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> I hate to be that guy, but seriously? I have never witnessed this kind of behavior before. In fact, from my experience at Cal, all of the student groups are a

> I hate to be that guy, but seriously? I have never witnessed this kind of behavior before. In fact, from my experience at Cal, all of the student groups are absolutely desperate for anyone to join, let alone a girl! Alright, I'm a dude, but I think I can say a few things on this. Here's my biases: I train for and play sports for fun, I've never played D&D, I don't watch or read sci-fi, and I don't really play video games (and if I do, they're sports games). In my college CS department, I was definitely not invited to anything that any of the other students were doing. I'm not saying I wanted to be, but probably greater than 90% of my CS classmates were in the D&D sci-fi crowd. I think you underestimate the intimidation factor; I truly don't think that I was mean or overbearing to them, and we worked together just fine on projects, but we all kind of believed implicitly that we belonged to different speheres. I suspect that a similar dynamic is often at work when women interact with that kind of group. (edited to add: except the Jordanians! I forgot, we had a small group of Jordanians in the group that I got along with great, they taught me to smoke houkah and we watched soccer together. They weren't involved with the CS kids either.)

nzmsv 17y ago
It's kind of eerie to read this. What you've described is exactly how the nerds felt in your high school. When they got to college, they found a social group that would accept them without them having to pretend to like the things they don't care about. Apparently that's a bad thing.
- btilly 17y ago
  It is only a bad thing when they become exclusive about it. And that is bad for all the same reasons that the way they were treated in high school is bad. Speaking personally I grew up without a TV, get motion sick if I play first person shooters, and don't like sushi. Despite being a stereotypical geek in many ways I can't count the times when I've felt excluded by the fact that I don't know Monty Python inside out, have avoided most games produced in the last 15 years, and don't want to eat at certain restaurants. I can only imagine how much worse it can be if I didn't catch and appreciate other geek references.
- llimllib 17y ago
  who said that's a bad thing? All I tried to say is that it's possible to both be actively looking for members and simultaneously rejecting them at the same time; possibly without even realizing it. So even when you think you're being inclusive, you might be exhibiting in-group behavior that's offputting to others. I suspect that often girls in CS are effected by this. If you read me as implying judgement, I apologize, I did not intend that. (Also, your implication that I was not a nerd and/or cool in high school is way off. But that's cool.)

nzmsv 17y ago

It's kind of eerie to read this. What you've described is exactly how the nerds felt in your high school. When they got to college, they found a social group that would accept them without them having to pretend to like the things they don't care about. Apparently that's a bad thing.

btilly 17y ago
It is only a bad thing when they become exclusive about it. And that is bad for all the same reasons that the way they were treated in high school is bad. Speaking personally I grew up without a TV, get motion sick if I play first person shooters, and don't like sushi. Despite being a stereotypical geek in many ways I can't count the times when I've felt excluded by the fact that I don't know Monty Python inside out, have avoided most games produced in the last 15 years, and don't want to eat at certain restaurants. I can only imagine how much worse it can be if I didn't catch and appreciate other geek references.
llimllib 17y ago
who said that's a bad thing? All I tried to say is that it's possible to both be actively looking for members and simultaneously rejecting them at the same time; possibly without even realizing it. So even when you think you're being inclusive, you might be exhibiting in-group behavior that's offputting to others. I suspect that often girls in CS are effected by this. If you read me as implying judgement, I apologize, I did not intend that. (Also, your implication that I was not a nerd and/or cool in high school is way off. But that's cool.)