The Energon Pub

After being out of the dating scene for a few years (by choice), I recently went back to Match.com to try it again. This time I described myself in my profile as a "geek". I got an email from a girl (SHE contacted ME!), and I told her in my first email that I collect Transformers. She replied that she was impressed that I was brave enough to admit that so quickly, and that her sister's husband waited a year to tell her about his collection of D&D figurines. I told her it was part of my dating strategy: I'll tell a girl right up front that I love video games and I collect Transformers. If she thinks that makes me a loser, then I won't waste any time on her. But if she's cool with it, I know I've found someone I can be myself around. (Luckily, this girl is one of the latter.) Plus, my collection is in full display in my house, spread among several rooms, so any girl I bring home is going to see my collection as soon as she walks in the door. So what's the use of trying to hide it?

So what you guys (and girls?) think about this? Do you hide your hobby, or do you wave your freak flag high?

Neither actually! I will mention it if it comes up, which it probably will if you're actually finding things out about each other. It's a big part of my life but there are other hobbies in there as well (studying french, salsa dancing, weight training) that if she doesn't approve it shouldn't be a problem. My last gf didn't really care for the toys but loves the cartoons and we discussed them often. A previous one was a Star Wars collector and was rather jealous of the impressiveness of my collection, especially the Death Star TF!

Honesty is definitely the best policy. And good luck with this chick!

Meh, I'm an old married guy, but whne I dated my then gf now wife, I told her I still had all my stuff from when I was a kid, and when we moved in together she set aside a shelf in the spare bedroom/den for my "stuff". She never touched the stuff, and between the time that I bought her engagement ring and when I proposed, the ring sat in the back of G1 Prime's trailer, on the shelf, for about 3 months. Talk about hiding in plain sight!

I think you are doing it the best way, being up front, but I also believe that collecting is more acceptable now than it was a decade ago.

My GF and I met first because of friends we knew in the local Anime community, so we were already more or less expecting that the other was into fandom for something or another. Once we started hanging out and it seemed that we were already more or less dating I had already found out about her collections and she about mine. By the time we were officially an item, we were already past any concerns of that type.

When we moved in together about 14 months back, I didn't even have to bring up concerns about having space for most of my collections as she said before I did that we would need to look for places with a den or extra bedroom to properly set stuff up.

My girlfriend knew about my collection for a while before we had started dating, so it was really no surprise when she saw it and fought to contain her laughter at me. When we are at stores like Target or whatnot I always drag us over to the toy section and spend like, 20 minutes staring at things that I seldom really buy anymore, except for some of the movie Joes, but she is fine with my hunting so long as there aren't any people with children in the aisles. Then, my childish nature mixes with the childish natures iof the children, and I think my girlfriend is always pre-emptively thinking up some story to tell their parents, like "We're shopping for a nephew" or something like that. All told she's really a good sport about it though, and there have been so many times where I'll go on talking about some toy and she threatens to join up here on Seibertron just to ridicule me, but so far she hasn't.

Anyhow, I'd say honesty about your collection is really the way to go about it. I don't think it's really as big an issue as we think it is with the women, I think action figures are a much easier collection/habit to deal with than spare car parts (without plausible uses) or excessive pornography or things like that. I'd imagine it's tougher to explain your 6,000 issue Hustler collection to a gal than 6,000 action figures. My girlfriend likes a lot of the figures I have, and if she ever is foolish enough to ask "Who's that one?" she's summarily punished with a windy and rambling lecture from me as to as many small details as I can think of about the figure/character, what I dis/like about them and why, and often times a dig through the toy storage area to find other figures representing the same character and then subsequent lecturing on the other figures. It's pretty horrible, for her really, but still, she seems to be alright with my toys. I try to convice her that like the Botcon stuff will be real valuable someday, but she doens't really believe it, cause they're all just toys to her.

Here's a real plus though. If/when your girlfriend accepts/understands your collecting, she sometimes buys you stuff. Oh yes. My little lady has purchased for me a number of Starscream busts and stuff, and that's awesome. She's never discovered me sleeping with any of my figures, although all those cuts on my face from the plastic has been getting tough to make excuses for. But hell, girls love toys. So, you know.

Dagon wrote:or excessive pornography

Define 'excessive'...

Counterpunch wrote:

Dagon wrote:or excessive pornography

Define 'excessive'...

if you have to ask, its already past excessive

my gf threw me a totally tf themed b-day party this year. She got me a couple tf shirts, a belt buckle, monopoly, and some other stuff. it was great. i think the first sate we went on i showed her figures at the house and even went "pew pew pew lazors"

in hindsight, its a wonder she didn't take off

Name_Violation wrote:i think the first date we went on i showed her figures at the house and even went "pew pew pew lazors"

lol. I'm gonna do that next time this girl comes over. She'll probably laugh. On our first date we met for lunch, and then SHE suggested we go back to my house to play Rock Band!

NV & GI,

Both of those two, sound like they could be Keepers, Hope things work out for both of you.

As I'm a newer collector, I haven't dealt with "exposing" my collection to a new date but I've collected comics and video games for most of my life and I'm an artist so I have a lot of potentially eyebrow raising stuff around my home like stacks of comics and video game boxes. I sometimes have a few paintings in progress resting against a wall so I've had to explain nude portraits not only to dates but family members too when they visit.

I think that there's no real reason for me to hide any of my hobbies. However, I don't wave my hobby flag either. It's a part of my life but not a dominating aspect so I don't feel a need to go out of my way to tell everyone I meet what I enjoy in my leisure time. I think it's good to be upfront about hobbies when dating. If you feel like you have to hide it then you may want to re-evaluate how you view your hobby(ies).

Editor wrote:NV & GI,

Both of those two, sound like they could be Keepers, Hope things work out for both of you.

we DID just hit the year and a half mark

hope things work well for "homers twin" (if you DON"T get the reference i'm ashamed)

Counterpunch wrote:

Dagon wrote:or excessive pornography

Define 'excessive'...

I don;t know. I guess if you have to push heavy things up against the closet door wherein your porn is stored in order to keep it from bursting open, I'd call that excessive.

in the new millenium
geeks rock

my wife bought me the uss enterprise from next gen for my b-day with her.
sometime you just have to wait and be u. she-geeks love us.