You’ve ever made each other jewellery out of electronic components.
You think the song ‘Critical Hit On My Heart’ is rather sweet…in fact, you’ve been known to dance around the room to it together.
You have matching tattoos in a) binary, b) hex, c) any programming language, d) Klingon, e) Elvish.
You both got booted out of an RPG because your characters couldn’t keep their hands off each other.
You’re on honeymoon in Paris, the most romantic city in the world. Entwined in each others arms, you gaze transfixed at the subway map.
You knitted your SO a Klein-bottle hat when the weather got cold.
As a sweet romantic Valentine’s Day gesture you install Linux for your love.
The guests at your wedding wore Medieval and Renaissance costume…
…although you didn’t actually specify it on the invitations.
You developed a conlang together so you could email at work without anyone knowing what you were saying.
Someone asks how to get in contact with your SO. Without thinking you rattle off four phone numbers, three instant-messenger IDs, two email addresses…
…and then realise you don’t know their actual street address.
Typos are your biggest sexual turnoff.
You have been known to use the wonders of Photoshop to turn your SO into various characters from Star Wars…
…specifically Princess Leia…
…although your SO is not female.
You’ve burned your SO a CD of MP3s, because Mix CDs are so 1990s.
You’ve had dates that were entirely online. Complete with hand holding during the movie.
You spend far, far too much time drooling over computers in stores together.
There are actual concessions made for time spent apart to play games.
You’ve used The Sims as foreplay.
You often have conversations that go “I love you!” “I love you more!” “I love you times infinity!” “I love you times Aleph3” “I love you times Aleph4!” “Is there an Aleph4?”
You call your love “forbidden” because he uses Linux and you use a Mac.
You have a running joke about your secret superhero identities.
Your wedding reception involved lightsabers…and/or actual sabers.
You coach each other on your respective fanfictions and unique works, but know well enough not to edit each others’ writing. Your only attempts at collaborative writing ended up in screaming fits and thrown crockery, though; and you respect each other enough to not do that again.
His reaction to your saying “yes” to his proposal of marriage was “O frabjous day, callooh, callay!” … and you melted.
You take turns responding to “I love you” with “I know.”
If at any point during your wedding vows any one of the members of the wedding party shouts “SIG!!”. Bonus points if it’s ether the bride or groom.
Pac-Man Fever is “Your Song”.
Your first “big fight” was about one of you thinking the other stole their kill in Ultima On-Line.
You propose in Elizabethan English or Klingon.
He proposed to you by buying a leatherbound edition of the Deadlands main rulebook and taping the ring inside…And wrapped it in Batman wrapping paper…At a RPG convention…And you were more excited about the book than the ring.
You are pregnant with your first child. Preliminary indications suggest that the child will be a boy. Your spouse and yourself are at odds over whether to have the lad circumcised, so you seek advice from a message board that you both frequent. The ensuing debate rapidly degenerates into a 20-page psychodrama resulting in bitter recriminations, mod resignations and half of the board leaving, never to return. The baby turns out to be a girl.
Despite being adults, you go to see The Incredibles together, but that’s not the geeky bit (The geeky bit is that you spend the entire homeward journey discussing what a great RPG it would make and how you’d set up the characters…and then each of you entirely separately and without coordinating it in any way explains this scheme to a mutual friend while making those excited little hand motions.)
One of you had to move 90 miles closer because 2400 baud was just too slow.
It makes you question the viability of your marriage when you find your spouse actually enjoyed watching The Two Towers.
You’ve received a UPS as a gift and been excited about it.
You jumped up and down and hugged each other when the cable modem arrived.
You have “in” jokes about video cards.
You can’t find your small screwdriver kit, so you get one out of your wife’s briefcase.
This list has given you some ideas for little things you can do for your SO to show how much you love them.
You’re currently reading this list with your SO and checking off the things you’ve actually done together…
…although you’re not at the same computer as your SO…
…despite the fact that you’re in the same room of your house.
(Stolen from another board, because it was so funny!)
You build your wife a new computer so you can both play World of Warcraft, then you get jealous of it because yours is a year old already.
Your cats have arguments, each using one of you as a proxy voice.
You say something to your wife, but she doesn’t notice because she’s reading a book. A few minutes later, she registers that you said something and asks you what it was, but by then you’ve forgotten and gone back to your own book. The thought is lost in the ether. One of the cats looks smugly on, but fails to reveal its secret knowledge.
You have to work out some kind of compromise on whether to watch Buffy or Star Trek: TNG on DVD.
You both panic when the broadband service is interrupted, even if only for a few minutes.
My niece wears a cape, with an Evenstar around her neck. She is studying video game design in college. Yup, she’s a geek.
She brought her boyfriend (her first – how sweet!) to Thanksgiving dinner this year. Over dinner, they were talking about new computer hardware. I mentioned that I had just installed a one terabyte RAID array at my office. The two of them stopped in their tracks, stared at me, and in unison went “Ohhhhhh…”.
The other day, we were attending to some of the usual household tasks while having a heated discussion about a new D&D game that we’re both joining.
My husband paused in what he was doing, looked deep into my eyes, and said, “Podkayne, dear, I love you . . .”
Now, usually when he says this, it’s followed by a “but,” for example, " . . . but please stop leaving your shoes in the middle of the hallway," or “. . . but this celery and tofu casserole frankly sucks ass.”
But this time he said, “. . . and I love the fact that you’re a gamer so we can talk about D&D together.”
Awwwwww . . .
A “Sense Motive” check showed that his words were sincere. This was followed by a successful “Grapple” attempt, and then . . . well, let’s just say we both rolled well for the rest of the session.
Two computers in the same room…check.
Actually, it’s three. We put on together for the four-year old. They’re all networked together and hooked up to the cable modem through the router. Broadband all around, baby!
Note, though. Lady Chance and my machines are identical. We used to upgrade at different times but then one or the other of us had a better system and it…well…it’s just not a recipe for marital bliss.
Gotten her a router for Valentine’s Day…check
Though, actually, I think the PalmPilot was more appreciated.
Ultima Online dual playing…oh yeah.
But not since the kids arrived.
Used the ‘Star Wars Processional’ (the awards ceremony music at the end of Episode IV) for the wedding recessional…check
Half the audience laughed and half looked confused.
Our honeymoon will be in Buenos Aires, not Paris, but otherwise this is us. I emailed him last month from my parents’ house saying “I wish you were here, we’ve just spent the past twenty minutes staring at a world map and arguing over where exactly the Arctic Ocean begins”. And he was really, genuinely sorry he wasn’t there to take part
in 1973 I started writing notes to a girl in one of my classes in High school. I wrote them in the Angerthas Moria runes. She wrote back using the same alphabet! That was the future Mrs. Mercotan.
For part of her current weekend-long birthday celebration, Mrs. Mercotan and I enjoyed the “Roman Emperor” fantasy suite experience at a local resort . Then we went to the Haggerty Museum’s “The Invented Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien Drawings and Original Manuscripts from the Marquette University Collection”!
We reveled in appreciating JRRT’s original drawings, emendations to pages in the rough drafts of both “The Hobbit”, “LOTR”, and even “Mr. Bliss”.
Then we dined at a family-run italian restaurant we’d first been to nearly 20 years ago, shopped for a variety of ginger beers, marmite, norwegian brown goat cream cheese, and indian spices at local grocery stores, and hung out at a bookstore, sipping cappucino (her) and espresso (me) while perusing the SF section.
Tonight it’ll be further delight at another italian restaurant known for Osso Buco, then out to the hot tub (the low tonight is supposed to be -10 F) while stargazing and discussing the Huygens findings on Titan.
B
