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I once dated a lovely beautiful nerdy funny intelligent successful software engineer. Our first five dates were awesome. So much agreement and joy and commonal

I once dated a lovely beautiful nerdy funny intelligent successful software engineer. Our first five dates were awesome. So much agreement and joy and commonality. Instant connection and camaraderie. Further on we realized we didn't bring enough to relationship. We didn't want the"gender I'm attracted version of myself". We each wanted somebody to bring new perspectives, challenge us in ways that work and nerdy friends don't, to talk about not work after work, or at least different work, etc. Ultimately even somebody to disagree with us. After a few similar experiences, it's not that I ever actively avoided a software engineer partner, it's just that they never seemed to last long. Love of my life is English major with career in retail and home depot / Canadian tire store manager. She brings softer , more emotionally intelligent, people oriented side to our family. I'm the annoying pedantic literal obsessive nerdy one :-D. Works well! Edit : All of my close developer friends are similarly married to arts major types. Interestingly, I now realize, great many of my acquaintance developer friends have nerdy or techu partners. Wonder what variables are at place but definitely to each their own!

InitialLastName 5y ago
I'm in the same boat; my household is certainly much more resilient and effective with a technically-focused, detail-oriented engineer and an emotionally intelligent human-oriented teacher in it than it would be with two of me (we certainly have better relationships with our neighbors and community this way, at the very least).
leetcrew 5y ago
I had a similar experience dating someone in the field, though it went on a bit longer. for me it was just kinda rough to come home from a day of working on software to talk to my SO about their problems with software. great person, but it was an exhausting relationship. on the other hand, most of my friends also do software stuff and we enjoy complaining to each other about work. I guess maybe the difference is you can say "not now" to a friend more easily than a partner.
- Seattle3503 5y ago
  I'm in this situation now. I'll have a bad day, then my partner comes home and dumps her bad day on top of mine. I don't know to handle it, because if I ask her to stop she sulks. It means I don't care about her bad day.
  - throwaway134z88 5y ago
    FWIW my wife is not in software (urban planner) and when she has a bad day at work it is draining and tough. It has nothing to do with working in the same industry. It is just hard work to be there for your partner and support them. Good luck.
  - NikolaNovak 5y ago
    Oh, THAT part has little to do with profession; my spouse's and my jobs were completely different (or so we thought!), but if your relationship works and you are "each other's 'person'", ranting about work is part of the SLA :-> FWIW, my experience: - Key is to look at sum balance. Yes, absolutely, somebody else unwinding will increase your stress level; but IF unwinding reduces their stress level more than it increases yours (and vice verse when the tables are turned), it's a net win. And it goes beyond work rants; any intimate opening, sharing of concern or anxiety or even admitting past wrongs etc, will impose a burden on the listener. But if you believe or can work it out so that, e.g. "this increased my burden by +10 but reduced your burden by -70, so it's a good thing we did it", it'll help build mutual understanding and trust. - Show empathy, don't try to solve. Cliche, stereotypical, but a person will tell you when they need active considered advice, as opposed to sympathy and ear. HARD for any of the IT problem solving personalities :) - As a natural result of first two, you'll figure out who's had a worse day and gets priority; and you'll also figure out how to take some of their burden without becoming overwhelmed with it. Again, if their ask is sympathy not resolution, it's actually a lot less burden upon you than it may feel; or rather, us problem solvers impose burden on us that's not actually there :) - More personal, but, FWIW... my spouse shared bad stories and rants about their work as a store manager, the drama of customers and supervisors and workers and people and policies etc, for 3 or 4 years. I listened patiently, tried to show support... didn't even realize how much I ingested & learned from it. When I transformed from sysadmin to people manager, after a year I realized that I've been implementing all the hard earned experience, lessons learned, approaches and thoughts she shared. One day, all my work problems were her problems of 3 years ago and it allowed me to succeed in that unforeseen (and somewhat unsought:P) transformation. So as we awkwardly say in my language, you never know what's good for what :)
dboreham 5y ago
Could be something to do with a tech-literate person is _more_ valuable to an arts person than to another tech person. E.g. arts person wants their small plumbing jobs done, their offspring taught math properly, and so on, but other tech person doesn't need that because they do those things themselves.
- idiotsecant 5y ago
  Interestingly that seems like a very "tech person" way to frame what relationships are about.
  - jamesfinlayson 5y ago
    There's something to be said for finding someone that complements your strengths and weaknesses.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Maybe, but FWIW... yes I'm in charge of networking setup at home, oil changes and such and all the tools are at least ostensibly "mine", but she's VERY DEFINITELY in charge of plumbing and house infra :-D. [not to mention, she can easily pay somebody to take care of house infra; whereas I cannot afford the full-time mentorship services of a socially aware and emotionally intelligent coach :P ]
gambiting 5y ago
So both me and my wife are software developers, but it's interesting because I'm a game dev(predominantly C++) but she is a full stack web dev - we have pretty much nothing in common when it comes to work. I have zero clue about web development, and similarily, she's not interested in games development/C++ programming. So we still share loads of general interests as similarly geeky people, but one thing we don't do is we don't talk about work at home - outside of like office gossip and the like.

InitialLastName 5y ago

I'm in the same boat; my household is certainly much more resilient and effective with a technically-focused, detail-oriented engineer and an emotionally intelligent human-oriented teacher in it than it would be with two of me (we certainly have better relationships with our neighbors and community this way, at the very least).

leetcrew 5y ago

I had a similar experience dating someone in the field, though it went on a bit longer. for me it was just kinda rough to come home from a day of working on software to talk to my SO about their problems with software. great person, but it was an exhausting relationship. on the other hand, most of my friends also do software stuff and we enjoy complaining to each other about work. I guess maybe the difference is you can say "not now" to a friend more easily than a partner.

Seattle3503 5y ago
I'm in this situation now. I'll have a bad day, then my partner comes home and dumps her bad day on top of mine. I don't know to handle it, because if I ask her to stop she sulks. It means I don't care about her bad day.
- throwaway134z88 5y ago
  FWIW my wife is not in software (urban planner) and when she has a bad day at work it is draining and tough. It has nothing to do with working in the same industry. It is just hard work to be there for your partner and support them. Good luck.
- NikolaNovak 5y ago
  Oh, THAT part has little to do with profession; my spouse's and my jobs were completely different (or so we thought!), but if your relationship works and you are "each other's 'person'", ranting about work is part of the SLA :-> FWIW, my experience: - Key is to look at sum balance. Yes, absolutely, somebody else unwinding will increase your stress level; but IF unwinding reduces their stress level more than it increases yours (and vice verse when the tables are turned), it's a net win. And it goes beyond work rants; any intimate opening, sharing of concern or anxiety or even admitting past wrongs etc, will impose a burden on the listener. But if you believe or can work it out so that, e.g. "this increased my burden by +10 but reduced your burden by -70, so it's a good thing we did it", it'll help build mutual understanding and trust. - Show empathy, don't try to solve. Cliche, stereotypical, but a person will tell you when they need active considered advice, as opposed to sympathy and ear. HARD for any of the IT problem solving personalities :) - As a natural result of first two, you'll figure out who's had a worse day and gets priority; and you'll also figure out how to take some of their burden without becoming overwhelmed with it. Again, if their ask is sympathy not resolution, it's actually a lot less burden upon you than it may feel; or rather, us problem solvers impose burden on us that's not actually there :) - More personal, but, FWIW... my spouse shared bad stories and rants about their work as a store manager, the drama of customers and supervisors and workers and people and policies etc, for 3 or 4 years. I listened patiently, tried to show support... didn't even realize how much I ingested & learned from it. When I transformed from sysadmin to people manager, after a year I realized that I've been implementing all the hard earned experience, lessons learned, approaches and thoughts she shared. One day, all my work problems were her problems of 3 years ago and it allowed me to succeed in that unforeseen (and somewhat unsought:P) transformation. So as we awkwardly say in my language, you never know what's good for what :)

dboreham 5y ago

Could be something to do with a tech-literate person is _more_ valuable to an arts person than to another tech person. E.g. arts person wants their small plumbing jobs done, their offspring taught math properly, and so on, but other tech person doesn't need that because they do those things themselves.

idiotsecant 5y ago
Interestingly that seems like a very "tech person" way to frame what relationships are about.
- jamesfinlayson 5y ago
  There's something to be said for finding someone that complements your strengths and weaknesses.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
Maybe, but FWIW... yes I'm in charge of networking setup at home, oil changes and such and all the tools are at least ostensibly "mine", but she's VERY DEFINITELY in charge of plumbing and house infra :-D. [not to mention, she can easily pay somebody to take care of house infra; whereas I cannot afford the full-time mentorship services of a socially aware and emotionally intelligent coach :P ]

gambiting 5y ago

So both me and my wife are software developers, but it's interesting because I'm a game dev(predominantly C++) but she is a full stack web dev - we have pretty much nothing in common when it comes to work. I have zero clue about web development, and similarily, she's not interested in games development/C++ programming. So we still share loads of general interests as similarly geeky people, but one thing we don't do is we don't talk about work at home - outside of like office gossip and the like.