Nerd Romance — Watch Your Language
“What is all that supposed to mean?”
This is yet another chapter in a series I “finished” in 2020, but my characters kept talking to me. Then Roz Warren convinced me into fill out the series into a book, so now I’m working on that. Most of what I’ve been doing lately has been filling in gaps or adding to existing material, but this chapter felt like it could stand without the reader having just finished the one before. Plus, with permission, I used part of Mark Starlin’s Valentine’s parody (I think it was meant as a parody… ask Mark) so I wanted to be able to acknowledge that. And point at Mark’s work. He also has a new book out that’s very nice.
Short summary of the story to date:
The series covers two academic over-achievers with limited social skills (aka “nerds”) in the last semester of their junior year in high school. They call each other by their initials, so she is “E” and he is “K.” They are engaging in a “practice” relationship, working from an agreed upon list of goals, trying to learn to be more like regular people before they head off to college. Both kids agreed that this is a mutually beneficial partnership, and not in any way a romantic association.
At this point in the story, the kids have been out on two dates and have shared some lunches together. They are still learning about each other, and figuring out the mechanics of completing their list of goals. Like “Study together in an agreed-upon location for shared classes.” But that shouldn’t be hard.
Maybe a little bit hard…
Their first time studying together had been harder than E envisioned. First, deciding on whose house; K seemed nervous about bringing her to his house, where they might run into his father, home and unemployed. Then he was nervous about going to her room. “Wait, we’re going to your bedroom? That seems… I dunno…”
“K, when you go to a guy friend’s house, do you hang out in the middle of the living room, or do you go to his room? Where it’s quieter, and where his stuff is? Doesn’t that make more sense? Where else do you study when you’re at someone else’s house?”
“Um…” K looked up at nothing for a couple seconds. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever studied at someone else’s house. Okay, so where do you study when you’re at someone else’s house?”
Huh. Good point. I’ve never studied at someone else’s house either. Apparently we have similar study habits. “Never mind, my point is, I always study in my room, you told me you always study in your room, so that is where we are studying!”
K still looked uneasy. “Your mom won’t freak out?”
My mom TOTALLY freaked out when I told her. Good thing Dad was there to be on my side. “Let me worry about my mom. We’re fine, but we have to leave my bedroom door open, okay? And she may — ” WILL! “ — pop her head in every so often. Just warning you ahead of time.”
Then there were the seating arrangements, once they got to her room.
“You’re going to be in bed? That seems — ”
“On my bed, doofus, on my bed. Which has a spread. And pillows for back support. I like to lean back against the headboard. But I have a chair if you want one.” WHY DOES THIS HAVE TO BE SO HARD?
“Um, no, that’s okay.” K seated himself on the floor, cross-legged, so that his back was supported by the side of her bed. “I like sitting on the floor. That way I can spread out my stuff if I need to.”
Oh. That makes sense, actually. “I like to do the same thing on my bed. Okay. We’re actually more alike than different, we just have different altitudes. But similar attitudes.” She grinned at him.
He grinned back.
They took turns asking each other questions for the chemistry test. That was, it turned out, actually a case where having a second person in the room was useful. They had been warned that material from the previous semester was still fair game, so both of them wandered throughout their textbook looking for questions.
Finally, E sighed and put down her chemistry book. “Okay, let’s take a break, I am officially supersaturated with chemistry. One more question and I will precipitate into a pile of crystals on my bed.” She glared over her glasses at her practice boyfriend. “And you are not helping. Anybody ever tell you that you get goofy when you study for tests?” Things you learn about a person! K can get goofy! Who would have suspected?
K stood up from where he’d been sitting on the floor and stretched. “I thought I would add some variation to the questions! Break things up. Fine. So how about something completely different?” He fished a piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, and read one of the items on their list. “‘Practice speaking to each other in complimentary terms.’ I have some ideas for that.”
“Oh no!” E stretched out her arms while staying seated cross-legged against the pillows at the head of her bed, afraid to disturb the textbooks and notebooks around her. “I think you culminated at ‘Your hair looks nice.’ Why push it?”
K ruffled through one of his notebooks to find what he wanted, then sat on the edge of her bed, angled slightly to face her while reading. “How about this? ‘Your character is as flawless as a diamond carved in the vacuum of space by the most advanced alien diamond cutter of all time on the best cutting day of their life which exceeded the quality of their previous best day by a thousand times.’ Hmmm?” He smiled at her proudly.
What?! “I — there’s — words fail me. What is all that supposed to mean?”
His face fell. “It’s meant as a compliment. How rare and special you are.” He looked down as his shoulders slumped. “I just wanted to speak from my heart to yours, in a way that would convey my true feelings.”
Oh, K, I’m sorry, I didn’t — wait, something’s not right here. She leaned over and tilted his chin so she could see his face. “Look me in the eye and tell me you meant that sincerely.”
They stared at each other for several seconds. K broke first. He seemed to be trying to inhale his lips, then starting snort-laughing through his nose.
‘You doofus! You almost had me! Why would you do that?!” She gave him a backhanded smack on his arm.
“Ow! I tried to come up with something serious, and everything just sounded stupid. So I went in a different direction. I wanted to see how long it would take you to figure it out.” He grinned. “You got me on the first one.”
Oh no, there are more?! “Do I dare ask what the next one was?”
K lifted up his notebook so that he could read while maintaining eye contact. “Okay, ‘Your eyes pierce my heart with nuclear for — ’” He broke into snickers at E’s expression. “E! No fair!”
E uncrossed her eyes and unfurled her lips. “Hey, you wanna play, buddy, be ready to bring your best game, know what I mean? Go on! Nobody told you to stop!” When are you going to learn that messing with me brings consequences, doofus?
He took a deep breath. “‘Your eyes pierce my heart with nuclear force, melting — ’” He covered his face with his notebook. “You know your face could freeze like that, right?”
She pulled her tongue back inside her mouth and blinked her eyes after having them extra-wide open. “So my late grandmother used to tell me. Never, ever happened. Okay, here, come sit on the bed.” She patted the bedspread in front of her, indicating the middle of the bed near the foot. “You go ahead and read, I will sit here, perfectly quiet, perfectly normal, and let you read your poetic compliment.” E resumed her cross-legged position near the headboard.
K carefully arranged himself similarly, within arm’s reach of his practice girlfriend, who watched him without expression. He carefully composed himself with deep breaths and a serious expression. “Okay. ‘Your eyes pierce my heart with nuclear force, melting the flesh off my skeleton, leaving a crispy… leaving a — ’”
E was slowly leaning forward toward him, maintaining her blank expressionless aspect while looking into K’s eyes without blinking. She paused her forward motion when he stopped talking. “Mmmm?” she hummed, without moving her lips.
He looked down at his notebook and back up at her. “Part of me would like to see how long you can go without blinking. But that doesn’t seem fair. Okay!” He cleared his throat.
She had blinked quickly when he looked down. He’d better get this done soon, or my eyes are going to hurt. She raised her eyebrows briefly to signal him to continue.
He stared back at her, eye to eye. After a few seconds, he murmured, “I think you should know, that your prima facie facial arrangement…” He slowly leaned toward her, until they were nose to nose. “…is more than acceptable.” They maintained eye contact without blinking. “Comment?”
She remained stone-faced, while stating in a monotone: “If we’re going to do this again, you either need to lay off the bologna sandwiches at lunch or start using breath mints.” They both started to break into smiles at the same time, followed by mutual laughter. They each collapsed backwards to their respective ends of the bed.
Their laughter eventually died down. “E, I think you are, without a doubt, the funniest practice girlfriend I have ever had!”
She waved a hand at him. “See? Compliments! Really not that hard!”
K was sitting in his room on the floor, trying to decide if he wanted to start homework or continue reading The Texas-Israeli War: 1999. There was also the new issue of Analog, but that could suck him in and keep him busy until dinner, which might not be the best use of time. He heard Jenn come in the front door, chattering with at least a couple girl friends, and start to come up the stairs.
Oh joy, time to shut the door. Before they start playing records or talking at top volume even though they’re in the same room or… I dunno, don’t care, just leave me in peace, people. K started to lean over to shut the door to his room, but was sitting just a few inches short; as he grabbed his history book to use as an extension, he thought he heard his sister whisper, “He’s here, hold on, you guys keep back.”
He swatted the door with his book. Before it could swing shut, his sister stuck in her foot to stop it, then poked her head around it. “Hey! Baby bro! Can you explain that whole thing you got going on with whatzername? Lady Dork? I can’t quite figure it out.”
So you and your pals can laugh at it, you mean. Fine, the sooner you’re done, the sooner you’ll go away. “It’s a relationship of a preparational nature, designed to investigate normal interactional communications between two people in a quasi-dating status. We perform normal interrelational activities such as conversations, sharing meals, engaging in bilateral study tasks, meeting parents and other family members, and attending entertainment events. The intention is to explore and expand our social expertise in a non-romantic mode, with the expectation that we will use these skills in future environments such as college.” He paused to see if Jenn was following him. “Is that explanation sufficient, or do you need further elucidation?”
Jenn looked like she was trying to keep her face from exploding. “No, that’s good!” she squeaked, and withdrew her head. The hallway outside his room erupted in girlish giggles. “No, seriously, he talks like that all the time,” he heard his sister stage whisper. “Oh my god, when he and his dork girlfriend get together, I need a dictionary to figure out what they’re trying to say! It’s hilarious!”
K crawled over and pushed his door shut.
I had three purposes for this chapter. I wanted to fill in a hole about when the kids first started studying together, because going to the house of a person of the opposite sex could be a big deal at that age and era. I also wanted to use Mark’s nerd Valentine stuff in the story—it seemed like something that would fit K’s sense of humor—while also capturing the goofy times I’ve had with my wife (Deb will make faces or try other things to throw me off my game when I’m trying to explain, recite, or otherwise hold forth on a topic, and the more serious I try to get, the goofier she gets).
And I had mentioned to Roz that in the high school I attended, there was a whole “nerd language” amongst the advanced-level students; I guess it was our way of both setting ourselves apart while also engaging in passive-aggressive dominance amongst our peers. (I showed some of that when E pitched the practice relationship to K.) It was so second nature to me that I was not aware of it when I graduated high school; at the Naval Academy, I maintained my previous level of vocabulary in common social discourse with classmates and upperclassmen, to the extent that my anomalous mode of communications engendered lamentable recognition by senior midshipmen… until my roommate (who was also getting harrassed, just from being in the same room) asked if I could PLEEEEEASE start talking like regular person. At which point I started learning how to become a verbal chameleon when speaking to people.
Roz asked if I could include an example, and since Jenn delighted in making fun of her younger brother, that seemed like a good scenario. K isn’t going out of his way to talk with a fancier vocabulary, that’s just how he talks when he’s uncomfortable and trying to compensate.
