A Geek Girl’s Guide to Valentine Gifts

As I mentioned before, I don’t make a huge deal of Valentine’s day, preferring to celebrate our own anniversaries and relationship events, more than a general event for people who happen to be romantically involved. Even so, on one of my previous posts I complained about the stupid differences between the technology (and other) lists of gifts for Valentine’s there were, between gifts ‘for him’, and gifts ‘for her’, because, well, they are pretty idiotic.

It wasn’t just intended as criticism, but also as an attempt to clarify that a lot of these lists are very retarded, and far away from the truth for a lot of women. This is, however, written in my point of view, so obviously what I mention here may vary from person to person, because we’re not all the same.

As such, and before I start making the list(s), I will clarify, that I believe most women would be happy if you would cook them a yummy dinner, made a nice dessert, got her a flower or two, and surprised her with a romantic candlelight dinner at home. In my view, that shows that you care a lot more than hundreds of euros worth of gifts, or going to an amazingly expensive restaurant does. (Note that this does not apply if you’re dating Miss Shallow, in which case you will have to sell your internal organs to be able to afford to buy her everything she wants. :p) Though I’ve tried keeping in mind more affordable gifts, this list has gifts with a wide range of prices.

So, let’s move on to this geek girl’s guide to Valentine’s gifts for geeky girls. Read the rest of the post after the break.

First of all, an easy way for you to give her something she actually wants is asking her. Unless you want/need it to be a huge surprise, or already have a 100% certainty that you got her something she’ll like, just ask her. Note that in most cases I’m not indicating a specific item, but a type of item, not just because I’m not sponsored, but because I’m lazy and would prefer skipping the whole browsing Google for hours to find products.

I’m assuming here that you have some knowledge about what kind of thing she likes and doesn’t like.

Books/Comics

There’s a hype surrounding vampires going on ( No, I won’t be recommending Twilight. ), and if she likes that kind of thing and still does not own a Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you might want to consider that. It’s a love story, it has proper vampires (the vampire, in fact), and it’s a classic. If your geek girl is anything like me, she likes the more old-fashioned vampires, and has developed allergy to the new shines-in-daylight-and-is-sort-of-a-vegetarian vampires. Another option is Fevre Dream, which doesn’t have a love story in it, but since it’s a less known vampire novel, she probably doesn’t own already.

If she likes fantasy, and is not horribly impressed with violence, and likes a good story, I recommend George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, or, if she stays away from brutality, Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy. If she’s into more ‘pew pew’ fantasy, Dragonlance’s Chronicles trilogy (there’s probably a box set somewhere) is an option. I won’t recommend The Lord of the Rings here because there are hardly any women to relate to there, and at least I find that very unappealing and couldn’t go past one third of Fellowship of the Ring.

Science Fiction-wise, she might like Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama, or, my favourite of his (and less known) Songs of a Distant Earth. If she’s a Star Wars fan, I’d recommend Timothy Zahn’s The Empire Trilogy, which has a couple of very strong and hardly helpless female characters – Princess Leia, and Mara Jade. If she’s into Star Trek, I recommend Peter David’s Star Trek: New Frontier series – humoristic, cool characters ( Soleta rocks \m/ ), and it pretty much stands alone from most Star Trek events, so she doesn’t need to have watched the whole thing to know what they’re talking about there.

Comics-wise, I’d recommend Brian K. Vaughan’s Y: The Last Man series because it’s made of awesome and doesn’t fall into the superhero thing. If she does like superheroes but is tired of the regular stuff, Runaways Volume 1 might be a cool choise.

Movies/Series

Several options here, as always, depending on what she might like.

The original Star Wars trilogy on DVD, if she doesn’t own it.

If she’s a trekkie, you might prefer giving her a boxed set of Star Trek movies, or her favourite Trek show in a box set.

The complete Buffy boxed set. I own one of these, which I bought as a gift for myself because I loved the show, and I’ve watched a lot of it more than once. There’s also the Angel series boxed set, that she might like if she’s an Angel fan (or of David Boreanaz, heh… -ahem-).

Bram Stoker’s Dracula – for all the reasons stated on the book section.

Blade Runner because it’s one of the best scifi classics.

Other cool shows for geeks would be Bones, and Fringe, despite not being ‘too geeky’. There are a million different shows and movies to chose from.

Music

Musical taste is probably what varies the most, so I won’t give specific bang names. If you want to give her something musical, find out what she likes, what she still doesn’t own, and get her that.

If you want a more original option, and you’re set on going for the musical gift, a nice music box might be a cool gift. Preferably one themed after some geeky universe that she’s really into, or a pretty one which plays one of her favourite songs. I couldn’t find one example for this, but I’m sure there are some around.

Technology

Does she own a game console or a PC? You might want to like to ask her what game she might like for it. The other option is, since there are more and more sequels to games these days, to get her a sequel to a game she loved (check the reviews for it, though, since some sequels may have quality issues), and surprise her in the process.

If she doesn’t own a game console, but has shown interest in one, there are a ton of console+games bundles around. You just have to figure out which one suits her best on your own.

In case she needs a new cellphone or is tired of her current one, she might like one. You might prefer staying away from the many not-that-great pink phones that show up around this time, since a lot of women don’t like pink. Figure out what specs suit her needs better, and get her one that looks good and has those specs. If there’s such a phone in her favourite colour, go for it.

If she needs a PC or a laptop. Analyze what she needs it for: is she wanting portability above all? Get her a netbook. There are several models to choose from, in various colours. Same advice as the one I gave for the cellphone colour here. And if in doubt, ask her. If she’s looking for a computer for other reasons, you should make the best choice for her needs. Which may be tricky, okay, but I’m not going to advice on specific gaming computers, or ‘just-for-chatting-and-browsing’ computers. Do some investigation and decide based on that.

If she’s into photography, you might want to give her a digital camera. Depending on how nerdy she is about it, you can either give her a DSLR, where she can change the lenses and such, or a compact that’s not as good as a DSLR, but almost, and doesn’t have some of the hassles of the DSLR cameras (for instance, since I’m not the most patient person in the universe, the later  option would apply better), like the G11, or the L3X.

There’s also geeky jewelry to chose from, if she likes to wear that kind of thing, or geeky t-shirts/other clothing items, and a million other choices, but that concludes a list with many different possibilities that may serve as a reference for you guys (or girls) dating a geeky girl.

Mostly because I can’t be arsed thinking of more stuff.

Oh, and because not every list is poorly made, check out this list over at Wired – 10 Ways to a Geeky Girl’s Heart. Some nice ideas in there.