I wouldn’t go smacking myself upside the head, if I were you. Maybe he wasn’t really sure what to say and needed the little nudge with the 2nd e-mail. And…what if there had been a problem with the e-mail?
In any case…wooohooooooo!!!
Also, it sounds like he has an actual vocabulary… Hope you have fun!
GT
Woo-hoo! Numfar, do the dance of joy!
Shiney!
Ahhh… young geek love…
Yay!
Yay yay yay!
Remember – you have to name the first kid Cecil/Cecile.
Yay!
Wait, you gotta work in a Firefly reference, too. Cecil Jayne? Kaylee Cecilia? Hm.
Incidentally, I just saw the first firefly of summer while taking the garbage out three seconds ago.
Anyway, very shiny, Tracy! Good job, Dopers!
Again, don’t overthink it. Again, this is a guy who offered to drive you (pretty much a perfect stranger at that point) home, 45 minutes out of his way. I’d say there is exactly zero danger of putting him off by responding sooner rather than later.
Geeks are all about enthusiasm. This is a guy who is so enthusiastic about a TV show that ran for one season (a fantastic one, but still) that he paid high dollar for a ticket to see the subsequent movie and even dressed up like a character from the show. Most people don’t have that level of enthusiasm about anything, and if they do, they certainly don’t show it. As such, I’m sure he wouldn’t be turned off if you were a little enthusiastic about getting together for coffee/ etc. He’s probably already gotten a taste of it from your two-emails…and my guess is that he absolutely loves it.
Remember, he’s probably on some message board right now saying, “Wow, this cute redhead just asked me, dyed-in-the-wool geek guy, out for coffee…what am I missing here?”
Keep us updated.
If a cute geek girl invited me for coffee and I wanted to impress her, that’s what I’d write.
I’m way too wrapped up in this saga.
Write him, immediately. Don’t wait around and play games.
'Course. The issue isn’t whether Tracy would do that, but whether an insecure geek male can convince himself that this is so. The one time I ever got the “My friend wants to know if you’ll go out with her” line as a teenager, it never occurred to me to take it seriously. Maybe had it happened slightly more than once I’d have had the self-confidence to believe anyone would ever say this and mean it. But in my defence, the messenger was giggling at the time.
Now I’ll just join in the general woo-hooing and wish I had been that geek. I have been the geek who would go miles out of his way to drive a girl home, but not the one who got a coffee date as a result. Naturally this colours my opinions somewhat. /snivel
aw, crap. yay about the date but 
on the mini-spoiler. :U
Do geeks like contrived nonchalance? I’d like to get a response ASAP, but then I’m not a geek.
He’s interested, you’re interested, why wait?
Also, let me join the “you are very attractive” crowd. The dude got lucky, IMHO.
Good Luck!
The geek girl is also not immune to this phenomenon. She then goes home and writes about it.
At least, that’s what I hear happens.
I really wouldn’t worry about coming across psycho, Tracy: I’d worry about your geekboy being completely clueless unless you jump his bones. If he does all the right flirty things, excellent; but if he doesn’t don’t assume that it’s because he’s not into you. It may well be because he’s got no idea how to do them, or that he’s so worried about being sleazy that he doesn’t want to offend you. Geekboys can be insane that way, or so I hear.
Daniel
My thoughts exactly - he’s trying to appear cool and clever while accepting the invitation. If he wasn’t interested, the line about the busy week would be at the end, as a reason why he can’t do coffee. If his interest was lukewarm, or if he didn’t get the clue, a “sure” would have sufficed.
I would guess his busy week has been comprised of consulting all his friends as to the proper reply window to accept the invite and not appear to be a psycho. So, you’ve already got another thing in common.
Good luck, Tracy!
Let’s just hope that this Jayne kisses on the mouth.
He’s a geek.
He’s a guy.
You’re a girl.
You’re gorgeous.
Don’t be silly!
Hitting him with a club, and tearing off his clothes would qualify as a “less than subtle expression of interest”. Short of that, you are fairly much in the clear as far as seeming to be too overtly interested in him.
Be friendly; be enthusiastic about getting together. Be patient. He is not, in any way likely to find the attention of an attractive young woman who shares his interests to be unwelcome. He might be anywhere from diffident, to terrified when it comes to demonstrating to you that he is interested. But that is just standard deviation geek malfunction. He is interested, I promise you.
“Don’t you want somebody to love?” ~ Grace Slick ~
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. 
I’ll be in my bunk.
While I’m cracking up at the sort of “Hunting Geek Guys In the Wild!” posts that have been popping up here, I do feel the need to defend the Future Mr. Lord (Or At Least Saturday Date) against charges of perhaps over-geekiness. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)
He did mention three tidbits that paint a picture of a more complex, and dare-I-say-it hipper geek. The first: when he was a sophomore, he dated a vegan hippie chick who bought into the likes of the Indigo Child trend; the second: he played lead guitar in a band with a few off-campus gigs; the third: he placed second in a game of Strip Jeopardy at a local bar.
I’ve just gotten back from work, and I’m about to respond to his email and set up a date, but (possible) problem: I’m not very free until almost two weeks from now. Bad form to make a date that far in advance?
Two weeks is too long for coffee. I’d say make it happen in three days, or you’ll be forced to escalate to dinner just to preserve the anticipation. Two weeks is too long for a latte and banter.
What’s going on over there? His week is too hectic to email a cutie like you, and now you can’t stop by Starbucks for ten minutes anytime in the next two weeks? That’s crazy talk! Priorities, people…priorities.
Must be a geek thang. Otherwise, what he said. Y’all get your priorities straight! Two weeks is too long.