I don't think you've been walking around with your eyes shut. And I agree with this quote from Wildey's article: "But I have never, actually, in the flesh, met a “fake” geek girl. Or guy."
I also agree with, and identify with, this quote:
Too many nerds have basically internalised the stereotype of themselves as ugly, friendless losers and decided that anyone who doesn't fit that stereotype – particularly women – is a "fake geek", taking advantage of the fact that being a geek is now "cool".
I'm 31, and didn't truly buy that women could like me until I was 23. This despite a whole-hearted faith in Jesus, incredibly loving and supportive parents, a (very pretty) younger sister who thought I walked on water, a lot of friends in middle high school, and the good opinion of pretty much everyone else at school who wasn't my friend. I think I had a lot more advantages than most people in the self-esteem department, and I was still convinced that women would not, could not, like me. I say women because that was my own primary experience, but I think my experience would have been much the same had I also believed that men would not, could not, like me.
So ... I venture to believe that I speak for a lot of nerds when I say that our geekhood, and/or nerdhood, was not just running to something we thought was full of excellence. It was also running away from a world that didn't like us - in my case, even though that world was largely of my own making. The love of beauty and excellence that is at the heart of geekdom was, for me, inextricably bound up with the belief in my own unlovability that fueled that love.
I think it is a genuine crisis of identity to have that challenged. I think a lot of geeks have the same experience I did, that our geekhood truly is experienced as inextricable from a bedrock belief in our own unlovability, as particularly exemplified by our bedrock belief that no woman will ever love us - and thus, by definition, no woman will ever appreciate, let alone enter into, let alone share, the geeky realms where we find so much beauty and excellence to be inspired by. So we have to decide: although we experience the two as inseparable, are they? Can they be separated? Can I discard this belief in my own unlovability without damaging my geeky ardor for beauty and excellence?
We love being geeks, maybe more than anything, and if we decide that being a geek means that no woman will ever appreciate, let alone enter into, let alone share, the sacred realms where we exercise our geekhood - well, what do we do when a woman appears whose presence, let alone behavior, seems to disprove that notion? At some point, anybody with a geek experience like mine has to face this crisis to grow up. Branding the interloper a "fake geek girl" is what happens when we face that crisis and fail, when the two strands of our geekhood stay bound together.
I can name six women - some geeks, some not - who were that woman for me. It took six friends just being women who loved me before I could untwine those two parts of my geekhood and bid the one farewell. Six friends who loved me, over a period of eight years, before I had my first girlfriend. I think I was incredibly fortunate as geeks go, and it was a long, hard process for me. My heart breaks for the people who believe in the "fake geek girl," because I think I know where in their hearts that chimera comes from - and I know how hard it is to let that part of your heart go.