more up my alley, as scients is at least facinating to me.
grkBoy Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Women are attracted to men who will give them a comfortable life. The engineer who is making great money will appear as someone who can make enough money for the nice suburban home and her having kids and being a SAHM. HOWEVER...being really fat, ugly, and having no social skills will hinder that.
jobaba Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 (edited) LOL @ this thread and the assumptions people make just because of the word 'engineer'. We don't use math and science everyday and sit there with our spectacles and slide rule. Computers do everything these days. Also, as others mentioned, there's different types of engineers. The terminal degree to be able to get a job in engineering is a bachelor's degree. So, just because a guy is an engineer doesn't mean that he sits around doing viscosity calculations all day and knows the modulus of 50 different metals. One of the engineers I worked with at my last job reminded me of one of the guys from Entourage. Total party guy. Engineer is just my day job, and I wish I had a more lucrative one. I'm more of a musician than an engineer. I'm way more artistic and liberal than many people who have humanities jobs. Edited October 8, 2012 by jobaba
InJest Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 I am a rich, ambitious, computer nerd, engineer, and I have no problem with women at all. Women like smart guys. The key is to be into other things too. Yes, I spend a lot of time coding algorithms for statistical analytics into computer applications, but I also spend time hiking, snowboarding, going to festivals, and pretty much any other activity that someone might suggest. Women want someone fun, and unless she's a mathematics professor, she probably won't be turned on hearing about what I did at work. 1
InJest Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Even scientists are more up my alley, as scients is at least facinating to me. Did you really just spell science, "scients"?? This is tragic.
123321 Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Are women attracted to ambitious engineer nerds? It works for me, but everyone is different. Engineering types are usually smart and analytically minded so that can be annoying to outsiders sometimes, often good to rein that in outside the office. Yes they do. Can't these successful engineers date other female engineers and computer nerds as well? It would seem they would have more in common with them. No, the brilliant female computer nerd is almost exclusively an invention of Hollywood. I've known 1000's of computer engineers and only a few handsful (snicker) were women, and most of them you wouldn't want to date. A lot of senior engineers break 100K, but to go much further above that is rare. .... I know Electrical and Computer Engineers and they do tend to have a typically nerdy male dominated environment. But that doesn't mean that all the guys who work there are typical nerds. The last decade or so I worked as a computer engineer and I was running $140K and up all that time, as a Sr. with architect or principles making more. Look at Glassdoor for wage samples. Seems like all of the engineers I know are pretty cool guys, most are into sports as well, some are very handsome. I can't think of a single engineer I know that could be classified as nerdy, but I suppose computer engineering would have some nerdy types more than anything. In the computer biz there are a few, and in the field of materials research I knew one, but they still had (mostly) normal lives outside the office. Mostly we know how to let the nerd free in the office and pen it up when we leave by the time we're employable.
amaysngrace Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 No, the brilliant female computer nerd is almost exclusively an invention of Hollywood. I've known 1000's of computer engineers and only a few handsful (snicker) were women, and most of them you wouldn't want to date. Not my niece. You probably wouldn't even know she was smart when you first meet her. She's kind of flaky. She's rocking it in her male-dominated field. In her fifth year of a five year program with a GPA of 3.87. She's a former gymnast too. When she was hanging at the frat house a few years back, one of the boys told her to go make him a sandwich. She told him "I'm stronger than you and I'm smarter than you so go make your own sandwich". I'm so proud of that girl. Plus she's very artistic. She painted the design on the water tower in the township she lived in. My son is in his third year for forensic accounting. His plan is to finish and be HER personal accountant because she's going to be so rich. I love that. 1
123321 Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Not my niece. You probably wouldn't even know she was smart when you first meet her. She's kind of flaky. She's rocking it in her male-dominated field. In her fifth year of a five year program with a GPA of 3.87. All my best to your niece but she's not rocking in a male dominated field if she's still in school. I have, as I said, known a few and maybe she is one but the things that make people excel in school are not the same as the things that make them rock in the real world. Time will tell and all my best to her.
Els Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 No, the brilliant female computer nerd is almost exclusively an invention of Hollywood. I've known 1000's of computer engineers and only a few handsful (snicker) were women, and most of them you wouldn't want to date. And why not? In what aspects are they any worse than the men? It annoys me to hell and back when people make such jokes or offhand comments about women in male-dominated professions. Yes, the women who are successful in very technical, cerebral fields are quite unlikely to also look like models or act like delicate flowers... but the men are equally as unlikely to look like male models or act like suave Don Juans. Surely one is not any better or worse than the other. Fortunately there are successful men who can look past that and enjoy relationships with equally cerebral women. There used to be a couple in my stochastic analysis & programming class, and another in the network engineering class. Very cute.
InJest Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Not my niece. You probably wouldn't even know she was smart when you first meet her. She's kind of flaky. She's rocking it in her male-dominated field. In her fifth year of a five year program with a GPA of 3.87. She's a former gymnast too. When she was hanging at the frat house a few years back, one of the boys told her to go make him a sandwich. She told him "I'm stronger than you and I'm smarter than you so go make your own sandwich". I'm so proud of that girl. Plus she's very artistic. She painted the design on the water tower in the township she lived in. My son is in his third year for forensic accounting. His plan is to finish and be HER personal accountant because she's going to be so rich. I love that. Amaysngrace, he said a handful. It sounds like your niece is in that handful. I've met women in my field, and have worked for two. All were very bright, and just as capable as most men I've worked with. They are still very few and far between. Also, school doesn't mean **** when its comes to computer engineering. I hired two candidates, one with a bachelors and one with no formal education beyond high school, over candidates with masters degrees. My GPA when I dropped out of my computer engineering program was about 1.8 or something. I'm now a senior engineer at a global software company, at 26.
jobaba Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 The last decade or so I worked as a computer engineer and I was running $140K and up all that time, as a Sr. with architect or principles making more. Look at Glassdoor for wage samples. You're lucky. Glassdoor has salaries for Senior Engineers at Siemens at about around 80-90K. My friend had been working as a EECS for 15 years at Alcatel-Lucent and degrees from UC Berkeley and doesn't break 6 figures.
123321 Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 And why not? In what aspects are they any worse than the men? Primarily by their conspicuous absence, secondarily by their incompetence. As I said, a very few were very good but it's rare, computer science requires traits (math excellence, etc) that seem to be hardwired into male brains more dominantly than in female brains. In other fields such as medicine this doesn't seem to be the case at all, indeed I've known many brilliant female surgeons
Els Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Also, in case anyone wanted to nitpick on my 'successful' comment (that I can't edit), I did not mean that the guys in class were 'successful'. It was a completely unrelated example. I agree that when it comes to software eng, your qualifications matter a lot less than what you can do in practice and what you have already done. Also, as for salaries, my guess would be that people are more often paid what they dare to ask for, rather than what they actually 'deserve'. But surely salaries are not terribly relevant to dating... or are they? 2
Els Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Primarily by their conspicuous absence, secondarily by their incompetence. As I said, a very few were very good but it's rare, computer science requires traits (math excellence, etc) that seem to be hardwired into male brains more dominantly than in female brains. The latter is disputable; studies have theorized that the discrepancy is more the product of upbringing and socialization than biological 'hardwiring'. Indeed, the vast majority of the first programmers were women, back when the field was not so strongly stigmatized as a 'social pariah' thing. Hopefully, with the renewed popularity of 'geek/nerd culture', some balance will be brought back into things. That aside, their 'incompetence' in their field is the major reason you would not date most of them? Really?
123321 Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 That aside, their 'incompetence' in their field is the major reason you would not date most of them? Really? No, they often lead an unhealthy lifestyle. Most females in software R&D end up in non-technical roles like management or less technical roles like testing or support, and often excel at that, however the very few that were in an actual R&D role were almost all incompetent, along with the bottom 40% or so of the guys. In this business the top 10% will actually do most of the really important work, so it's pretty unforgiving of someone who's "a little less capable" unlike a lot of roles available.
Els Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 I don't know exactly what field you are talking about or where you used to work, and even if I did I probably would not have had the opportunity to work there, so I certainly cannot hope to dispute your statements on the status quo of your workplace. My current focus is on your claim of the women in the comp-eng department being inherently less dateable (in your opinion) than the men. Do you feel the majority of men in comp-eng lead more healthy lifestyles than the women in it? 1
123321 Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Do you feel the majority of men in comp-eng lead more healthy lifestyles than the women in it? No, I feel that a successful career matters more to the women the men date than to the men the women date. I don't really care how big a womans career is when I'm dating her, if she's into it that's cool, if not, OK too. As long as she's interesting to be with and at least somewhat attractive. Women in my experience qualify men much differently than men qualify women.
amaysngrace Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Also, school doesn't mean **** when its comes to computer engineering. I hired two candidates, one with a bachelors and one with no formal education beyond high school, over candidates with masters degrees. My GPA when I dropped out of my computer engineering program was about 1.8 or something. I'm now a senior engineer at a global software company, at 26. Her program is great. They do two trimesters school, one trimester work. She's done hardware and software but prefers software. Her last job was at Lockheed and her boss was trying to get her to put off school to help him finish a project he was working on. She'll have opportunity from the day she graduates. You may even meet her one day.
Els Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 How does that go along with your statement that the majority of engineers you know are very well-rounded and balanced people? Speaking purely from my own experience (which mostly involves academia and research in compsci, in a very healthy country), the majority of men and women aren't really unhealthy (mostly of a healthy weight), they're just less focused on appearance. They always dress very simply (some would say sloppily), don't pay too much attention to social stuff, etc. Equal proportions of men and women are single... but the funny thing is that the men who are single perpetually make offensive statements and jokes about their female counterparts, while happily ignoring the fact that they themselves are exactly the same. And they wonder why no women like them! It gets me facepalming, every time...
amaysngrace Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 Oh and when her app is available, I'll be sure to let you fellows know, along with every other thing she creates.
123321 Posted October 8, 2012 Posted October 8, 2012 How does that go along with your statement that the majority of engineers you know are very well-rounded and balanced people? The 7 or so women in an R&D role that I've known were not attractive for various reasons, I'm not a good judge of the attractiveness of guys but I *AM* a great judge of how attractive their dates are. They do fine. As for well rounded, they tend to be less fit than many other professions paying on par but they have a lot of interesting (to me) outside hobbies and activities. In my experience men who earn more seem to have more time and resources for things like the gym than the average Walmart shopper anyway.
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