Enrolling in "cybersecurity bootcamps" to meet women?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A dating guru recently recommended that we should meet women in settings where we are in our “element”. Like a talented musician should meet women in music-oriented events/programs/lessons. I’ve been involved in sportsball off/on for the last few years. This particular sportsball scene in my city involves all male teams, all female teams, and co-ed teams. Even if you’re are on a non co-ed team, there’s plenty of opportunities to be around the opposite sex like training programs and mixers. If you are homosexual you’re in better luck, they have those same sex teams. Regardless if youre hetero, homo, or bi there’s opportunities. Despite me being quite active the first year and there were a decent number of single women, I did not thrive socially in the way I expected.

If that dating guru is right, things are adding up. I have a lot of fun playing sports but I’m not that good at them. Perhaps the reason why I didn’t thrive was because I wasn’t a star player. I did not expect this outside of high school, but as they say “high school never ends”.

I thrive better in technology than athletics. I’m no leet hacker or anything, nor do I work in IT. However, I’m confident that I’m more technologically literate than the average person. Hell, me having a decent grasp on technology is how I’m able to score so many free hotel rooms and minimize my gambling losses at casinos. I know the basics of cybersecurity and computer networking, maybe even some intermediate stuff. I can hold my own in conversations with my IT friends, depending on the topic. I was accepted into a coding program in my city five-ish years ago, but didn’t follow through.

In other words, I don’t think it would be a bad idea if I got involved in something tech related to meet women. I put “cybersecurity bootcamp” in parentheses because while I would love to enroll in one it might not be the most appropriate thing to get involved in right now. Cybersecurity is kind of a “computer science 401” kind of thing. I need to advance in my networking and programming skills or else I would just be a lame “script kiddie”.

Yes, I would like to break into the IT field. But I’m not confident I could find a job overnight. But if I could meet women and learn additional skills for personal development, I would be satisfied. And meeting women who are tech-minded would solve so many problems for me. Like getting them to understand how I work the casino system. So far the only people who understand are STEM-y people, everyone else considers me an ordinary gambler. And getting non tech-minded women to use things like end-to-encryption or just practicing good OPSEC is like pulling teeth.

What’s the best way to go about this? Which type of programs, courses, and events attract the most ladies? Your experiences?

Midwest Degenerate Gambler
-Meeting women at DEFCON would be the ultimate dating zero day exploit!

2

Wouldn’t cybersecurity bootcamps generally be predominantly male? Unless you only need to meet one woman, in which case it might not really matter which gender is the majority.

3

I heard that more women are going into cybersecurity, and tech in general.

4

I posted about my daughter’s engineering school head giving the welcome address at Parents’ Weekend and

a) celebrating that they had reached 20% women in the entering class

b) proceeding in the rest of his address to refer to the intrepid aspiring engineers with exclusively male pronouns and nouns. e.g. “encourage your sons” “let him make choices” etc.

I whispered to my kid “You’ve come a long way, baby, but we’ve got a long way still to go.” She completely missed the Virginia Slims reference and just gave me a stinking look. Dad of the Year all sewn up.

5

Yeah. What I know of cybersecurity is 90+% male and not at all social. The weirder the better.

For a specific / cynical desire to meet women “in their element where they’ll feel safe”', you’d do one hell of a lot better to take up knitting and hang out at yarn stores. Midwest women love that stuff. Really.

6

If you’re a creep, women will know you’re a creep, no matter where you are.

(I am not necessarily calling the OP a creep)

7

Hmm, I’m employed in cybersecurity. My team is 1/6th female. The wider team on the project is probably closer to 1/3rd to 2/5ths female, but that’s just a guess. Some of the women on the wider team are quite technical, but there are others who are primarily management.

I’ve known many highly technical women, and trained a few on my particular field. From what I’ve experienced, I wouldn’t join a “cybersecurity bootcamp” to do anything but to get a starter education in the broader topic.

  1. I presume they’re spending their money to get an education, not mingle.
  2. Even if the ratios were in your favor, I have no idea how many of the potential women would actually be available.
  3. The ratios aren’t really in your favor.

If you’re dead set on trying to find a technical girlfriend, you might try a more social setting. I understand Makerspace is an environment that is technical/educational, but still more social/informal than a classroom.

8

Ca. 2010, my nieces signed up for a kids’ coding and programming workshop during the summer, for kids aged 10-12 (or thereabouts). 25-student limit - 23 boys, and my two nieces. None of them were old enough to appreciate any of this LOL.

9

How does One become a Dating Guru?

10

The same way one becomes a Life Coach - you say you are.

11

If that’s the case, I’m a Lumberjack, and an International Assassin (mid-week only).

12

And you’re ok.

13

My advice, and despite the comic overtones is more or less serious - to emulate the hero of this Weird Al song:

He wasn’t much to look at
He never was very bright
But at least there was one thing that he could do all right
That boy could dance

He was kind of a jerk
He was kind of a bore
But the women would scream when he walked in the door
'cause one thing I could tell you for sure
That boy could dance

This is something my wife pointed out to some of our single male friends - if you can dance well, and mind your manners (not too pushy) - then you’ll be drowning in dates. None of them took her advice, so I can’t say if it would work, but probably better than cruising a professional activity with disingenuous intentions.

14

Probably should not wear a T-shirt that refers to pen-testing. (I don’t think that little joke crosses any lines, but if so, mea culpa).

Seems that would require a gal who had a pretty ribald sense of humor to appreciate it.

No, pen-testing is fascinating in itself, and even basic tools might help you level up your linux game (always something to learn in linuces, I find, no matter how long you’ve been building systems or using them).

And will help your networking skills…it’s a grab bag of a bunch of techniques drawn from micro-disciplines in practical computer science (perhaps just plain computing).

That’s a nice point, really. I’m just a regular average hetero single dude (at the moment), but the disingenuousness seems more than a bit cringe.

I’m not sure if that really fits the OP…but with a little modification…e.g., focus on the work and studies, but be open to making friends/acquaintances (of either sex/gender, really…no doubt it’s creepy to just be “after” the gals…trust me, everyone in the room would notice immediately…very much a kryptonite kind of thing…you don’t want to be that guy, ever!).

15

Feels lounge lizard-y to me.

Yeah, don’t be him.

Learn to be a better, more interested man, where you normally go.

Women know the fakers, players, and degenerates. ( :grin: oh, sorry)

16

Independant Confirmation!

Alert @puzzlegal :grin:

17

Thanks. :wink:

18

[Paris Hilton] That’s hot. [/PH]

My husband is a tech wizard, I’m a Luddite (well, relatively speaking). We met at work. He runs a laboratory, I’m a secretary. So that worked out well, although I don’t know any more about that shit than I ever did.

19

I would recommend you not go to events like bootcamps to meet anyone. The people in the bootcamp are paying to gain an education in a short time. They probably don’t want to socialize and flirt. Sure, sometimes it happens, but that’s when it’s an organic part of being around other people. If it doesn’t go well, then the other person may have to decide whether to quit or stay in the class and have it be awkward. You should go to the bootcamp for the sole reason of getting the education that the bootcamp offers.

If you want to meet people, go to events which are more casual in nature, like informal meet-up events, exercise classes, book readings, volunteer events, etc. Those types of events are more relaxed and people will be more open to casual chats or making friends. And these types of events are often free and loosely scheduled. If the crowd at one activity isn’t to your liking, no big deal. You didn’t sign up to be there for 8 weeks. Just go to a different event next time and see how you mesh with people in that event. Some of these events are totally social in nature, like a gallery opening. People are mingling around, drinking, chatting about art, etc. That kind of environment is much more conducive to making a connection with someone than being in a bootcamp.

20

Just want you to know, you are easily in my Top 25 Mods! :grin: