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“Dan” seems at first to perfectly embody that popular object of scorn these days in San Francisco: the privileged tech worker. He’s a developer-turned-manager at a thriving startup, the type of guy you would expect to see dodging protesters at a Google bus stop or evicting low-income tenants in order to build his dream condo. But beyond that veneer of untouchable privilege, there is a soft underbelly. He’s a 40-year-old virgin, and his troubles with women are bad enough that he’s sought out a sex therapist for help.
This is in part a result of techies’ higher-than-average salaries, which allow them to pay for therapy, particularly when it comes to non-traditional counseling that isn’t covered by insurance. There’s something else at play here, though: In general, tech workers are more vulnerable to issues around love and intimacy, according to several local sex therapists I’ve interviewed. The reasons for this are wide-ranging, but in Dan’s particular case, it resulted from being tagged as a prodigy at a young age. He excelled in science and was encouraged to pursue it to the exclusion of all else.
The men, like Dan, who are coming to see her have been hindered by the very thing that allows them to excel in their field. “There is a very strong reinforcement [in tech] on using your brain,” says McGrath. “You brain is what’s of value.” But when it comes to sex, she says, “our brains are bullshit.”
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Tuesday June 02 2015, @04:26PM
Grishnakh replied :- "I'm not so sure this is a good idea, at least for me personally."
It does depend on your personality, and theirs. I don't want an intellectual sparring partner, I get enough of that at work (and maybe here!), and there are plenty of things I like to do alone like tinkering with cars, going for long bike rides. The Eurasian girl was not bright, but similarly liked to spend a lot of time with her three sisters (all four jaw-dropping pretty :-). OTOH she was homely, and immaculately clean and tidy, which I liked. Far from resenting me being brighter, she found confidence with me. She just accepted what I did and said, to a fault maybe.
I was thunderstruck when I recently happened to see the 1993 film ""Murder in the Heartland"; because the 14 yo Caril Fulgate, played by Fairuza Balk, was exactly like my GF in looks, intellect and mannerisms, although my girl was 19-21 and had an Indian accent. She was always being challenged in bars about her age.
"Were these women [South American, Eurasian and Malay girlfriends] who had somehow already made their way to the UK to live?"
Yes; Malay was a nurse, quite bright but submissive by culture, sweet, perhaps I should have stayed with her; the Brazillian girl had an EU passport as her mother was Italian, I was not sociable enough for her; and the Eurasian I described was from an Anglo-Indian police family who had returned from India when her father retired - I felt that her mother/grandmother were pushing her to me in the Indian tradition of arrangements, and she was OK with that because guys she'd previouly known gave her the creeps - they wanted to treat her like a Barbie doll, dress her in leather etc. OTOH I treated her with respect and she felt safe with me.
I met them all in dating clubs (before Internet dating, equivalent) - I never met girls any other way and would not want to.