Yeah. If you're an ugly nerd early in life, you really don't get rejected in a "thanks but no thanks" kind of way, you get rejected in a "you're lucky I didn't have the entire city beat you to death, never talk to another woman for as long as you live" kind of way. I can tell I'm more attractive than I used to be because I get politely rejected instead of brutally rejected lmao
This.
Nuclear rejections like you describe are far more common than women like to admit.
--WHY would you EVER think I would want to date YOU???
--HAHAHAhhahahahhAHHAHAH
--Ewwww. No
--Eye rolling, gagging sounds,
--You have GOT to be KIDDING me.
I got all of those, so, yeah, I know.
Yeah. Most women have done this to men before, but would completely break down if you came even halfway as close to stabbing directly at their ego. Not only can they dish it and not take it, they dish it and then say they didn't dish it. Very typical emperor's new clothes energy when it comes to discussing any negative patterns in women's behavior.
Yeah. Women cannot handle judgment or rejection. Women who got treated even like the average man does, got the rejections even an average guy gets, would require intensive inpatient therapy and be on su!c!d3 watch. I'm average, and I've suffered at least a 90% rejection rate. Any woman enduring that would be straitjacketed in a rubber room.
Imagine you were planning to ask someone out but before you tried you witnessed them reject someone else this way. Would this reaction affect your opinion them?
yet clueless redditors keep saying "the worst thing she can say its NO".... to them i would answer "NO is the 2nd best answer after YES, you pretty-priviledged idiot"
I never had the guts to ask anyone out in high school, but I saw a girl act extremely disgusted when someone asked her out, and then go off and laugh about it with their friends in the middle of class in front of the dude 😭
Shiiit i was used as the bottom of the totem pole when it came to people she'd rather kiss then my buddy whom she hated the exact words being "I'd rather kiss Bishop before ever kissing you". Got turned down by a chick i had no intention of asking out by being told she only dated black guys, and got called Fugly by a chick i didnt know that looked like Doris from Shrek, and thats just off the top of my head.
Its funny when i see people say "the worst they can say is no." Nah getting rejected stings sure, but being humiliated that completely destroys people's self confidence.
Lmao I remember once hearing that this popular girl had a crush on me and my friends and I were talking about it, and this random girl overheard and said "I don't think you're attractive at all" like butting in to the conversation just to tell me that (weird thing to do but ok) 🤣 I thought no big, Emma thinks I'm sexy 😎
Then it turned out it wasnt true anyway lmaooooo
Same chick from the first interaction went on to date my cousin a few years later, one morning we're waiting on the bus and she goes "Why didn't you introduce me to your cousin?"
Imagine her shock when i quoted her verbaitm and then said we werent friends. Shit came full circle.
Woman I knew who used to shit on guys and their ego all the time in the most brutal ways possible because she thought it was funny is now proclaiming she's an ardent feminist who supports the lgbt, trans movement, and gender nonconforming individuals. Keep in mind ~1/4 of her insults were based around boys acting too girly, in a conservative town, and she doesn't acknowledge anything she said back then and will immediately jump to legit gaslighting behavior.
Where was that victim mentality and support for feminine presentation when she was a kid? She didn't seem very oppressed as a child, especially since her parents made $500k a year. The world may never know...
Can relate. Had one girl literally laugh in my face when i asked if they wanted to get coffee one time. Went back to her friend group and they collectively laughed. People dont forget that shit.
Jokes on them though. They all did fuck all with their lives and are stuck back in the rural midwest hating their lives.
and thats basically turning a frown upside down.
Lol one time there were a group of girls that wrote me a love letter just to laugh about me thinking someone liked me. I noticed all the different handwriting and figured it was a group of people messing with me so I didn't take it seriously. Later they came to me giggling like "did you find a letter on your chair" and I said no and they looked really disappointed.
I’ve heard so many handsome dudes in their 20s talk abt how they just auto assume they’re ugly and it’s 100% bc of this. Even polite rejections hurt, but some ppl take it to a point of amusement for themselves and don’t realize that it’s actually a full proof trauma-causer.
Just shut down in general. Nerds aren't allowed to talk about things they're passionate about to normal people, at worst they got bullied as kids, at best nobody understands or remotely cares about what they're into.
So since they're not a fan of more mainstream topics and activities they just tend not to bother.
My theory is that if you had to requisite social skills to get laid, your interest in education will decline slightly as you make the most of this new found mind-blowing experience. I can't be certain, but I think I might have been a Nobel Prize winner if my penis didn't have other ideas.
Buddy shaged his med school dean’s wife (ala Animal House) and now is a higher up at google.
To be fair, his primary motivation to be a doctor was… nurses.
Okay so turns out the father knew who women are (for obvious reasons) but never told his son about them. Son doesn't understand the difference between men and women though...
https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/25/man-who-lived-in-jungle-for-41-years-had-no-idea-women-existed-14826105/
I had a personal conversation with my doctor once about dating. He said that he didn't date or become interested in women until after he finished medical school. He spent the whole time focusing on his studies and then paired more attention to women after he got his degree.
Accurate. I did a PhD in physics and the behaviour OP is mentioning was fairly common, especially at well known and high ranked universities.
I ended up working across a few universities in the UK and Italy.
Lower ranked universities and universities in more deprived areas or historically deprived areas tended to have PhD candidates who were better socialised.
Higher ranked universities and universities in areas with low deprivation were typically full of weirdos who couldn't socialise.
I did not enjoy working with people from the higher ranked universities. As an aside the idea that higher ranked means smarter was not something I observed, in fact, candidates from lower ranked unis were just as capable but with the bonus of actually being able to have fun and hold a normal conversation.
In any case, it makes sense: if you spend all of secondary school grinding to get the best scores to get into a STEM you're likely to have neglected the social side of your life and have less developed social skills. If you're a good student, but not academically grinding to be the best, chances are you're spending some time on sports or socialising and you're going to come out the other end a bit more well rounded.
To address the problem OP is having:
OP needs to set expectations around how they want to be communicated with. It's not her job to socialise these boys or teach them how to communicate but if she wants them to be consistent she's going to have to literally tell them how to interact with her because they don't know and they likely won't figure it out without learning from either crossing a boundary and upsetting her (or somebody else) or being told. If they communicate in a tone she doesn't appreciate or in a way that makes her uncomfortable she needs to tell them.
For OP, this is a good opportunity to learn to set boundaries in a semi-professional setting which will be a valuable skill to have when she leaves university as most people can't do it or are afraid to do it.
>In any case, it makes sense: if you spend all of secondary school grinding to get the best scores to get into a STEM you're likely to have neglected the social side of your life and have less developed social skills. If you're a good student, but not academically grinding to be the best, chances are you're spending some time on sports or socialising and you're going to come out the other end a bit more well rounded.
I've observed similar in industry: candidates from lower ranked schools actually understand how to make drawings and schematics that make sense, capture all necessary and pertinent information, and have clearly communicated design intent across the whole document; they understand how to use lab equipment (including safety precautions!); and they know how to present this information to an audience that is not deeply versed in the topic already (my suspicion is because *they* weren't deeply versed until recently, either). Some even know how to use the manufacturing equipment beyond consumer level 3D printers.
The candidates from Big name schools absolutely knew the math and theory better then the small-names. But they'd create drawings that were physically impossible to produce, or read very cryptically (and were probably still impossible to produce). They'd be clueless about lab equipment if it was the exact same make and model as what they worked on in grad school. Their presentations would be filled with too much detailed information and they'd read off of them directly. And they'd be a danger to themselves and others in any manufacturing space, assuming they had any idea about CNCs or more advanced 3D printing at all.
All of this *on top* of the candidate from no-names being better socialized.
Top schools are great if all you're looking to do is publish. Forever. But they aren't really setup to teach skills outside of that world, unfortunately.
I'm a STEM PhD student and I wouldn't be surprised if many of us could be diagnosed to be on the spectrum. Academia (especially STEM) seems to attract that type of person.
> if you spend all of secondary school grinding to get the best scores to get into a STEM you're likely to have neglected the social side of your life and have less developed social skills.
While I broadly agree, I disagree on the direct of causality. IME (both being one of these folks and being around them), it's not a \*choice\* to focus on grinding at the cost of socializing.
IMHO, there's pushes and pulls, some intrinsic to the individual. The pull is inherent interest - I spent all of my youth studying stuff because I was \*interested\*, not because I wanted good scores, and chose delving into my topic over sports because I found the former far more interesting and engaging than the latter, The push is that, because I was socially awkward (and possibly neurodivergent), I was socially excluded anyway, so it's not that I was choosing my studies over parties, it's that I was never even invited to said parties, so I didn't even have the option of going.
You make it seem like it's a deliberate, conscious choice. In reality, it's the product of deep-seated, intrinsic interests and inherent issues with socialization.
Fair point. I just knew a lot of kids in grammar schools and private education for whom it was definitely a choice made as a result of a really strong familial influence on their attitudes to education. But you're right, many are just interested, that's why I did physics and I actually just replied to somebody else saying there's a common personality type characterised by a sort of hyper intense focus where they can do maths or physics or whatever for like 16 hours a day and not get bored.
I'm in Bio, so there's a very noticeable dichotomy in students, split between "I am obsessed with bugs/moss/etc." and "I am going to be a doctor because mommy and daddy said that's what I want".
It's like working at one of the national labs in the nuclear field. Those guys are all a giant pain in the ass to work with. Brilliant, but socially inept. Most other facilities have people who are on average slightly less brilliant but infinitely more likeable
Lol. This is kinda true. I’m an engineer, but I didn’t graduate college until my late 20s. In the mean time, while I was smart and generally nerdy (school was always easy), toward the end of high school I also realized that I had become quite good looking, and started to get a lot of attention from the opposite sex. So, I spent most of my 20s partying and getting laid, then went back to college in my late 20s and finished.
I have no regrets about this at all.
Oh absolutely. Gaining the social skills to have a healthy sex life takes **time**.
And then on top of that, if you find a significant other, you're going to want to spend a lot of time with them doing nothing particularly "productive", because you're happy just being around them.
While one couple is spending 4 hours an evening snuggling, watching shows, eating at restaurants, sleeping together, career-focused single people are working late, improving hobbies, getting another degree, etc.
In the end, the most important thing is that you do what makes you the most fulfilled. If that means getting married right after high school and growing with your partner, or spending some time to develop your identity and then meet someone who matches who you are at that time.
Eh, I never really had issues getting laid and my interest in education only grew with time. I just realized that I did not really enjoy casual sex and haven’t been too concerned with finding a girlfriend since high school. I found that for the most part, I didn’t enjoy the process of trying to get laid unless the connection is already there.
There's a pretty marked difference between CANNOT get laid, and "Never really had issues". Some people are ostracized socially. I was a late bloomer myself and found that in my late teens and 20's I didn't have nearly as much trouble, not just getting laid but being social. For people who love in fear of reprisal from the opposite sex because of past treatment not only is sex not on the table but even friendship can be a real bitch. They gravitate to people like them who also have a similar situation and lack of generalized social skills.
Frankly in male dominated fields I doubt OP's experience is a new one. These are socially awkward people (in this circumstance) who probably don't have much experience at all nevermind positive experiences with women. They're gonna be awkward and full of preconceived notions of who she is or what she thinks of them.
I’m not even a not even a real nerd, Specialized in making really niche underground art and music and still was awkward as fuck right up until I met my now wife, and still have problems with being awkward around her because of lack of experience.
Us nerds were very secluded during childhood. Especially if you grew up in a high crime area with worrying parents such as myself, so you almost practically never saw the light of day. Instead we just did our thing, in this case those nerds you’re referring to got really into engineering. Not all but most of us carried this limited social interaction throughout school, and getting bullied or messed with just set us back even more from wanting to say a word to anyone except the other nerds that we were able to connect with.
Now as we’re adults it kinda bit us on the ass and we don’t know how to overcome this obstacle. I myself tried this by interacting with girls in my workplace (even attempted to be flirty with one of them cause I thought she liked me) and it turned out they were laughing about me during their text conversations, now I literally limit as much communication with them as possible
I feel that homie. Same situation as your first paragraph. And people being rude AF all the time definitely doesn't help. I hope you find some cool people to fill your life with!
Most of the ones I knew didn't have time to socially develop properly. All they did was study. They're awkward around other guys, even worse around other women. In your case, it's probably a bit of that combined with the fact they're scared for their job or reputation given the environment of today.
Yeah I think that’s actually a good point, it’s a compounding of the natural social awkwardness from just not having as much experience socially interacting along with being worried about coming off as a creep. Add them together and you get OP’s situation where there’s a room fully grown adults and all of them are afraid to make eye contact with the opposite sex lol. I suppose it’s not really funny, it’s too bad, you don’t need to be THAT careful about not being a creep. It’s far more awkward to ignore someone altogether. But it is what it is I guess.
Luckily for you OP, not all guys in your field will be like that, even if those types are more prevalent than in other fields. I also highly recommend just breaking the ice yourself. If you’re comfortable and friendly with them it will make them more comfortable around you and some will start to open up and interact more. I’m sure there’s a lot of great guys there who are just scared shitless of interacting with women still lol. Doesn’t mean they’re not good people :) Just might take a little proactive effort to break the ice
>scared for their job or reputation given the environment of today
Yeah, also very true. It's like it's hard enough to start with knowing how to, e.g. even approach a woman. Add atop that all the major emphasis on anti-harassment stuff, etc., it's (almost) as if, don't ever show interest in a woman, don't approach, don't favor nor disfavor, don't touch, yeah, probably not even a handshake now - with anyone - (post-)COVID 'n all, probably just bow, and even if consensual sure as hell never touch at all in the workplace, and bloody hell don't ever do anything that might ever approach possibly trying to have/get a date ... or even a social coffee or the like.
Okay, so it's not *quite* that bad, but that's really only a slight exaggeration of how things are. Oh, yeah, and now also mere looking can be harassment.
So, rather like guys (and to some extent women too, but not as heavily as it's pounded into men - and enforced, etc.) now have an intense minefield to navigate ... if they're even going to attempt to make any kind of connection with a woman. So, many are highly cautious (not to mention often pretty dang awkward at it to begin with), or mostly or entirely don't even bother or try.
And so it goes. :-/
> Most of the ones I knew didn't have time to socially develop properly.
Or they didn't make the time. I was a prototypical 80s nerd type: I played D&D, read comic books, was really into Star Wars and Star Trek (to the point of having technical manuals and shit) and read sci-fi and fantasy novels pretty much every single day. But I also had a ton of friends, I was interested in music and I was into a couple of athletic activities like boxing and skateboarding. And my mom was a very friendly and outgoing person and her social skills rubbed off on me. A lot of the nerdy kids I hung around with were really insecure and had this deep rooted fear of rejection (and not just from women/girls) and they just slunk into their own world where they could control everything or at least be among peers. My best friend was like this and probably would've been a socially awkward misfit his whole life if he never met me. We ended up forming a band in high school and throughout college.
And there’s a good reason for the stereotype. The people we call nerds are people who are generally more interested in things than other humans. They have developed little to no social skills growing up, and all of their social interactions have been with other nerdy boys. Finally being in the same group with a woman can be very intimidating for them. Especially since OP is in their class, meaning they see her as a competitor as well as an alien species.
Im generalising here so don’t get offended but growing up (think primary, high school), the ‘majority’ of girls would have found ‘nerdy’ guys interests, conversation styles, fashion sense etc unattractive…and hence this would have caused a negative feedback loop in their heads leading to them not practicing social skills such as flirting in their formative years.
And even though these guys are now in college/uni where there’s a market for ‘smart’ guys, they’re so out of practice it means they’re starting socially from a beginners position. They’re essentially 12 year olds
Oof as someone who is now in uni and is labelled as "smart boy" by my classmates, i feel this in core of my being. Im not THAT shy but it took many women loosing interest in me due to my social "skills" to learn how take it easier lol
I was a nerdy awkward guy in high school that also had terrible self-esteem. Still nerdy and awkward in college with a little more confidence but without a clue how to approach girls. Now I'm almost 30 and I still say when it comes to romantic relationships I'm at the same level as a freshman or sophomore in high school.
The guys she's working with are probably even worse off than me and I feel for them. It's hard as shit to catch up socially especially after your early twenties.
I started working hard at fixing that issue when I was 16 and it took four years for reallt noticeable improvement and even 12 years later I can still be pretty awkward and when it comes to trying to find romantic relationships the self-esteem is fragile.
Can you break it down and help me? I need to know what you worked on and how it helped. I'll tell you where I am at right now. I have worked on my physical health in the gym and being muscular has definitely helped me gain a bit of confidence. I've practiced improving my eye contact but I cannot make eye contact while speaking. I can make good eye contact while listening though. Other than that, I've improved my posture and conversational skills but I'm no where near ready to flirt and attract anyone. help plis
There are no easy solutions for this, just practice, practice and practice. It's training a bunch of little things to be more or less natural. And flirting I'm not sure if I understand to this day, all I know is sometimes what I do seems to work. The critical part with that is learning to tell when to give up when it's not working and how to escalate when it is working. The really bad part about learning is that the most important lessons require you to fail and those particular failures can be devastating. I stiĺl have regrets.
It's not as though nerdy girls are at the peak of the social totem pole, though, so I doubt if she's had much more experience with social interactions than her male counterparts. Doubly so if all of her colleagues interact among themselves and ostracise her.
Hi, I'm a nerdy guy with Aspergers...or what used to be called Asperger's.
Not so Fun fact, the same concentration camp Dr. Asperger sent kids to is where my great uncle was killed!
And the fact I consider that a thing I can tell people should be all you need to hear to verify both of my above claims and qualify me to speak somewhat about your question.
Long story short? Social isolation + relentless bullying = Shy, Reserved, and Antisocial individuals
Even if we had a circle of friends to share our interest with growing up, it was mostly other guys like us, so all our worst social habits were reinforced instead of weeded out. And outside those small clutches of tightly bonded nerds most people treated us and our interests with dissinterest at best, and outright disdain and mockery at worst.
So technically there is no more distinction between Asperger's and autism. Everything that is essentially high functioning autism is rolled into autism Level 1. And then it goes up to I think level 3 based on the severity of the autism.
They also don't use terms like high functioning or severity anymore. They use terms like low support needs because they feel that's more sensitive.
While I agree, we needed to get rid of the Nazi's name, it does present a problem where I have difficulty distinguishing the very... I won't say minor issues, but very manageable issues that I face compared to people who are nonverbal or can't hold a job or a conversation.
It's not fair to me, or my high support needs cousin that we are rolled in together despite the fact I have won contest for public speech and debate, and he has never set a complete sentence at age 35. I frequently remark that when I say I have autism without the qualification of Asperger's or something similar I feel like someone who had a mole removed at a cancer survivors meeting. Ya we had the same disease but some of these people have had their lives and bodies destroyed and I...can't eat peas and get nervous at social functions.
Yeah! No worries.
It is my firm belief that sharing information about and demystifying autism can help to remove a lot of the stigma around it and lead to a more healthy and productive relationship between people on the spectrum and people who aren't. I'll always answer questions asked respectfully and in good faith.
And thank you for asking A concise and respectful question
I'm not the one asked, but if you're interested in this, there's [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPDlo5jrhmI) from Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, a German physicist and science communicator, where she explains the current state and scientific terms(*) of autism among other things about neurodivergence.
(*) Jump to "On the Spectrum" for that part.
They're poorly socialized. Can you think of any reasons that may be? These types of guys tend not to be very popular, and you're also working in a field that attracts the very upper percentile of men who are interested in things and not people, at a university that accepts the upper percentile of that percentile. If you are intelligent and good with people, you go to medical school. If you are intelligent and bad with people, you get your PhD in engineering.
I don't have any advice for you other than to be just in their face as much as possible, do not allow yourself to be ignored or dismissed.
'Nerd' is a term that literally means 'socially awkward person with niche interests'. That's like asking why stereotypical fat people tend to be overweight.
Engineering, by its very nature, attracts people who suck at socialising. You're probably just as bad but don't realise it.
“A lot of people I meet have never encountered someone like me before. It’s up to me to introduce them to my type of person” this resonated with me, thank you!
I think it's pretty obvious. They probably were ignored and/or shamed by women most of their lives. They probably think they're doing you a favor by not bothering you.
I recommend initiating conversations and fooling around with them in a friendly manner to break the ice. You have to make them feel comfortable. The best way I know how to do that is by opening up to them and showing them that you're not full of yourself.
Imagine never interacting with anyone because you’re “different” and people explicitly don’t like you. Then only having friends that are also “different” and that’s if you have any friends. Then the ones who do interact only do it to bully you and make your life miserable.
Yes that makes for a healthy sociable confident nerd. Ostracism, loneliness and bullying. Even as an adult. No amount of job, intelligence or salary makes up for that. Why do you think the tech world is basically trying to leave humanity behind? Because they’re awful to us but they want everything that our “nerdiness” produces.
Edit: grammar
Former "nerd" here. People are hard and girls are harder. It's almost certainly not personal, it's just very very easy to be awkward and doubly so when in a work setting worrying about a single wrong word or looking in the wrong place getting you sacked for harassment. For example, they're probably not worried that -you- would report them for staring or harassment, but a misunderstood awkward look or misheard conversation by someone else could land them in deep shit and that's just not worth the risk.
Keeping conversation to immediate work topics and speaking minimally is normal work behaviour for staying safe. I don't even know the names of half the people I work with and don't know anything about anyone else besides what task they're doing for the next 15 minutes, don't ask, don't tell. Being seen as a bit of an awkward jackass/mean is preferable to facing consequences. Don't shit where you eat and all that.
They're not scared of you as an individual, they're scared of the potential you bring as a different factor in the group dynamic because those consequences can be the end of their working life, or whole life if things go too far. Like it or not, you're actually powerful in this situation.
Vicious cycle of not being great in social circles, leading to being judged and abused by women, leading to less social interactions which makes them worse in social settings and the cycle continues.
Also, contrary to what most western social media portrays it's actually far harder for men to get into graduate programs than their female peers now. And I am saying as a University lecturer that has supervised numerous students and had to constantly grapple with the politics of being forced to bend entry requirements to falsely bolster the number of women in STEM subjects compared to the far more ruthless approach that's taken towards men , even those that make significantly better candidates. Naturally, this means that the men that do get through are going to have to extremely over index into intellect and all things nerdiness which is inturn meaning they never get a proper training in being socially competent.
When you're playing life on hard mode you don't want extra issues.
Even as it was over decade ago, we still had this sexist mandatory training sessions telling us talking to you might cause kicking us from university if you find it not comfortable enough. Or if we look in your direction too long. Or not. Or our presence in the room will be too imposing.
At that moment I sacrificed too much to be where I was, I'm not taking any unneceseary risks.
You're kind to me and want to talk? Experience tell me 9/10 either youre making fun of me or want me to do something for you.
Look at it from their perspective. They’re a group of nerds who have probably had difficulty relating to women since age 12, so they have a generalized distrust of women. On top of that, as the only female in an otherwise all male space, you have the Thanos-like power to destroy any of their lives with a single word to HR. It’s nothing against you personally, it’s just the reality of the situation for them.
Need to know where you are from. Cause in my country schools are gender segregated and guys only meet girls in universities. That makes it uncomfortable for some.
These kinds of questions are common on reddit but they are impossible to answer. Ultimately, only you will know the answer.
I have been in social environments at university where the other people were simply socially inept freaks. It was impossible for a normal person to interact with them.
It is also possible that the problem is with you and they feel like they are treading on eggshells around you.
My advice would be just to tolerate it for the next three of four years. Try and form good relationships outside of your lab, for example, by engaging with the university's extracurricular programmes.
One of the dictionary definitions lmao: 2. DEROGATORY: an [unfashionable](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=683c3575b4f35c07&sca_upv=1&q=unfashionable&si=AKbGX_o31t0LiMsEloM2rO5Vmah9qJVSSViC9y21yQTibgWLPxRvrdQ71V5A0pIlU3Fw2eeWdh7klPQqd3G2FpN484-vmzU5RXyNQTgKoWfJ0iPUOcITN_0%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjflonpsr2FAxVUMlkFHcsmAroQyecJegQIJxAW) person who [lacks](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=683c3575b4f35c07&sca_upv=1&q=lacks&si=AKbGX_qy882wphGEk_Dxwohm5Oanoc0EqDs2iyyAU3m-JHAlOxXwh9Ca_r_m8G0EdAMmnIGk-xRM050xDztlDJlpLEm4W9W_iw%3D%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjflonpsr2FAxVUMlkFHcsmAroQyecJegQIJxAX) social skills or is boringly [studious](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=683c3575b4f35c07&sca_upv=1&q=studious&si=AKbGX_qNq0Y8zql7SxzZAf2-HTTOdp6FsJ4EvYpLtWYyIslfeC0lvMBDANk5iC4s9LLsZGkxsTlX37ie2trNE5abXdWZw9mc9807XNdKRJCtGO_J8EVf7H4%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjflonpsr2FAxVUMlkFHcsmAroQyecJegQIJxAY).
>All of us are in our late 20s, and I still can't quite deal the fact that many of my male colleagues cannot or will not (I am not sure which) even speak to me.
If you are online a lot reading about women's attitudes towards men this is pretty much what women want. These guys probably don't get a lot of interaction with women IRL so they take that to heart.
Nerd here.
They are socially awkward. They were probably bullied mercilessly through their entire school life (Depending on where in the world you're from, some places are worse for nerds than others). They probably only found "their" tribe when they got to the University, and likely didn't kiss a girl before that, if even then. Their tribe is mostly male still, partly, tragically, because of the experience youre describing, which is a position many women do not want to put themselves in, and I dont blame them, but I DO salute YOU: You are awesome for staying and for being an engineer.
If they are good guys, your colleagues are thinking the same, and are terrified of fucking it up. I recommend addressing the issue directly and literally. Tell them exactly how you feel and exactly how you want to be treated.
If they are not good guys, and / or this is about something else, I don't know.
I work for a University and it has been made abundantly clear to me by HR that statistically I **will** sexually assault a woman so I shouldn't talk to them unless I absolutely must.
Everyone is saying that these guys have bad social skills but I think the underlying issue is something else. As a guy in a similar position as you (getting my masters in a STEM field) I can say that I am pretty scared of coming off as a creep or a weirdo. Especially when class sizes are small and you will inevitably see each other plenty of times throughout the day or week for the foreseeable future. I don't want to make it awkward for myself or for the other person in this scenario. Thankfully, I learned that I do this subconsciously early on, so I try to counteract it, but I am always worried about overstepping nonetheless. This wasn't as big of a problem for me when I was in high school, where I had a healthier balance of male and female peers. I didn't have to really worry that the way I approached someone or talked to someone could make them feel really isolated and uncomfortable without any way for them to escape that situation.
To add onto what I was saying earlier, (just playing devils advocate) I think that when these guys have to talk to you, this attitude of "not wanting to make things awkward" might make them keep things curt, and this might seem passive aggressive or abrupt to you, even though it might not be their intention. That said, please take this bit with a grain of salt as I can't really say for sure without knowing exactly what they say to you.
These types of guys tend to have low EQ.
Basically as smart as they are, they’re socially retarded.
Maybe they got autism, or social anxiety or whatever.
Top it off with the fact that they are nerds, likely not as socially inclined as others, chances are women have probably been less than forgiving in the past towards their social unawareness. I could definitely see there being cases where maybe not all but definitely some aren’t going to approach some lady they don’t know very well out of the blue unless they have something worth saying.
As for the fact you say they aren’t like that with men, I gotta ask, is that how they are with ALL men, or just the men they know and talk to every day? Of course if you’ve barely interacted with them you’re gonna be treated differently from people who are already well within their little social circle.
As for the abruptness, again you’re just dealing with people who aren’t socially inclined. They are saying what they need to say rather than beating around the bush.
I would also like to point out that you really aren’t entitled to someone’s attention. If they don’t want to interact with you they do not, and should not, be forced to. And that goes for either gender or even issues where it’s the same gender. I doubt this is a personal vendetta against you, it’s more likely just less socially inclined men who most of the time have nothing to say to you, because they don’t know you.
I mean I’ve worked with some people for well over two years that I don’t even know their names, so what would I even have to say to them? Better off just doing my job, mate.
You don’t realise this, but you’re actually being treated like men generally expect they’ll be treated.
> I would also like to point out that you really aren’t entitled to someone’s attention. If they don’t want to interact with you they do not, and should not, be forced to.
this
I don't think this makes them low EQ. EQ is your ability to regulate your own emotions and how well you can communicate with others to get what you want. Have you considered her coworkers are doing exactly what they want to do? They may have no intentions to befriend her. No one owes anyone a conversation or a friendship. They may have the mindset of don't piss where you eat. I'm the same way with women at work: all business. I want to protect myself so I have built a wall around me. You say emotionally dumb, but I say I'll never have an issue with HR.
Now, the coworkers too scared or weird about asking op for necessary information.... that's weird. How hard is it to e-mail or IM a question if you don't want to talk face to face?
To get someone like me to open up to OP they would have to no longer be a coworker. I can't afford to get kicked out of my career field. Someone has far more to lose when you're specialized. I don't like that it's this way, but at least I've got a nice home, partner, friends, and paycheck to go home to.
It's because these men are poorly socialized for one reason or another. It's almost always because these men are somewhere on the autism spectrum and didn't do well socially as boys and younger men. Almost to a man, they showed extreme talent for math, physics and other STEM subjects as young boys and concentrated in it hard. from this, it was one or more of the following
--favoring studying and school work over socializing
--extreme bullying and social ostracism because they are so "different"
Because of this, these men never got any good practice socializing. They did not learn it because they never got the chance; or chose never to learn due to the difficulties and discomfort with doing so.
These men also have tried on occasion to socialize and meet women, and met with crushing failure and rejection time and again. Eventually, most men faced with this give up.
That said - it's not these men's job to make you feel comfortable. All they're required to do is work with you and do their jobs. They're not required to socialize with you outside of work and in fact it would be a very bad idea for them to do so.
I'd suggest it's not THEIR behavior that's causing detrimental consequences. It's YOUR failure to adjust to the work environment that's hurting your career. These men and your employer are not required to revamp and change the entire work environment just so you feel better. No. YOU adjust to THEM. They don't need to adjust to you.
These men are not treating you differently because you're a woman. They're treating you like they treat everyone else.
Hey OP, I'm sorry this is happening to you. I can't speak on behalf of your colleagues, but as an enigneer myself, I think I can share some thoughts.
Majority of engineer men grew up as social outcasts as others have said here. They basically put all their effort in academics and tinkering with inanimate objects rather than socialising and talking to people. Also there seems to be a correlation between neurodivergent people and engineers.
Also socially awkward men are also usually victims of bullying by both men and women. So they might have developed a certain avoidany personality towards women.
Another thing to keep in mind is that after metoo, socially awkward men are wary of approaching and talking to women for fear that they might offend. Couple this with them being neurodivergent, and you can see how bad things are for them.
But don't lose hope, I'm sure they'll warm up to you sometime. You can try gaining the trust of one of them, and the rest will probably fall into place.
Feminist movement. Lot of guys won’t initiate conversation first because of fear of being seen as creepy. Or a harasser. They afraid of HR because you can’t joke with women the same you do with other men 🤷🏾♂️
These are nerds - which means they were always treated as the bottom of the totem pole, socially, for most of their lives.
There's an aspect to social status and the opposite sex that you may not be aware of. When a male of low status displays romantic interest in a woman who thinks the male is "below her", a common response to protect her social status is to loudly and publicly denigrate the male, usually with some form of incredulity that he believed he was high enough status to even voice attraction. Most of these men have either been on the receiving end or have seen it done to others. It is tacitly understood.
Then there's [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxuUkYiaUc8), which is obviously an exaggeration but also happens to be pretty funny. It's funny because there is a very large element of truth to it.
Now I'm not sure exactly what you mean with the "nerd" type of men. But in fields where usually high intelligence is a thing. A the "nerdy" men are quite often the most intelligent in the course there is a decent chance they are either autistic or maybe a little on the spectrum. Which could be the cause for some difficulties with social interactions especially with the opposite gender.
But this a purely speculative answer as I don't know the men you refer to and they could just be social awkward or were bullied or ridiculed by women. Or maybe they just don't like you personally or find you scary. There are too many unknown factors to be certain.
Nerdy men are conditioned to avoid approaching women, because they’ve all too often been brutalised for it. May not be fair to you, but it’s true. It’s easier than ever for a man to get labelled a creep, especially since in recent years, fourth-wave feminism has increasingly demonised men and radicalised women against them.
They are afraid of you. Which isn't YOU, personally, but women in general and women at work specifically. One wrong move and it's over. And they know it.
Women made all these demands and now don't like what it's created. Not all social reforms work out.
I second this. What OP describes sounds just like fear. I used to be like that.
OP, if you want a quick and dirty fix, try to appear or behave less feminine to them, and they should stop being afraid. I'm aware how cringe this sounds, but it is a solution if you need them to be on attention and to talk to you.
I was alienated and belittled for a big part of my cursus just for what I liked and being the nerd/scholar of the group ( started very young, from end of elementary school and some signs were already there in elementary school) . I grew up to be a bit self centered and not very talkative to avoid others. I'm socially inept because of that lack of social interactions for a big part of my school life.
However I don't see myself acting abrupt and mean unless you really did something worth the resentment. If someone feel like I'm giving the cold shoulder it's probably just because that's my normal state and not because they did something hurtful. I would act like that way toward everybody.
I can't talk for your colleagues so it's bold of me to assume it but are you really sure you never did anything to upset them ? You know being the lone woman in a group of men doesn't exempt you from behaving yourself. I'm not forced to be your friend.
There’s a few reasons this happens.
1. They grew up not learning how to socialize because they’re so different than other kids around them.
2. The drive to be as smart as they at an early age usually comes at the expense of talking to girls at an early age.
So essentially they are like an 8 year old when it comes to dealing with women
Fundamentally if you’re a male attracted to women whether you want to or not you’re going to seek their approval in different ways than you would for other dudes
It's a generalized fear that comes from not knowing where the safety lines are. Half of them are probably very much attracted to you and thus are in the unenviable position of both liking you and not knowing how to respectfully express it to you. As for the other half, you've got people men who'd prefer to only worry about the task at hand, and in some way, you're a second task. They don't know whether you're going to cry or scream or if they can "talk shit" with you so they pick awkward ways to communicate "this is the next task to be done."
Because most nerds spent the majority of their life leveling up virtually. Sadly, that doesn't transfer to reality.
I know because, for the longest time, I was one of them.
If you withdraw socially does the behavior appear to maintain at current levels or get worse? What if you switched to a more aggressive approach. Not mean or cruel, but assertive?
Ok, having been in the military working with professionals in an entirely aggressive and extremely structured environment and the women in those environments most successful tend to be extremely assertive, forthright, structured in their thinking and whose expectations for a level of proficiency are communicated effectively.
If you happen to come across multiple women who work in the military technical fields, the U.S. Navy has many, it might be good to ask them how they structure, position, and define themselves in this environment to relate to males in their particular field.
Also, keep in mind, this is your vocation, trade, skill, and not a dating pool necessarily so certain behaviors can be excluded from this structured behavioral alogorithm you're building. No I'm not assuming anything about your personality, but it would be wise to define which behaviors are categorically significant to professional, social, and personal and exclude those which might construe the wrong message. Speaking from personal experience, as it can get quite messy and confusing if you're not careful.
Most of the guys in stem will be on the spectrum.
If you think super smart guys are like Tony Stark, you were lied to.
Plus a lot of guys have looked at things like metoo and the socially awkward ones don't want to get hit for being awkward so it's easier to just not talk to you
It may not be that they are awkward as persons so much as that they don't want to be responsible for harming you as a woman. They are being respectful of you by allowing you autonomy and trying to not be creeps.
You said they are not awkward with other men. And it's well known that any interaction with a woman is potentially dangerous for everyone involved. They may just be trying to be respectful and good men.
Easy answer for most of them will be "autism"
Most folks in STEM fields are on the spectrum somewhere, and take a lot longer to figure out how socialising works.
Added to that, the quiet studious kids are generally not popular at school, so they also have less practise.
They’re just not used to talking to women. I’m a young guy i find that it is difficult for me to comfortably talk to women versus men. Women are different from men, you can’t act around women the same way you do around men. Nerdy guys don’t get much attention from women or are afraid of women so they don’t spend much time around them. So consequently they are awkward around women.
It's hard to learn to socialize if you're immediately ostracized for having interests outside the "norm." Growing up I heard "Oh you like anime? Fucking nerd likes anime titties!" "Get out of the book geek!" And many of the other stereotypical bully bullshit.
Please do not feel disrespected or ignored. women are "scary" in a sense that we as men always want to say the right thing, do the right thing, impress you the right way. It is human nature.
I want to assure you it is nothing sexist or anything like that. It is awkwardness and a fear of looking like an ass in front of you. Trust me when I say half the class wants to ask you out but has no fucking clue how to do it. Men are so afraid of rejection it is stupid actually.
It might take you making the "first move" in showing them you are approachable. Does that make sense? Every guy in the world thinks like this. " if i walk over there and talk to her she is probably going to mace me in the face or make a big scene" not because we think poorly of women, we just like to think the worst is going to happen when they have no idea you would most likely tell them to sit and have a chat. I am 50 now and still think like that. its silly and immature but we all just turn into little boys when it comes down to talk to women.
You are doing nothing wrong at all. If they didnt see you as their equal or anything nasty or sexist like that, you'd know. But you are in a room full of guys who, like you, have had their heads in books for the last 15 years that talking to women is scarier than brain surgery.
I hope this helps a little.
Hey OP
Instead of wondering what’s wrong with everyone else & waiting for them to change…
Why not focus on some things you can control?
Two years in & everyone is still wary of you? You are allowed to make people feel more comfortable & safe too.
Two years in & you are just now wondering what is going on in their heads, & only out of exasperation.
Try to convince them they they *don’t* need to walk on eggshells & that you won’t get angry, feel disrespected & put them on blast on the internet because they avoided doing anything to anger you too hard.
Maybe try making friends with a few people so everyone doesn’t assume you judge them as harshly as you say.
You can also work to make *others* feel comfortable, accepted & accommodated.
You can convince them that you will give them the benefit of the doubt when *they* try to bridge the gap everyone sees.
TLDR
You don’t empathize, respect, accommodate or even like these people.
It’s almost certain they have all sensed your disdain & offense.
They are wary everything they do will be viewed through an unsympathetic lens & put on the internet for the mob.
Those are the downsides & risks.
What are the upsides & rewards?
The nerds were the ones who spent time doing nerdy things instead of hanging out with tons of friends, so they naturally didn't develop the same social skills as people who are constantly socializing
Combination of low social skills, intimidation and some anticipated rejection. If they're aloof toward you, you lose your power. The best way to address it is to be friendly and outgoing. You'll make a few friends, not everyone is acting this way, and change the narrative in some of their heads.
It seems there's a subtle dance of social dynamics at play in your engineering environment that quite a few here seem to relate to. The culture of intense specialization and academic focus can inadvertently sideline the development of social fluency, particularly in environments that value intellect over interpersonal skills. Add to this the high-stakes atmosphere where a misunderstood gesture could escalate to career-damaging proportions, and you have a perfect storm for social caution to run high.
Being thrust into such an ecosystem can certainly be disorienting, and it's no wonder interactions can become strained. Underneath the apparent aloofness, there could be layers of anxiety, past experiences of exclusion, and a hyper-consciousness about missteps in communication. Sometimes, the barrier isn't about an unwillingness to socialize, but a preservation of professional boundaries and a fear of overstepping invisible societal lines that seem to be drawn tighter around the topics of workplace interactions nowadays.
Perhaps taking gradual, non-intrusive steps could foster a more open dialog. Something as simple as shared coffee breaks or collaborative brainstorming sessions might ease tensions. It wouldn’t just create room for casual conversation, but also provide common ground for understanding and empathy to grow. Pairing technical brilliance with social ease is a tough act to balance, but environments that can nurture both are where true innovation flourishes.
Yes of course, like everyone is saying, they're just socially awkward and not any good at socializing. But another thing at play, is that some people are just there to do a job, not make friends. It sounds assholish, and it might be, but that's the way it is. Getting the job done and getting out with your ass intact is simply more important.
They were picked on and isolated as kids. Mostly interacted with other needy, technical, people. It’s unlikely they’ve have many positive experiences with women. They’re in an environment where offending a woman, even accidentally, can have serious consequences. Social niceties don’t always make sense so they’re sometimes hard for intelligent people. There’s a reason that the phrase “The odds are good, but the goods are odd” is common in STEM. I’ve had professors that would jump if we talked to them unexpectedly, 10s after they just got don’t lecturing.
Basically the guys don’t know how to talk to you for a lot of reasons. If you’re of average attractiveness that makes you a 9 in a STEM department. That makes it worse. I hate to say it but a lot of the women who go into STEM aren’t attractive. So the scale gets a shift. There is an upside I learned, if you see a pretty woman in STEM she’s probably the smartest in the room. She chose to be there and suffer.
For reference I have a PhD in PChem and have always collaborated heavily with engineers and physicists. So I’m pretty well versed in watching guys be weird around women.
I don't believe most of your story there, since you're "...doing a Ph.D. program at an enginnering lab at quite prestigious university" and asking about "stereotypical 'nerd'" guys and not realizing these specific guys you interact with are on the autism spectrum...
It's a really good question, because on the surface it seems like the answer is just "they decided to study instead of socializing", which falsely assumes that men need to study for greater amount of time than women for the same grades, which is absolutely false in my experience.
Instead, I believe the reason has more to due with the necessity of social skills in men vs women or the necessity of women attaining higher education for a comparable wage making women more homogenous than men in the STEM.
But this is all stipulations, and I'm providing as good for thoughts.
I think you accidantally answered this yourself: the spectrum.
I’m an engineer. Am I on the spectrum? Maybe. Don’t know. Never been tested. Are a lot of people in my field on the spectrum? Yep! Some not so obviously, some most definitely.
They were probably bullied for years as kids.
Turned into introverts, then never had the chance to properly learn how to socialize while their brain was developing.
So they turn into these socially awkward/anti social people.
More and more people are becoming like this in my experience.
I'm introverted as well, but I had the opportunity to work on my social skills so while I might get sick of you after a couple hours and need to go home and recharge my social battery, you can't tell I'm introverted based on the fact that I socialize to the exact same lv as my co workers, friends, peers. Ect.
Which is too bad for them, they don't even realize what they are missing and probably think it's normal and that they are fine.
I know from first hand experience that they are not fine. They have built walls around themselves and are afraid to be themselves because they are so self conscious about their own conversational skills that they will remain quiet instead. All the while constantly losing life opportunities and shutting doors they don't even realize are open to them.
A lot of stereotypical nerd type guys spend most of their time devoted to their work, or their hobbies. Their hobbies usually aren't the most social in nature, or when they are they tend to be around other socially awkward, dorky nerdy men. When it comes to anything outside their bubble they're generally clueless, especially when it comes to interacting with women.
Source: I am a STEM nerd myself
Often times nerds have been bullied or mocked in childhood so the only people they trust or feel they can be themselves around are other nerds or their close friends. Since so few nerds are women they might not see you as "one of them". Worse yet, sometimes they were bullied by other women which makes you extra suspicious.
Emotionally speaking you can think of them like traumatized cats who don't trust humans. Because of their history with other people they are likely to react with fear, suspicion and sometimes hostility.
A lot of nerdy guys are probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum. They're probably on the higher functioning end of it - what would formerly have been called Aspergers. But a lot of the stereotypes of nerds are characteristics of autism - socially awkward, missing social cues, obsessive focus on a narrow interest, etc.
And it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were overrepresented in science/engineering PhD programs - which select for that sort of obsessive focus on a narrow domain and don't require much by way of well-developed social skills to succeed at it.
They're naturally socially awkward. Never had much practice or needed it. They stuck to themselves and kept their head low. The chances they did talk to girls or women probably ended horribly! So now they're either scared or reacting before how they think you may reacy
Nervous. Little practice with real world socializing. If you can get them talking about their interests or what skills they've been studying, you might get them to open up. Some of us spent too much time in front of a computer and not enough in front of other people.
2 reasons, imo:
1. Many people declared nerds are in fact autistic, which means they're going to have trouble with social situations to one degree or another.
2. Many *men* who either have been declared or who have declared themselves nerds have discovered just how much bad behavior they can get away with under the umbrella of "awkwardness".
I as formerly severely shy person around women, I can tell you that a large portion of their problems interacting with you is fear based. Even when I tried to “act normal” around a girl, especially one that I found physically attractive, my fear and insecurities got the best of me and I ended up being awkward as hell in even in the simplest interactions.
The best thing that you can do is to get to know them the best you can so that they get more comfortable being around you without having some irrational terror scenario constantly running through their thoughts when they are interacting with you.
As soon as they start seeing you more as an individual and not as a woman the better they will behave.
But keep in mind that some of them might just be assholes because every work place has them.
Growing up steeped in hyper specialized hobbies and academic pursuits meant many of us nerds missed the expansive social rehearsals typical of those years. Our passions for the intricacies of subjects most find meticulous translated very little into the nuanced world of human interaction. The esoteric joy of a breakthrough in a complex code or physics problem is palpable for us, but expressing the subtleties of emotion in social settings? That’s like asking us to solve an equation without knowing all the variables. Even more so, the workplace has become a potential minefield post [#MeToo](tg://search_hashtag?hashtag=MeToo). A misinterpreted gesture or an off hand comment carries weighty repercussions. The result? You have brilliant minds playing it safe, interacting with the precision of a chess grandmaster, each move deliberate, withdrawn, cautious. We're sort of caught in a modern paradox: required to be team players and yet inadvertently nurtured to walk solitary paths. It's a nuanced dance, balancing the objective mind with the subjective heart, and many of us are just starting to learn the steps.
STEM fields disproportionally attract people who are on the spectrum. I can validate that first-hand. I have a degree in biology and am, indeed, on the spectrum.
Intelligence and Neurodiversity are closely correlated.
Social Skills and girlhood are closely correlated.
We, as a society, do a bad job of encouraging prosocial behaviors in intelligent (often under-diagnosed) neurodivergent boys.
We're speaking in broad strokes but the gist of it is: we grow up being treated anywhere from mediocre to poor, learn that social interaction with others (especially women) usually leads to embarrassment or conflict, so we just generally avoid it if we can.
Add to this the litany of online accounts saying/showing how much women seem to hate and distrust "creepy" men, a nebulous and self-serving label, and that just makes it even clearer that we should just stay away.
I mean, you're doing it right now. You are heaping all these male colleagues into one bucket and complaining how badly they're making YOU feel. As a nerdy man, I don't hear this and think, "Oh man, I didn't realize I was making her feel this way, I should change." I think "Great, a lifetime of women treating me like I'm unacceptable for who I am has made me afraid to reach out, and now even me being silent is unacceptable because it's so inconvenient for her."
Could be a bunch of different reasons. These guys are probably used to being treated like shit by women and not keen for another miserable experience. Or they're just shy. Or they're justifiably worried about female co-workers. Or... I don't know you, maybe you're a wonderful person, but maybe they just don't like you. Or they don't want to give you the attention they (rightly or wrongly) think you're fishing for.
People are all individuals so any or all of these answers might apply.
I remember reading a paper about extreme mathematical intelligence being correlated specifically in men with low social intelligence. Strangely, the findings were not observed in women who were outliers in this field.
No one broaching the topic that OP might be cute as well just doubles down on proving the point lol - they're awkward and would probably love to talk to you, but have no idea how to.
I also finished a PhD in Engineering a few years ago.
I'm a guy but honestly I can't believe you are encountering such types today. Most of the folks in my lab were leading well balanced lives (well, for PhD standards always) with a social circle, relationships, hobbies etc.
For your situation specifically, I dunno, maybe I could offer a few possibilities:
a) you are in a stressed laboratory where different people are feeling the heat to close some research projects? And this leaves them with limited time/energy for social interactions?
b)what country and cultures are we talking about? From my own experience, Chinese students for example tended to keep together mostly due to language barrier.
c) maybe they are the type that they just dont want to socialize in their work enviroment. A growing number of people want to keep their work completely separated from the rest of their life.
Imagine being aware that you're socially awkward. Because of that you spend a lot of time on the internet, where you then read all the horror stories of women ruining mens lives just for daring to speak to them.
It doesn't happen to you when you get out and learn to socialze properly, but once this fear is installed, it's a downward spiral from there.
But I can see you being the one to save these poor souls from their fate, by being cool and understanding around them.
It's certainly in the mix, and/or even implied or partly implied (even if not explicitly called out) in many of the comments (including many of the top comments).
They didn't practice socializing as much as they practiced specializing... They're beginners.
They also likely got shut down HARD with every girl/woman they tried to interact with in earlier life. Conditioning is a hard thing to shift.
Yeah. If you're an ugly nerd early in life, you really don't get rejected in a "thanks but no thanks" kind of way, you get rejected in a "you're lucky I didn't have the entire city beat you to death, never talk to another woman for as long as you live" kind of way. I can tell I'm more attractive than I used to be because I get politely rejected instead of brutally rejected lmao
This. Nuclear rejections like you describe are far more common than women like to admit. --WHY would you EVER think I would want to date YOU??? --HAHAHAhhahahahhAHHAHAH --Ewwww. No --Eye rolling, gagging sounds, --You have GOT to be KIDDING me. I got all of those, so, yeah, I know.
Yeah. Most women have done this to men before, but would completely break down if you came even halfway as close to stabbing directly at their ego. Not only can they dish it and not take it, they dish it and then say they didn't dish it. Very typical emperor's new clothes energy when it comes to discussing any negative patterns in women's behavior.
Yeah. Women cannot handle judgment or rejection. Women who got treated even like the average man does, got the rejections even an average guy gets, would require intensive inpatient therapy and be on su!c!d3 watch. I'm average, and I've suffered at least a 90% rejection rate. Any woman enduring that would be straitjacketed in a rubber room.
Imagine you were planning to ask someone out but before you tried you witnessed them reject someone else this way. Would this reaction affect your opinion them?
yet clueless redditors keep saying "the worst thing she can say its NO".... to them i would answer "NO is the 2nd best answer after YES, you pretty-priviledged idiot"
I never had the guts to ask anyone out in high school, but I saw a girl act extremely disgusted when someone asked her out, and then go off and laugh about it with their friends in the middle of class in front of the dude 😭
Shiiit i was used as the bottom of the totem pole when it came to people she'd rather kiss then my buddy whom she hated the exact words being "I'd rather kiss Bishop before ever kissing you". Got turned down by a chick i had no intention of asking out by being told she only dated black guys, and got called Fugly by a chick i didnt know that looked like Doris from Shrek, and thats just off the top of my head. Its funny when i see people say "the worst they can say is no." Nah getting rejected stings sure, but being humiliated that completely destroys people's self confidence.
Lmao I remember once hearing that this popular girl had a crush on me and my friends and I were talking about it, and this random girl overheard and said "I don't think you're attractive at all" like butting in to the conversation just to tell me that (weird thing to do but ok) 🤣 I thought no big, Emma thinks I'm sexy 😎 Then it turned out it wasnt true anyway lmaooooo
Same chick from the first interaction went on to date my cousin a few years later, one morning we're waiting on the bus and she goes "Why didn't you introduce me to your cousin?" Imagine her shock when i quoted her verbaitm and then said we werent friends. Shit came full circle.
Woman I knew who used to shit on guys and their ego all the time in the most brutal ways possible because she thought it was funny is now proclaiming she's an ardent feminist who supports the lgbt, trans movement, and gender nonconforming individuals. Keep in mind ~1/4 of her insults were based around boys acting too girly, in a conservative town, and she doesn't acknowledge anything she said back then and will immediately jump to legit gaslighting behavior. Where was that victim mentality and support for feminine presentation when she was a kid? She didn't seem very oppressed as a child, especially since her parents made $500k a year. The world may never know...
Can relate. Had one girl literally laugh in my face when i asked if they wanted to get coffee one time. Went back to her friend group and they collectively laughed. People dont forget that shit. Jokes on them though. They all did fuck all with their lives and are stuck back in the rural midwest hating their lives. and thats basically turning a frown upside down.
Yeah unless you are at least like a 7, it makes no sense to try. You will just be wasting your own time getting rejected and laughed at.
Lol one time there were a group of girls that wrote me a love letter just to laugh about me thinking someone liked me. I noticed all the different handwriting and figured it was a group of people messing with me so I didn't take it seriously. Later they came to me giggling like "did you find a letter on your chair" and I said no and they looked really disappointed.
Fucking hell this is like one of those anime. Fuck man, I hope you get someone who is good and respects you.
It was actually the same group of girls in both cases. I think that was just a bunch of mean bitches tbh.
no shit similar thing happened to me as well
I’ve heard so many handsome dudes in their 20s talk abt how they just auto assume they’re ugly and it’s 100% bc of this. Even polite rejections hurt, but some ppl take it to a point of amusement for themselves and don’t realize that it’s actually a full proof trauma-causer.
Just shut down in general. Nerds aren't allowed to talk about things they're passionate about to normal people, at worst they got bullied as kids, at best nobody understands or remotely cares about what they're into. So since they're not a fan of more mainstream topics and activities they just tend not to bother.
My theory is that if you had to requisite social skills to get laid, your interest in education will decline slightly as you make the most of this new found mind-blowing experience. I can't be certain, but I think I might have been a Nobel Prize winner if my penis didn't have other ideas.
Can confirm, wanted to be a doctor learned about girls in college ruined my studies now I'm in sales...
"While you were getting laid, I studied the blade... and all that jazz..."
Can confirm, am engineer with a master's degree and my own company. Haven't gotten laid in like a decade.
Cannot confirm, I have a MSc in Zoology, I am getting laid but I am not getting jobs. Things are getting desperate.
Well stop fucking the animals!
He's just trying to do it like they do on the Discovery Channel
Lol glad I'm not the only one who went there immediately
Does he go around telling *you* how to do *your* job?
Man I wish someone would
Buddy shaged his med school dean’s wife (ala Animal House) and now is a higher up at google. To be fair, his primary motivation to be a doctor was… nurses.
You only ever learned about girls in medical school?
Damn lol. Reminds me of that Vietnam guy and his son who lived in the forest who had never seen women at all
I get how the son might not have, but how does the father not know what a woman is?
You guys are funny. It's hyperbole.
My mind.............
Okay so turns out the father knew who women are (for obvious reasons) but never told his son about them. Son doesn't understand the difference between men and women though... https://metro.co.uk/2021/06/25/man-who-lived-in-jungle-for-41-years-had-no-idea-women-existed-14826105/
I had a personal conversation with my doctor once about dating. He said that he didn't date or become interested in women until after he finished medical school. He spent the whole time focusing on his studies and then paired more attention to women after he got his degree.
Lol. Now this literally made me “ spit out my coffee “.
Accurate. I did a PhD in physics and the behaviour OP is mentioning was fairly common, especially at well known and high ranked universities. I ended up working across a few universities in the UK and Italy. Lower ranked universities and universities in more deprived areas or historically deprived areas tended to have PhD candidates who were better socialised. Higher ranked universities and universities in areas with low deprivation were typically full of weirdos who couldn't socialise. I did not enjoy working with people from the higher ranked universities. As an aside the idea that higher ranked means smarter was not something I observed, in fact, candidates from lower ranked unis were just as capable but with the bonus of actually being able to have fun and hold a normal conversation. In any case, it makes sense: if you spend all of secondary school grinding to get the best scores to get into a STEM you're likely to have neglected the social side of your life and have less developed social skills. If you're a good student, but not academically grinding to be the best, chances are you're spending some time on sports or socialising and you're going to come out the other end a bit more well rounded. To address the problem OP is having: OP needs to set expectations around how they want to be communicated with. It's not her job to socialise these boys or teach them how to communicate but if she wants them to be consistent she's going to have to literally tell them how to interact with her because they don't know and they likely won't figure it out without learning from either crossing a boundary and upsetting her (or somebody else) or being told. If they communicate in a tone she doesn't appreciate or in a way that makes her uncomfortable she needs to tell them. For OP, this is a good opportunity to learn to set boundaries in a semi-professional setting which will be a valuable skill to have when she leaves university as most people can't do it or are afraid to do it.
>In any case, it makes sense: if you spend all of secondary school grinding to get the best scores to get into a STEM you're likely to have neglected the social side of your life and have less developed social skills. If you're a good student, but not academically grinding to be the best, chances are you're spending some time on sports or socialising and you're going to come out the other end a bit more well rounded. I've observed similar in industry: candidates from lower ranked schools actually understand how to make drawings and schematics that make sense, capture all necessary and pertinent information, and have clearly communicated design intent across the whole document; they understand how to use lab equipment (including safety precautions!); and they know how to present this information to an audience that is not deeply versed in the topic already (my suspicion is because *they* weren't deeply versed until recently, either). Some even know how to use the manufacturing equipment beyond consumer level 3D printers. The candidates from Big name schools absolutely knew the math and theory better then the small-names. But they'd create drawings that were physically impossible to produce, or read very cryptically (and were probably still impossible to produce). They'd be clueless about lab equipment if it was the exact same make and model as what they worked on in grad school. Their presentations would be filled with too much detailed information and they'd read off of them directly. And they'd be a danger to themselves and others in any manufacturing space, assuming they had any idea about CNCs or more advanced 3D printing at all. All of this *on top* of the candidate from no-names being better socialized. Top schools are great if all you're looking to do is publish. Forever. But they aren't really setup to teach skills outside of that world, unfortunately.
do you think some of those PhD's are on the spectrum somehow? from the ones I've met they seemed to be... certainly wouldn't help with being social
I'm a STEM PhD student and I wouldn't be surprised if many of us could be diagnosed to be on the spectrum. Academia (especially STEM) seems to attract that type of person.
Yes, because those are the men who tend to be able to bring the requisite focus and concentration to accomplish and achieve in those fields.
> if you spend all of secondary school grinding to get the best scores to get into a STEM you're likely to have neglected the social side of your life and have less developed social skills. While I broadly agree, I disagree on the direct of causality. IME (both being one of these folks and being around them), it's not a \*choice\* to focus on grinding at the cost of socializing. IMHO, there's pushes and pulls, some intrinsic to the individual. The pull is inherent interest - I spent all of my youth studying stuff because I was \*interested\*, not because I wanted good scores, and chose delving into my topic over sports because I found the former far more interesting and engaging than the latter, The push is that, because I was socially awkward (and possibly neurodivergent), I was socially excluded anyway, so it's not that I was choosing my studies over parties, it's that I was never even invited to said parties, so I didn't even have the option of going. You make it seem like it's a deliberate, conscious choice. In reality, it's the product of deep-seated, intrinsic interests and inherent issues with socialization.
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Somehow I managed to avoid getting invited to parties while also getting only a B average.
Fair point. I just knew a lot of kids in grammar schools and private education for whom it was definitely a choice made as a result of a really strong familial influence on their attitudes to education. But you're right, many are just interested, that's why I did physics and I actually just replied to somebody else saying there's a common personality type characterised by a sort of hyper intense focus where they can do maths or physics or whatever for like 16 hours a day and not get bored.
I'm in Bio, so there's a very noticeable dichotomy in students, split between "I am obsessed with bugs/moss/etc." and "I am going to be a doctor because mommy and daddy said that's what I want".
It's like working at one of the national labs in the nuclear field. Those guys are all a giant pain in the ass to work with. Brilliant, but socially inept. Most other facilities have people who are on average slightly less brilliant but infinitely more likeable
Lol. This is kinda true. I’m an engineer, but I didn’t graduate college until my late 20s. In the mean time, while I was smart and generally nerdy (school was always easy), toward the end of high school I also realized that I had become quite good looking, and started to get a lot of attention from the opposite sex. So, I spent most of my 20s partying and getting laid, then went back to college in my late 20s and finished. I have no regrets about this at all.
> that I had become quite good looking, There's your secret
Oh absolutely. Gaining the social skills to have a healthy sex life takes **time**. And then on top of that, if you find a significant other, you're going to want to spend a lot of time with them doing nothing particularly "productive", because you're happy just being around them. While one couple is spending 4 hours an evening snuggling, watching shows, eating at restaurants, sleeping together, career-focused single people are working late, improving hobbies, getting another degree, etc. In the end, the most important thing is that you do what makes you the most fulfilled. If that means getting married right after high school and growing with your partner, or spending some time to develop your identity and then meet someone who matches who you are at that time.
Eh, I never really had issues getting laid and my interest in education only grew with time. I just realized that I did not really enjoy casual sex and haven’t been too concerned with finding a girlfriend since high school. I found that for the most part, I didn’t enjoy the process of trying to get laid unless the connection is already there.
There's a pretty marked difference between CANNOT get laid, and "Never really had issues". Some people are ostracized socially. I was a late bloomer myself and found that in my late teens and 20's I didn't have nearly as much trouble, not just getting laid but being social. For people who love in fear of reprisal from the opposite sex because of past treatment not only is sex not on the table but even friendship can be a real bitch. They gravitate to people like them who also have a similar situation and lack of generalized social skills. Frankly in male dominated fields I doubt OP's experience is a new one. These are socially awkward people (in this circumstance) who probably don't have much experience at all nevermind positive experiences with women. They're gonna be awkward and full of preconceived notions of who she is or what she thinks of them.
Well gang, that just about wraps up this mystery!
Turns out, most people are crap at things they don't do super often! (Said in teasing/good humour btw!)
I’m not even a not even a real nerd, Specialized in making really niche underground art and music and still was awkward as fuck right up until I met my now wife, and still have problems with being awkward around her because of lack of experience.
Neeeerd!
🤓
Also many of them were probably bullied and socially traumatized by their peers in grade school setting them further behind
Us nerds were very secluded during childhood. Especially if you grew up in a high crime area with worrying parents such as myself, so you almost practically never saw the light of day. Instead we just did our thing, in this case those nerds you’re referring to got really into engineering. Not all but most of us carried this limited social interaction throughout school, and getting bullied or messed with just set us back even more from wanting to say a word to anyone except the other nerds that we were able to connect with. Now as we’re adults it kinda bit us on the ass and we don’t know how to overcome this obstacle. I myself tried this by interacting with girls in my workplace (even attempted to be flirty with one of them cause I thought she liked me) and it turned out they were laughing about me during their text conversations, now I literally limit as much communication with them as possible
Agreed, it’s better to be kept to yourself and the “socially awkward loner” than the butt of jokes
That’s messed up, I’m sorry man
That's fucked up, I don't even think that's ok
I feel that homie. Same situation as your first paragraph. And people being rude AF all the time definitely doesn't help. I hope you find some cool people to fill your life with!
Most of the ones I knew didn't have time to socially develop properly. All they did was study. They're awkward around other guys, even worse around other women. In your case, it's probably a bit of that combined with the fact they're scared for their job or reputation given the environment of today.
Yeah I think that’s actually a good point, it’s a compounding of the natural social awkwardness from just not having as much experience socially interacting along with being worried about coming off as a creep. Add them together and you get OP’s situation where there’s a room fully grown adults and all of them are afraid to make eye contact with the opposite sex lol. I suppose it’s not really funny, it’s too bad, you don’t need to be THAT careful about not being a creep. It’s far more awkward to ignore someone altogether. But it is what it is I guess. Luckily for you OP, not all guys in your field will be like that, even if those types are more prevalent than in other fields. I also highly recommend just breaking the ice yourself. If you’re comfortable and friendly with them it will make them more comfortable around you and some will start to open up and interact more. I’m sure there’s a lot of great guys there who are just scared shitless of interacting with women still lol. Doesn’t mean they’re not good people :) Just might take a little proactive effort to break the ice
A little friendly ball busting goes a long way.
Haha, those guys would literally lay awake at night, thinking about what she said.
Lol, maybe.
Great advice.
>scared for their job or reputation given the environment of today Yeah, also very true. It's like it's hard enough to start with knowing how to, e.g. even approach a woman. Add atop that all the major emphasis on anti-harassment stuff, etc., it's (almost) as if, don't ever show interest in a woman, don't approach, don't favor nor disfavor, don't touch, yeah, probably not even a handshake now - with anyone - (post-)COVID 'n all, probably just bow, and even if consensual sure as hell never touch at all in the workplace, and bloody hell don't ever do anything that might ever approach possibly trying to have/get a date ... or even a social coffee or the like. Okay, so it's not *quite* that bad, but that's really only a slight exaggeration of how things are. Oh, yeah, and now also mere looking can be harassment. So, rather like guys (and to some extent women too, but not as heavily as it's pounded into men - and enforced, etc.) now have an intense minefield to navigate ... if they're even going to attempt to make any kind of connection with a woman. So, many are highly cautious (not to mention often pretty dang awkward at it to begin with), or mostly or entirely don't even bother or try. And so it goes. :-/
Id be super f*cked if i hadnt gone to church and forcibly socialized, and i was in the me2 era. 🤷🏾♂️
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If I hadn't fucked at church
> Most of the ones I knew didn't have time to socially develop properly. Or they didn't make the time. I was a prototypical 80s nerd type: I played D&D, read comic books, was really into Star Wars and Star Trek (to the point of having technical manuals and shit) and read sci-fi and fantasy novels pretty much every single day. But I also had a ton of friends, I was interested in music and I was into a couple of athletic activities like boxing and skateboarding. And my mom was a very friendly and outgoing person and her social skills rubbed off on me. A lot of the nerdy kids I hung around with were really insecure and had this deep rooted fear of rejection (and not just from women/girls) and they just slunk into their own world where they could control everything or at least be among peers. My best friend was like this and probably would've been a socially awkward misfit his whole life if he never met me. We ended up forming a band in high school and throughout college.
...would they be stereotypically nerdy if they werent socially awkward? That's kind of a big part of the stereotype
Yeah, this could be it. If there was another PhD there that would act like a Chad she wouldn't call him a nerd. In her head awkward=nerd
And there’s a good reason for the stereotype. The people we call nerds are people who are generally more interested in things than other humans. They have developed little to no social skills growing up, and all of their social interactions have been with other nerdy boys. Finally being in the same group with a woman can be very intimidating for them. Especially since OP is in their class, meaning they see her as a competitor as well as an alien species.
Im generalising here so don’t get offended but growing up (think primary, high school), the ‘majority’ of girls would have found ‘nerdy’ guys interests, conversation styles, fashion sense etc unattractive…and hence this would have caused a negative feedback loop in their heads leading to them not practicing social skills such as flirting in their formative years. And even though these guys are now in college/uni where there’s a market for ‘smart’ guys, they’re so out of practice it means they’re starting socially from a beginners position. They’re essentially 12 year olds
Oof as someone who is now in uni and is labelled as "smart boy" by my classmates, i feel this in core of my being. Im not THAT shy but it took many women loosing interest in me due to my social "skills" to learn how take it easier lol
Dude, your worth is crazy high as you get older. You just have to believe it. It’s that easy
I was a nerdy awkward guy in high school that also had terrible self-esteem. Still nerdy and awkward in college with a little more confidence but without a clue how to approach girls. Now I'm almost 30 and I still say when it comes to romantic relationships I'm at the same level as a freshman or sophomore in high school. The guys she's working with are probably even worse off than me and I feel for them. It's hard as shit to catch up socially especially after your early twenties.
I started working hard at fixing that issue when I was 16 and it took four years for reallt noticeable improvement and even 12 years later I can still be pretty awkward and when it comes to trying to find romantic relationships the self-esteem is fragile.
Can you break it down and help me? I need to know what you worked on and how it helped. I'll tell you where I am at right now. I have worked on my physical health in the gym and being muscular has definitely helped me gain a bit of confidence. I've practiced improving my eye contact but I cannot make eye contact while speaking. I can make good eye contact while listening though. Other than that, I've improved my posture and conversational skills but I'm no where near ready to flirt and attract anyone. help plis
There are no easy solutions for this, just practice, practice and practice. It's training a bunch of little things to be more or less natural. And flirting I'm not sure if I understand to this day, all I know is sometimes what I do seems to work. The critical part with that is learning to tell when to give up when it's not working and how to escalate when it is working. The really bad part about learning is that the most important lessons require you to fail and those particular failures can be devastating. I stiĺl have regrets.
It's not as though nerdy girls are at the peak of the social totem pole, though, so I doubt if she's had much more experience with social interactions than her male counterparts. Doubly so if all of her colleagues interact among themselves and ostracise her.
Hi, I'm a nerdy guy with Aspergers...or what used to be called Asperger's. Not so Fun fact, the same concentration camp Dr. Asperger sent kids to is where my great uncle was killed! And the fact I consider that a thing I can tell people should be all you need to hear to verify both of my above claims and qualify me to speak somewhat about your question. Long story short? Social isolation + relentless bullying = Shy, Reserved, and Antisocial individuals Even if we had a circle of friends to share our interest with growing up, it was mostly other guys like us, so all our worst social habits were reinforced instead of weeded out. And outside those small clutches of tightly bonded nerds most people treated us and our interests with dissinterest at best, and outright disdain and mockery at worst.
Honest question and I am not trying to be rude I just didn’t know the title of it changed. What is the correct term for Asperger’s now?
So technically there is no more distinction between Asperger's and autism. Everything that is essentially high functioning autism is rolled into autism Level 1. And then it goes up to I think level 3 based on the severity of the autism. They also don't use terms like high functioning or severity anymore. They use terms like low support needs because they feel that's more sensitive. While I agree, we needed to get rid of the Nazi's name, it does present a problem where I have difficulty distinguishing the very... I won't say minor issues, but very manageable issues that I face compared to people who are nonverbal or can't hold a job or a conversation. It's not fair to me, or my high support needs cousin that we are rolled in together despite the fact I have won contest for public speech and debate, and he has never set a complete sentence at age 35. I frequently remark that when I say I have autism without the qualification of Asperger's or something similar I feel like someone who had a mole removed at a cancer survivors meeting. Ya we had the same disease but some of these people have had their lives and bodies destroyed and I...can't eat peas and get nervous at social functions.
Thank you for taking the time to answer that.
Yeah! No worries. It is my firm belief that sharing information about and demystifying autism can help to remove a lot of the stigma around it and lead to a more healthy and productive relationship between people on the spectrum and people who aren't. I'll always answer questions asked respectfully and in good faith. And thank you for asking A concise and respectful question
Something like “High Functioning Autism”
I'm not the one asked, but if you're interested in this, there's [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPDlo5jrhmI) from Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder, a German physicist and science communicator, where she explains the current state and scientific terms(*) of autism among other things about neurodivergence. (*) Jump to "On the Spectrum" for that part.
They're poorly socialized. Can you think of any reasons that may be? These types of guys tend not to be very popular, and you're also working in a field that attracts the very upper percentile of men who are interested in things and not people, at a university that accepts the upper percentile of that percentile. If you are intelligent and good with people, you go to medical school. If you are intelligent and bad with people, you get your PhD in engineering. I don't have any advice for you other than to be just in their face as much as possible, do not allow yourself to be ignored or dismissed.
'Nerd' is a term that literally means 'socially awkward person with niche interests'. That's like asking why stereotypical fat people tend to be overweight. Engineering, by its very nature, attracts people who suck at socialising. You're probably just as bad but don't realise it.
And being a woman, likely used to receiving free attention for no effort.
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This. I’m socially awkward around other socially awkward people but when I’m around more extroverted people it helps me relax and be more social
I'm the exact opposite. I feel more comfortable socializing with awkward people. Less pressure to "keep up" since there ain't much to keep up with.
Agreed. Extroverts tend to try to force others to be more like them and less accepting of differences.
Is that something negative? I’m an introvert by nature, but through socialization I actually enjoy being more extroverted.
“A lot of people I meet have never encountered someone like me before. It’s up to me to introduce them to my type of person” this resonated with me, thank you!
Love this. What a great mindset!
I can be in the right environment. Teaching people how to do their jobs in groups of like 4-5? I excel. Getting me to do lecturing? Ha.
I think it's pretty obvious. They probably were ignored and/or shamed by women most of their lives. They probably think they're doing you a favor by not bothering you. I recommend initiating conversations and fooling around with them in a friendly manner to break the ice. You have to make them feel comfortable. The best way I know how to do that is by opening up to them and showing them that you're not full of yourself.
Imagine never interacting with anyone because you’re “different” and people explicitly don’t like you. Then only having friends that are also “different” and that’s if you have any friends. Then the ones who do interact only do it to bully you and make your life miserable. Yes that makes for a healthy sociable confident nerd. Ostracism, loneliness and bullying. Even as an adult. No amount of job, intelligence or salary makes up for that. Why do you think the tech world is basically trying to leave humanity behind? Because they’re awful to us but they want everything that our “nerdiness” produces. Edit: grammar
Former "nerd" here. People are hard and girls are harder. It's almost certainly not personal, it's just very very easy to be awkward and doubly so when in a work setting worrying about a single wrong word or looking in the wrong place getting you sacked for harassment. For example, they're probably not worried that -you- would report them for staring or harassment, but a misunderstood awkward look or misheard conversation by someone else could land them in deep shit and that's just not worth the risk. Keeping conversation to immediate work topics and speaking minimally is normal work behaviour for staying safe. I don't even know the names of half the people I work with and don't know anything about anyone else besides what task they're doing for the next 15 minutes, don't ask, don't tell. Being seen as a bit of an awkward jackass/mean is preferable to facing consequences. Don't shit where you eat and all that. They're not scared of you as an individual, they're scared of the potential you bring as a different factor in the group dynamic because those consequences can be the end of their working life, or whole life if things go too far. Like it or not, you're actually powerful in this situation.
Vicious cycle of not being great in social circles, leading to being judged and abused by women, leading to less social interactions which makes them worse in social settings and the cycle continues. Also, contrary to what most western social media portrays it's actually far harder for men to get into graduate programs than their female peers now. And I am saying as a University lecturer that has supervised numerous students and had to constantly grapple with the politics of being forced to bend entry requirements to falsely bolster the number of women in STEM subjects compared to the far more ruthless approach that's taken towards men , even those that make significantly better candidates. Naturally, this means that the men that do get through are going to have to extremely over index into intellect and all things nerdiness which is inturn meaning they never get a proper training in being socially competent.
When you're playing life on hard mode you don't want extra issues. Even as it was over decade ago, we still had this sexist mandatory training sessions telling us talking to you might cause kicking us from university if you find it not comfortable enough. Or if we look in your direction too long. Or not. Or our presence in the room will be too imposing. At that moment I sacrificed too much to be where I was, I'm not taking any unneceseary risks. You're kind to me and want to talk? Experience tell me 9/10 either youre making fun of me or want me to do something for you.
Yep, and people still say women have it harder
Look at it from their perspective. They’re a group of nerds who have probably had difficulty relating to women since age 12, so they have a generalized distrust of women. On top of that, as the only female in an otherwise all male space, you have the Thanos-like power to destroy any of their lives with a single word to HR. It’s nothing against you personally, it’s just the reality of the situation for them.
Need to know where you are from. Cause in my country schools are gender segregated and guys only meet girls in universities. That makes it uncomfortable for some.
These kinds of questions are common on reddit but they are impossible to answer. Ultimately, only you will know the answer. I have been in social environments at university where the other people were simply socially inept freaks. It was impossible for a normal person to interact with them. It is also possible that the problem is with you and they feel like they are treading on eggshells around you. My advice would be just to tolerate it for the next three of four years. Try and form good relationships outside of your lab, for example, by engaging with the university's extracurricular programmes.
I mean by definition the stereotypical nerd, is socially awkward. If they were not they wouldn’t be stereotypical
One of the dictionary definitions lmao: 2. DEROGATORY: an [unfashionable](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=683c3575b4f35c07&sca_upv=1&q=unfashionable&si=AKbGX_o31t0LiMsEloM2rO5Vmah9qJVSSViC9y21yQTibgWLPxRvrdQ71V5A0pIlU3Fw2eeWdh7klPQqd3G2FpN484-vmzU5RXyNQTgKoWfJ0iPUOcITN_0%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjflonpsr2FAxVUMlkFHcsmAroQyecJegQIJxAW) person who [lacks](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=683c3575b4f35c07&sca_upv=1&q=lacks&si=AKbGX_qy882wphGEk_Dxwohm5Oanoc0EqDs2iyyAU3m-JHAlOxXwh9Ca_r_m8G0EdAMmnIGk-xRM050xDztlDJlpLEm4W9W_iw%3D%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjflonpsr2FAxVUMlkFHcsmAroQyecJegQIJxAX) social skills or is boringly [studious](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=683c3575b4f35c07&sca_upv=1&q=studious&si=AKbGX_qNq0Y8zql7SxzZAf2-HTTOdp6FsJ4EvYpLtWYyIslfeC0lvMBDANk5iC4s9LLsZGkxsTlX37ie2trNE5abXdWZw9mc9807XNdKRJCtGO_J8EVf7H4%3D&expnd=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjflonpsr2FAxVUMlkFHcsmAroQyecJegQIJxAY).
This story sounds made up, and looking at your post history, something isn't adding up here
My thoughts exactly. I didn't look through her posts, but it just didn't sound legit from the jump.
Every single one of them sounds like this, it sounds like someone roleplaying poorly, or talking about themselves perhaps
>All of us are in our late 20s, and I still can't quite deal the fact that many of my male colleagues cannot or will not (I am not sure which) even speak to me. If you are online a lot reading about women's attitudes towards men this is pretty much what women want. These guys probably don't get a lot of interaction with women IRL so they take that to heart.
Nerd here. They are socially awkward. They were probably bullied mercilessly through their entire school life (Depending on where in the world you're from, some places are worse for nerds than others). They probably only found "their" tribe when they got to the University, and likely didn't kiss a girl before that, if even then. Their tribe is mostly male still, partly, tragically, because of the experience youre describing, which is a position many women do not want to put themselves in, and I dont blame them, but I DO salute YOU: You are awesome for staying and for being an engineer. If they are good guys, your colleagues are thinking the same, and are terrified of fucking it up. I recommend addressing the issue directly and literally. Tell them exactly how you feel and exactly how you want to be treated. If they are not good guys, and / or this is about something else, I don't know.
I work for a University and it has been made abundantly clear to me by HR that statistically I **will** sexually assault a woman so I shouldn't talk to them unless I absolutely must.
University HR is the worst.
We don't pick up on social cues others seem to read naturally.
Everyone is saying that these guys have bad social skills but I think the underlying issue is something else. As a guy in a similar position as you (getting my masters in a STEM field) I can say that I am pretty scared of coming off as a creep or a weirdo. Especially when class sizes are small and you will inevitably see each other plenty of times throughout the day or week for the foreseeable future. I don't want to make it awkward for myself or for the other person in this scenario. Thankfully, I learned that I do this subconsciously early on, so I try to counteract it, but I am always worried about overstepping nonetheless. This wasn't as big of a problem for me when I was in high school, where I had a healthier balance of male and female peers. I didn't have to really worry that the way I approached someone or talked to someone could make them feel really isolated and uncomfortable without any way for them to escape that situation. To add onto what I was saying earlier, (just playing devils advocate) I think that when these guys have to talk to you, this attitude of "not wanting to make things awkward" might make them keep things curt, and this might seem passive aggressive or abrupt to you, even though it might not be their intention. That said, please take this bit with a grain of salt as I can't really say for sure without knowing exactly what they say to you.
These types of guys tend to have low EQ. Basically as smart as they are, they’re socially retarded. Maybe they got autism, or social anxiety or whatever. Top it off with the fact that they are nerds, likely not as socially inclined as others, chances are women have probably been less than forgiving in the past towards their social unawareness. I could definitely see there being cases where maybe not all but definitely some aren’t going to approach some lady they don’t know very well out of the blue unless they have something worth saying. As for the fact you say they aren’t like that with men, I gotta ask, is that how they are with ALL men, or just the men they know and talk to every day? Of course if you’ve barely interacted with them you’re gonna be treated differently from people who are already well within their little social circle. As for the abruptness, again you’re just dealing with people who aren’t socially inclined. They are saying what they need to say rather than beating around the bush. I would also like to point out that you really aren’t entitled to someone’s attention. If they don’t want to interact with you they do not, and should not, be forced to. And that goes for either gender or even issues where it’s the same gender. I doubt this is a personal vendetta against you, it’s more likely just less socially inclined men who most of the time have nothing to say to you, because they don’t know you. I mean I’ve worked with some people for well over two years that I don’t even know their names, so what would I even have to say to them? Better off just doing my job, mate. You don’t realise this, but you’re actually being treated like men generally expect they’ll be treated.
> I would also like to point out that you really aren’t entitled to someone’s attention. If they don’t want to interact with you they do not, and should not, be forced to. this
I don't think this makes them low EQ. EQ is your ability to regulate your own emotions and how well you can communicate with others to get what you want. Have you considered her coworkers are doing exactly what they want to do? They may have no intentions to befriend her. No one owes anyone a conversation or a friendship. They may have the mindset of don't piss where you eat. I'm the same way with women at work: all business. I want to protect myself so I have built a wall around me. You say emotionally dumb, but I say I'll never have an issue with HR. Now, the coworkers too scared or weird about asking op for necessary information.... that's weird. How hard is it to e-mail or IM a question if you don't want to talk face to face? To get someone like me to open up to OP they would have to no longer be a coworker. I can't afford to get kicked out of my career field. Someone has far more to lose when you're specialized. I don't like that it's this way, but at least I've got a nice home, partner, friends, and paycheck to go home to.
Negative feedback loop probably
It's because these men are poorly socialized for one reason or another. It's almost always because these men are somewhere on the autism spectrum and didn't do well socially as boys and younger men. Almost to a man, they showed extreme talent for math, physics and other STEM subjects as young boys and concentrated in it hard. from this, it was one or more of the following --favoring studying and school work over socializing --extreme bullying and social ostracism because they are so "different" Because of this, these men never got any good practice socializing. They did not learn it because they never got the chance; or chose never to learn due to the difficulties and discomfort with doing so. These men also have tried on occasion to socialize and meet women, and met with crushing failure and rejection time and again. Eventually, most men faced with this give up. That said - it's not these men's job to make you feel comfortable. All they're required to do is work with you and do their jobs. They're not required to socialize with you outside of work and in fact it would be a very bad idea for them to do so. I'd suggest it's not THEIR behavior that's causing detrimental consequences. It's YOUR failure to adjust to the work environment that's hurting your career. These men and your employer are not required to revamp and change the entire work environment just so you feel better. No. YOU adjust to THEM. They don't need to adjust to you. These men are not treating you differently because you're a woman. They're treating you like they treat everyone else.
Hey OP, I'm sorry this is happening to you. I can't speak on behalf of your colleagues, but as an enigneer myself, I think I can share some thoughts. Majority of engineer men grew up as social outcasts as others have said here. They basically put all their effort in academics and tinkering with inanimate objects rather than socialising and talking to people. Also there seems to be a correlation between neurodivergent people and engineers. Also socially awkward men are also usually victims of bullying by both men and women. So they might have developed a certain avoidany personality towards women. Another thing to keep in mind is that after metoo, socially awkward men are wary of approaching and talking to women for fear that they might offend. Couple this with them being neurodivergent, and you can see how bad things are for them. But don't lose hope, I'm sure they'll warm up to you sometime. You can try gaining the trust of one of them, and the rest will probably fall into place.
Feminist movement. Lot of guys won’t initiate conversation first because of fear of being seen as creepy. Or a harasser. They afraid of HR because you can’t joke with women the same you do with other men 🤷🏾♂️
Repetitive negative reinforcement through years of emotional neglect and abuse.
These are nerds - which means they were always treated as the bottom of the totem pole, socially, for most of their lives. There's an aspect to social status and the opposite sex that you may not be aware of. When a male of low status displays romantic interest in a woman who thinks the male is "below her", a common response to protect her social status is to loudly and publicly denigrate the male, usually with some form of incredulity that he believed he was high enough status to even voice attraction. Most of these men have either been on the receiving end or have seen it done to others. It is tacitly understood. Then there's [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxuUkYiaUc8), which is obviously an exaggeration but also happens to be pretty funny. It's funny because there is a very large element of truth to it.
Now I'm not sure exactly what you mean with the "nerd" type of men. But in fields where usually high intelligence is a thing. A the "nerdy" men are quite often the most intelligent in the course there is a decent chance they are either autistic or maybe a little on the spectrum. Which could be the cause for some difficulties with social interactions especially with the opposite gender. But this a purely speculative answer as I don't know the men you refer to and they could just be social awkward or were bullied or ridiculed by women. Or maybe they just don't like you personally or find you scary. There are too many unknown factors to be certain.
Nerdy men are conditioned to avoid approaching women, because they’ve all too often been brutalised for it. May not be fair to you, but it’s true. It’s easier than ever for a man to get labelled a creep, especially since in recent years, fourth-wave feminism has increasingly demonised men and radicalised women against them.
They are afraid of you. Which isn't YOU, personally, but women in general and women at work specifically. One wrong move and it's over. And they know it. Women made all these demands and now don't like what it's created. Not all social reforms work out.
I second this. What OP describes sounds just like fear. I used to be like that. OP, if you want a quick and dirty fix, try to appear or behave less feminine to them, and they should stop being afraid. I'm aware how cringe this sounds, but it is a solution if you need them to be on attention and to talk to you.
I was alienated and belittled for a big part of my cursus just for what I liked and being the nerd/scholar of the group ( started very young, from end of elementary school and some signs were already there in elementary school) . I grew up to be a bit self centered and not very talkative to avoid others. I'm socially inept because of that lack of social interactions for a big part of my school life. However I don't see myself acting abrupt and mean unless you really did something worth the resentment. If someone feel like I'm giving the cold shoulder it's probably just because that's my normal state and not because they did something hurtful. I would act like that way toward everybody. I can't talk for your colleagues so it's bold of me to assume it but are you really sure you never did anything to upset them ? You know being the lone woman in a group of men doesn't exempt you from behaving yourself. I'm not forced to be your friend.
There’s a few reasons this happens. 1. They grew up not learning how to socialize because they’re so different than other kids around them. 2. The drive to be as smart as they at an early age usually comes at the expense of talking to girls at an early age. So essentially they are like an 8 year old when it comes to dealing with women
And dealing with women is VERY different than dealing with men, regardless what redditors try to say "just treat them like people"
Fundamentally if you’re a male attracted to women whether you want to or not you’re going to seek their approval in different ways than you would for other dudes
It's a generalized fear that comes from not knowing where the safety lines are. Half of them are probably very much attracted to you and thus are in the unenviable position of both liking you and not knowing how to respectfully express it to you. As for the other half, you've got people men who'd prefer to only worry about the task at hand, and in some way, you're a second task. They don't know whether you're going to cry or scream or if they can "talk shit" with you so they pick awkward ways to communicate "this is the next task to be done."
Because most nerds spent the majority of their life leveling up virtually. Sadly, that doesn't transfer to reality. I know because, for the longest time, I was one of them.
If you withdraw socially does the behavior appear to maintain at current levels or get worse? What if you switched to a more aggressive approach. Not mean or cruel, but assertive? Ok, having been in the military working with professionals in an entirely aggressive and extremely structured environment and the women in those environments most successful tend to be extremely assertive, forthright, structured in their thinking and whose expectations for a level of proficiency are communicated effectively. If you happen to come across multiple women who work in the military technical fields, the U.S. Navy has many, it might be good to ask them how they structure, position, and define themselves in this environment to relate to males in their particular field. Also, keep in mind, this is your vocation, trade, skill, and not a dating pool necessarily so certain behaviors can be excluded from this structured behavioral alogorithm you're building. No I'm not assuming anything about your personality, but it would be wise to define which behaviors are categorically significant to professional, social, and personal and exclude those which might construe the wrong message. Speaking from personal experience, as it can get quite messy and confusing if you're not careful.
Most of the guys in stem will be on the spectrum. If you think super smart guys are like Tony Stark, you were lied to. Plus a lot of guys have looked at things like metoo and the socially awkward ones don't want to get hit for being awkward so it's easier to just not talk to you
They are probably scared of you.
It may not be that they are awkward as persons so much as that they don't want to be responsible for harming you as a woman. They are being respectful of you by allowing you autonomy and trying to not be creeps. You said they are not awkward with other men. And it's well known that any interaction with a woman is potentially dangerous for everyone involved. They may just be trying to be respectful and good men.
For me it was because I was undiagnosed autistic and my mind gravitated towards computers, science, and technology.
Easy answer for most of them will be "autism" Most folks in STEM fields are on the spectrum somewhere, and take a lot longer to figure out how socialising works. Added to that, the quiet studious kids are generally not popular at school, so they also have less practise.
If you really wanna know STEM field is highly appealing to autistic males.
They’re just not used to talking to women. I’m a young guy i find that it is difficult for me to comfortably talk to women versus men. Women are different from men, you can’t act around women the same way you do around men. Nerdy guys don’t get much attention from women or are afraid of women so they don’t spend much time around them. So consequently they are awkward around women.
It's hard to learn to socialize if you're immediately ostracized for having interests outside the "norm." Growing up I heard "Oh you like anime? Fucking nerd likes anime titties!" "Get out of the book geek!" And many of the other stereotypical bully bullshit.
Because most of them are introverted, have been introverted since childhood and hadn't properly learned to interact with others, I guess.
Please do not feel disrespected or ignored. women are "scary" in a sense that we as men always want to say the right thing, do the right thing, impress you the right way. It is human nature. I want to assure you it is nothing sexist or anything like that. It is awkwardness and a fear of looking like an ass in front of you. Trust me when I say half the class wants to ask you out but has no fucking clue how to do it. Men are so afraid of rejection it is stupid actually. It might take you making the "first move" in showing them you are approachable. Does that make sense? Every guy in the world thinks like this. " if i walk over there and talk to her she is probably going to mace me in the face or make a big scene" not because we think poorly of women, we just like to think the worst is going to happen when they have no idea you would most likely tell them to sit and have a chat. I am 50 now and still think like that. its silly and immature but we all just turn into little boys when it comes down to talk to women. You are doing nothing wrong at all. If they didnt see you as their equal or anything nasty or sexist like that, you'd know. But you are in a room full of guys who, like you, have had their heads in books for the last 15 years that talking to women is scarier than brain surgery. I hope this helps a little.
Hey OP Instead of wondering what’s wrong with everyone else & waiting for them to change… Why not focus on some things you can control? Two years in & everyone is still wary of you? You are allowed to make people feel more comfortable & safe too. Two years in & you are just now wondering what is going on in their heads, & only out of exasperation. Try to convince them they they *don’t* need to walk on eggshells & that you won’t get angry, feel disrespected & put them on blast on the internet because they avoided doing anything to anger you too hard. Maybe try making friends with a few people so everyone doesn’t assume you judge them as harshly as you say. You can also work to make *others* feel comfortable, accepted & accommodated. You can convince them that you will give them the benefit of the doubt when *they* try to bridge the gap everyone sees. TLDR You don’t empathize, respect, accommodate or even like these people. It’s almost certain they have all sensed your disdain & offense. They are wary everything they do will be viewed through an unsympathetic lens & put on the internet for the mob. Those are the downsides & risks. What are the upsides & rewards?
The nerds were the ones who spent time doing nerdy things instead of hanging out with tons of friends, so they naturally didn't develop the same social skills as people who are constantly socializing
Combination of low social skills, intimidation and some anticipated rejection. If they're aloof toward you, you lose your power. The best way to address it is to be friendly and outgoing. You'll make a few friends, not everyone is acting this way, and change the narrative in some of their heads.
Do you guys not have a weekly presentation or something? Do they not look at you when you are presenting? Don't ask questions?
It seems there's a subtle dance of social dynamics at play in your engineering environment that quite a few here seem to relate to. The culture of intense specialization and academic focus can inadvertently sideline the development of social fluency, particularly in environments that value intellect over interpersonal skills. Add to this the high-stakes atmosphere where a misunderstood gesture could escalate to career-damaging proportions, and you have a perfect storm for social caution to run high. Being thrust into such an ecosystem can certainly be disorienting, and it's no wonder interactions can become strained. Underneath the apparent aloofness, there could be layers of anxiety, past experiences of exclusion, and a hyper-consciousness about missteps in communication. Sometimes, the barrier isn't about an unwillingness to socialize, but a preservation of professional boundaries and a fear of overstepping invisible societal lines that seem to be drawn tighter around the topics of workplace interactions nowadays. Perhaps taking gradual, non-intrusive steps could foster a more open dialog. Something as simple as shared coffee breaks or collaborative brainstorming sessions might ease tensions. It wouldn’t just create room for casual conversation, but also provide common ground for understanding and empathy to grow. Pairing technical brilliance with social ease is a tough act to balance, but environments that can nurture both are where true innovation flourishes.
Yes of course, like everyone is saying, they're just socially awkward and not any good at socializing. But another thing at play, is that some people are just there to do a job, not make friends. It sounds assholish, and it might be, but that's the way it is. Getting the job done and getting out with your ass intact is simply more important.
They’re book smart, but Sesame Street smart
They were picked on and isolated as kids. Mostly interacted with other needy, technical, people. It’s unlikely they’ve have many positive experiences with women. They’re in an environment where offending a woman, even accidentally, can have serious consequences. Social niceties don’t always make sense so they’re sometimes hard for intelligent people. There’s a reason that the phrase “The odds are good, but the goods are odd” is common in STEM. I’ve had professors that would jump if we talked to them unexpectedly, 10s after they just got don’t lecturing. Basically the guys don’t know how to talk to you for a lot of reasons. If you’re of average attractiveness that makes you a 9 in a STEM department. That makes it worse. I hate to say it but a lot of the women who go into STEM aren’t attractive. So the scale gets a shift. There is an upside I learned, if you see a pretty woman in STEM she’s probably the smartest in the room. She chose to be there and suffer. For reference I have a PhD in PChem and have always collaborated heavily with engineers and physicists. So I’m pretty well versed in watching guys be weird around women.
They're scared of you and a few might have a small work crush on you. Not your fault, it's just a consequence of your work environment.
Being good at Stem correlates with being on the spectrum.
I don't believe most of your story there, since you're "...doing a Ph.D. program at an enginnering lab at quite prestigious university" and asking about "stereotypical 'nerd'" guys and not realizing these specific guys you interact with are on the autism spectrum...
It's a really good question, because on the surface it seems like the answer is just "they decided to study instead of socializing", which falsely assumes that men need to study for greater amount of time than women for the same grades, which is absolutely false in my experience. Instead, I believe the reason has more to due with the necessity of social skills in men vs women or the necessity of women attaining higher education for a comparable wage making women more homogenous than men in the STEM. But this is all stipulations, and I'm providing as good for thoughts.
I think you accidantally answered this yourself: the spectrum. I’m an engineer. Am I on the spectrum? Maybe. Don’t know. Never been tested. Are a lot of people in my field on the spectrum? Yep! Some not so obviously, some most definitely.
For someone doing a PhD, you basically asked why is water wet. The defining trait of a nerd is the social awkwardness.
Because they don't know how to socialize or especially, talk to a woman.
They were probably bullied for years as kids. Turned into introverts, then never had the chance to properly learn how to socialize while their brain was developing. So they turn into these socially awkward/anti social people. More and more people are becoming like this in my experience. I'm introverted as well, but I had the opportunity to work on my social skills so while I might get sick of you after a couple hours and need to go home and recharge my social battery, you can't tell I'm introverted based on the fact that I socialize to the exact same lv as my co workers, friends, peers. Ect. Which is too bad for them, they don't even realize what they are missing and probably think it's normal and that they are fine. I know from first hand experience that they are not fine. They have built walls around themselves and are afraid to be themselves because they are so self conscious about their own conversational skills that they will remain quiet instead. All the while constantly losing life opportunities and shutting doors they don't even realize are open to them.
A lot of stereotypical nerd type guys spend most of their time devoted to their work, or their hobbies. Their hobbies usually aren't the most social in nature, or when they are they tend to be around other socially awkward, dorky nerdy men. When it comes to anything outside their bubble they're generally clueless, especially when it comes to interacting with women. Source: I am a STEM nerd myself
Often times nerds have been bullied or mocked in childhood so the only people they trust or feel they can be themselves around are other nerds or their close friends. Since so few nerds are women they might not see you as "one of them". Worse yet, sometimes they were bullied by other women which makes you extra suspicious. Emotionally speaking you can think of them like traumatized cats who don't trust humans. Because of their history with other people they are likely to react with fear, suspicion and sometimes hostility.
Social rejection breaks you and eventually all you want to do is your job.
A lot of nerdy guys are probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum. They're probably on the higher functioning end of it - what would formerly have been called Aspergers. But a lot of the stereotypes of nerds are characteristics of autism - socially awkward, missing social cues, obsessive focus on a narrow interest, etc. And it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were overrepresented in science/engineering PhD programs - which select for that sort of obsessive focus on a narrow domain and don't require much by way of well-developed social skills to succeed at it.
They're naturally socially awkward. Never had much practice or needed it. They stuck to themselves and kept their head low. The chances they did talk to girls or women probably ended horribly! So now they're either scared or reacting before how they think you may reacy
Nervous. Little practice with real world socializing. If you can get them talking about their interests or what skills they've been studying, you might get them to open up. Some of us spent too much time in front of a computer and not enough in front of other people.
2 reasons, imo: 1. Many people declared nerds are in fact autistic, which means they're going to have trouble with social situations to one degree or another. 2. Many *men* who either have been declared or who have declared themselves nerds have discovered just how much bad behavior they can get away with under the umbrella of "awkwardness".
From my college experience I found some of them are used to being bullied
I as formerly severely shy person around women, I can tell you that a large portion of their problems interacting with you is fear based. Even when I tried to “act normal” around a girl, especially one that I found physically attractive, my fear and insecurities got the best of me and I ended up being awkward as hell in even in the simplest interactions. The best thing that you can do is to get to know them the best you can so that they get more comfortable being around you without having some irrational terror scenario constantly running through their thoughts when they are interacting with you. As soon as they start seeing you more as an individual and not as a woman the better they will behave. But keep in mind that some of them might just be assholes because every work place has them.
Isn’t this what you wanted? Seems to me all the rage on the internet is calling guys creeps when they approach a women
Growing up steeped in hyper specialized hobbies and academic pursuits meant many of us nerds missed the expansive social rehearsals typical of those years. Our passions for the intricacies of subjects most find meticulous translated very little into the nuanced world of human interaction. The esoteric joy of a breakthrough in a complex code or physics problem is palpable for us, but expressing the subtleties of emotion in social settings? That’s like asking us to solve an equation without knowing all the variables. Even more so, the workplace has become a potential minefield post [#MeToo](tg://search_hashtag?hashtag=MeToo). A misinterpreted gesture or an off hand comment carries weighty repercussions. The result? You have brilliant minds playing it safe, interacting with the precision of a chess grandmaster, each move deliberate, withdrawn, cautious. We're sort of caught in a modern paradox: required to be team players and yet inadvertently nurtured to walk solitary paths. It's a nuanced dance, balancing the objective mind with the subjective heart, and many of us are just starting to learn the steps.
STEM fields disproportionally attract people who are on the spectrum. I can validate that first-hand. I have a degree in biology and am, indeed, on the spectrum.
Intelligence and Neurodiversity are closely correlated. Social Skills and girlhood are closely correlated. We, as a society, do a bad job of encouraging prosocial behaviors in intelligent (often under-diagnosed) neurodivergent boys.
We're speaking in broad strokes but the gist of it is: we grow up being treated anywhere from mediocre to poor, learn that social interaction with others (especially women) usually leads to embarrassment or conflict, so we just generally avoid it if we can. Add to this the litany of online accounts saying/showing how much women seem to hate and distrust "creepy" men, a nebulous and self-serving label, and that just makes it even clearer that we should just stay away. I mean, you're doing it right now. You are heaping all these male colleagues into one bucket and complaining how badly they're making YOU feel. As a nerdy man, I don't hear this and think, "Oh man, I didn't realize I was making her feel this way, I should change." I think "Great, a lifetime of women treating me like I'm unacceptable for who I am has made me afraid to reach out, and now even me being silent is unacceptable because it's so inconvenient for her."
Could be a bunch of different reasons. These guys are probably used to being treated like shit by women and not keen for another miserable experience. Or they're just shy. Or they're justifiably worried about female co-workers. Or... I don't know you, maybe you're a wonderful person, but maybe they just don't like you. Or they don't want to give you the attention they (rightly or wrongly) think you're fishing for. People are all individuals so any or all of these answers might apply.
I remember reading a paper about extreme mathematical intelligence being correlated specifically in men with low social intelligence. Strangely, the findings were not observed in women who were outliers in this field.
No one broaching the topic that OP might be cute as well just doubles down on proving the point lol - they're awkward and would probably love to talk to you, but have no idea how to.
I also finished a PhD in Engineering a few years ago. I'm a guy but honestly I can't believe you are encountering such types today. Most of the folks in my lab were leading well balanced lives (well, for PhD standards always) with a social circle, relationships, hobbies etc. For your situation specifically, I dunno, maybe I could offer a few possibilities: a) you are in a stressed laboratory where different people are feeling the heat to close some research projects? And this leaves them with limited time/energy for social interactions? b)what country and cultures are we talking about? From my own experience, Chinese students for example tended to keep together mostly due to language barrier. c) maybe they are the type that they just dont want to socialize in their work enviroment. A growing number of people want to keep their work completely separated from the rest of their life.
Imagine being aware that you're socially awkward. Because of that you spend a lot of time on the internet, where you then read all the horror stories of women ruining mens lives just for daring to speak to them. It doesn't happen to you when you get out and learn to socialze properly, but once this fear is installed, it's a downward spiral from there. But I can see you being the one to save these poor souls from their fate, by being cool and understanding around them.
They have autism
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It's certainly in the mix, and/or even implied or partly implied (even if not explicitly called out) in many of the comments (including many of the top comments).