Tag: geekstalksexy

Geeks talk sexy part4: The dynamics of relationships

Chris and Simon

Ed and Alice live together and will soon marry. She decides she’d like more sexual experiences before settling down with the man she loves, so she convinces Ed they should “see other people” (as in, sex with strangers), even as they continue to live together and plan the wedding. They discuss it. Each knows someone who thinks this idea is cool; each has a friend who thinks they’re nuts. Things start reasonably well, but soon their relationship goes awry. Can the genie get back in the bottle and Ed and Alice return to companionship – or does seeing other people put an end to how Alice and Ed used to be?

Geeks talk sexy part 4, kicked off with a edited version of the film, seeing other people. This time it was a slightly lower key affair with a total of about 12 people showing up to find out what the dynamics of relationships meant.

The dynamics of relationships started without the wonderful Samantha Bail (Sam has a university course she needed to spend far more time on, shes ignored it for too long really). We (me and Simon, who has helped out with geeks talk sexy from near the start) weren’t sure if she was the reason for the large turn outs earlier but it was a quieter more intimate event this time, which actually worked out nicely.

Right from the start we asked some very challenging questions about previous relationships and there thoughts about monogamy. We always planned to discuss in the first half about relationships including hacking them. Then in the second half about non-monogamy.

So in the first half, we de-constructed what it means to be in a relationship… At one point we started to project manage a relationship using planner (which is like Microsoft project). Assigning time information to tasks, we were able to see if Agile methodology could be applied to relationships? The idea seems to work quite well but applying the time information was challenging to say the least. For example, there was a question: At what stage do you change your facebook status to say your in a relationship? And do you say in a relationship with person x? On top of that, we explored hacks people use in relationships. Someone suggested sending flowers to the other person, and this was followed up with a discussion of applying this to a cron. Now thats hacking a relationship…!

Up to that point we talked about relationships in a monogamous way. Now we were asking people to think out side the box. In the break we played the 4thought with Clair Lewis.

Clair Lewis from Manchester has two partners, Phoebe and Gordon, and cannot understand why anyone would have a problem with her loving two people at once

After the break and a cocktail later, we were deep in discussion about  the map of non-monogamy. There was plenty to be said… too.

Before long we were on to the special guests (Chris & Simon) who explained how they went from a everyday married couple to become poly. A very interesting tale of love, trust, commitment, compromise and  understanding. Simon said it right when he explained you can love more that one person… You love your parents, your sister/brother, your children, your partner. A relationship isn’t just sex, love takes many different forms.

People later added there own experiences to the mix and before you knew it, we were all questioning our own thoughts about monogamy and would we be able to manage having a non-monogamous long term relationship, and if so which type? I certainly think the Unicorn Polyamory would be high on a lot of men’s lists, but as Louise said… Its called that because its not reality…

Lots to discuss and simply not enough time to discuss it in… It was over the road to Common to continue the conversations till the late hours of Saturday night… The event was a great success, its just a shame we had so few people this time around.

Another great Geeks talk sexy… and maybe the end of our regular scheduled sessions this season. However there’s at least one more, this time a flirt & walk workshop with Nicole from Flirtology and the art of the pickup with our budding pickup artists Simon & Andy. Places are very limited, but expect a grand end to season one…

Continue reading “Geeks talk sexy part4: The dynamics of relationships“

Retweet error or something more sinister?

Retweet error
Dave mee from Madlab Manchester tried to retweet a message about geeks talks sexy the other day but couldn’t because his iphone4 wouldn’t let him. No idea why, does anyone else know?

The picture was from the official iPhone twitter app – ironically (as Dave puts it), the only two accounts who have thrown this error up have been myself and Loz Kaye’s. Two people pushing for open platforms and transparency… Both accounts are listed as unretweetable?

Geeks talk sexy part 4: The dynamics of relationships

Geeks talk sexy 4

Photo credit – virginsuicides

Its that time again… Yes geeks talk sexy time… Sign up here.

In this Geeks talk sexy, we will de-construct what it means to be in a relationship. In a frank, geeky and enlightening way, we will explore the notion of relationships between one person and another. And ask the eternal question – Why should relationships be any different from a complex piece of code?

  • How do you decide your in a relationship?
  • At what date do you pose questions?
  • How do you deal with the differences?
  • What kind of life hacks do you apply to relationships?
  • Can you apply agile methodology to relationships?

Then when you think we’ve gone too deep, we’ll be thinking way outside the box by exploring what its like to have a relationship not based on the concept of monogamy.

This is certainly not for the faint hearted but there’s no doubt its going to be another eye opening geeks talk sexy. Next stop agile relationships…

Its going to be a good one, and look out for part 5 as its not long after. (keep May 7th free if possible) You can also follow the twitter account for geekstalksexy or the subscribe to the official geekstalksexy tumblr blog.

LGBT now get there time to shine

Geeks Talks Sexy part 3

After the success of Geeks talk sexy part 2, its now the time for the geeks talk sexy flash light to cast a light on the subject of being Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transsexual in geek culture in 2011. We’ll be looking at the attitudes of there fellow geeks and how the infighting causes even more confusion. We’ll also be asking the same question we asked of our straight people, how do you meet people / how have you met people?

Its promises to be another great night, so don’t miss it. Friday March 18th from 7pm…

The Different Types of People There Are on the Internet

Social Media Cafe

Yesterday afternoon I was waiting for my date and she was running really late. But to be honest she did text me to say she was running very late although I was already at the location we said we would meet. It didn’t matter because I was laughing my ass off (yep ROFL) reading my kindle while sipping some very nice teas (guess where I was).

The thing I was reading was my personal Read it later list…was The Different Types of People There Are on the Internet.

I did tweet it from my kindle but Amazon in there wisdom doesn’t support self publishing very well, so you got some quotes but not much else.

This one had me in stiches…

People Who Are Social Media Evangelists

With their dogmatic approach and cries of ‘Social media, therefore world peace’, the self-proclaimed evangelist is deft at confusing causation and correlation to squash a complicated world into their Twitter-tinted narrative.

Where religious fervor was harnessed to defend the church from barbarians, the social media expert rabidly protects their beliefs, as they plunge their faith into herd mentality safe in the knowledge that they are part of a greater good that will heal the world and keep them safe.

Despite claiming to espouse groupthink and the importance of social diversity, the social media evangelist will only speak to other like-minded scholars of the internet.

Pragmatism and empiricism are tools of the crusty old world order. The social media expert is a master of narrativisation and the extrapolation of the anecdotal or rare event into a universal law.

Like 1984’s Big Brother, the social media lover is a deft switcher of allegiances in the interest of the common good of social media. Writers and thinkers will be held up as messiahs before being cast off as pariahs for doing so much as questioning the accepted truths of social media.

Detractors are swatted aside with a derisory allegation that they ‘just don’t get it’, as the social media expert truly believes that reading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody elevates them to an ivory tower of intellectualism that is unscalable by any other human being, regardless of their superior qualifications or proven track record.

There is an irony in almost all the pillars of truth accepted by the social media evangelist. Yet like the Stoics before them, they hold steadfast, as there is nothing you can subject evangelists to that will cause them to question their unwavering faith.

Most importantly, the social media evangelist will spray empty aphorisms and appropriated language from economics and social sciences all over their feeds and blog posts in an attempt to intellectualise the fact that they just like pratting about on Twitter and Facebook all day.

via James Seddon

The reason why this had me in hysterics was because we all know people like this. Heck I’ve been known to say "… just don’t get it" quite a few times from my ivory tower of intellectualism (*smile*). If your slightly offended by this description, theres this version which is pretty much the same but more subtle.

Its also worth mentioning this is all a internet take (remix) of what was written on the stranger. I’ve been researching the stranger for #geekstalksexy part 3, after my exwife suggested I go check it out.

I am a ethical serial dater?

Dating for Domokuns

I heard the term a while ago while watching a channel4 documentary and someone was talking about it in a cafe once. but forgot about it till recently after seeing another documentary about a similar topic.

From Urban Dictionary, a serial dater

One who engages in the process of systematically dating an obscene amount people in short span of time. This definition encompasses but is not limited to internet dating, bar dating, long distance flirtations, phone service dating, blind dating, expiration dating, match making, one night stands, friends with benefits, and personal ad surfing. Can be considered a politically correct alternative to word "player" both with and without a negative connotation.

Examples

  1. You do not want to date my roommate, that guy is such a serial dater.
  2. Good luck getting anything meaningful out of her, she’s too much into serial dating.

People I know have committed that I go on a lot of dates, but they only know the half of it. I tend to keep that side quiet because it would be very unfair for me to blog, tweet, etc about someone else. Specially those who turned out to be… well… best say… interesting dates. Maybe I should start a secret blog and write about my experiences on dates many other have.

I reject the notion that I’m a player because I’m not, I just enjoy meeting new people and well I love meeting woman. In actual fact I have 2 dates this week *smile*

What more can I say… I’m a ethical serial dater?

Talking of which, we’re currently planing the complete series of Geeks talk Sexy after our most successful episode yet. Following the success of Tara Hunt, we’ve been thinking about having more guests join us. It looks like we may have roped in some great guests including a couple of pickup artists. More news soon…

What is it with White chicks and Gang signs?

Me and Sarah use to laugh our asses off at this video. Why because of the hilarity of the fact most white woman I know, when faced with a camera will pull some crazy pose and throw some kind of gesture with there hands. Why? Why oh why? Now to be fair not everyone does this but most do. Its like some kind of meme which has spread deeply in the consciousness of the woman of our little planet. To see the effects you need to breaks out a camera and ask to say cheese, bizarre!

The weird thing is, not many men know what I mean when I mention it. So for those men, here’s exactly what I mean.

I can’t work out if its a cultural thing either because I’ve known non-westernised woman to also throw a few signs when having themselves shot. What makes things even worst/sad is I’ve seen quite a few dating profiles pictures on Okcupid and many others (there’s plenty on plenty of fish, bad pun ignore me). One of the girls I’ve been out on a date with had all types of signs all over her profile pictures. I so wanted to ask her, so what the heck is with all the gang signs? Do you think its funny or something? Of course I never did, mainly because we had one date and never saw each other again (lucky escape I feel).

Of course this will be in my folder for geeks talk sexy part 2: The other half of population. Its very easy to imagine all men are weird (some more that others of course) but in actual fact woman are equally as weird. We’re a perfect fit for each other maybe? 🙂

If you want to see more of this type of thing and want to have your own say, sign up on the geeks talk sexy eventbrite page.

The bechdel movie test

Scott Pilgrim vs The world (2010)

Zoe Margolis sent me a link to her review of the new Tron Legacy on Screen Jabber. Although I was thankful for her review because Cristiano and Melinda had also seen it and said some pretty bad things about it, I saw a link to the Bechdel Test.

It’s also annoying that all the female characters in the film are wearing high-heels, as if all women in the digital future are – or should be – obsessed by looking as sexy as possible, rather than wearing something more practical and fitting for the dystopian environment. TRON: Legacy certainly doesn’t pass the Bechdel test.

So I had a look at the Bechdel Test, and found the rules.

  1. It has to have at least two women in it
  2. Who talk to each other
  3. About something besides a man

Wow this has got to go in future Geeks talk sexy conversations! I had no idea such a thing existed but boy oh boy are they interesting. Inception barely passes the test with a dubious mark.

Marina writes

Yeah, I think I’d go beyond "dubious" and say it fails–both because Marion Cotillard’s "character" is actually part of a male character’s subconscious and because the (<10-second) conversation she has with Ellen Page’s character is at least subtextually about the male character.

However Scott Pilgrim vs the World also bearly passes with a dubious mark too.

Danny writes:

I’d call it dubious. Knives and Tamara talk about how much Knives hates Ramona, and how Knives is dying her hair. It’s dubious because both conversations are really about Scott.

Knives does talk to Kim about the band, but it’s not really a "conversation" so much as three lines of dialouge ("Are you a drummer?" "…Yes" "That’s so cool!". I still think it counts, though.

This is fantastic but also its sad that so many films stereotype woman into stupid roles.