Hot Engineers

Yeah. Oxymoron, right?

(To my male engineering friends: lookout. This blog entry will make you blush.)

The story: so I was in the women's restroom during a wedding reception this summer, and as usual, the women were chattin' it up about the men attending the wedding. To my amazement, one of the women goes, "Oooo, [he] is sooo HAWT. Don't you just LOOOOVE engineers?" Another one of the women agreed heartily, saying, "An engineer has stolen my heart too... I think it's just soooo cute how nerdy they are!!"

At this point, my initial thoughts were to react in one of the following ways:
1) Smile and say "Yes, thank you. We ARE very cute when we're nerdy."
2) Turn back into the stall and hurl.

Don't worry - I didn't say anything. I was still pretty flabbergasted. (In case you were wondering, these were a bunch of non-Case women, most likely lib arts majors, talking about a few Case guys.)

Then as I was walking out, a funny thought hit me: you know, I'm sure this is NOT the conversation that men have in their bathroom... i.e., "Oh my gosh, girl engineers are HAWT."

Haha! Maybe we should have put THAT into the C-A-S-E song!

Here's the thing. It is really hard for me to understand the fascination women have with male engineers. I guess it's because I grew up with a mom who is an engineer and it was never really a big deal. But I suppose that male engineers hold many attractive qualities for women: they fix stuff, buy you stuff, make a lot of money so you can buy more stuff... and I guess they seem smart.

The other thing is that I'm fairly independent. (Was that not the understatement of the century??) I have always been an independent thinker, and I have always made it a point to be able to have my own job, make my own money, and support myself. I have never been a big fan of depending on anyone for such things. So I guess I still have a hard time trying to figure out why it is that women feel it necessary to latch on to a man...

[As a side note, I doubt these women share the same respect and intrigue for women in engineering! Did we attend the same engineering classes as the men? Yes. Did we get the same grades as the men? Yes, and in some cases we did better than the men did. Did we work as hard as the men? You bet. So ladies... explain to me again how nerdy guys are cute but nerdy girls are weird? It's no wonder you're not in engineering - you have no logic. BURN! I'm not knocking you for your degree - I'm just asking for a little respect for the women who choose to do engineering. But that's for another blog entry. I digress.]

My cousin made an interesting point about men in engineering once too. He said something to the effect of this: "Men in engineering are very simple-minded and thus they are sincere about their relationships. The majority of them are very much devoted to their significant others and will not cheat on them. The same can't really be said about men in other professions." (For the record, my cousin is an EE.)

He's got a pretty good point - all of my male engineering friends are very dedicated to their girlfriends/wives. That's not to say that any relationship with an engineer is perfect, but it does have the perk of being stable in the sense that the engineer is not as likely to try and rock the boat.

To be honest, I have been so used to going to school with engineers that I didn't really think anything of it. However, after having to work with so many doctors and spending countless hours being subjected to the chauvinism and the womanizing, I am beginning to treasure my friendships with other engineers even more. Obviously, I didn't go into engineering to find a husband (although I know many women who did...), but if I ever do get married, chances are my husband will be an engineer. So kudos to you guys for taking your relationships so seriously - I applaud that and respect you guys for it.

Now, if only men found female nerds as attractive... :-)