Having worked in the computer field for many years, I find this report from Germany almost impossible to believe - but Reuters assures us it's true.
Even the most quirky of computer nerds can learn to flirt with finesse thanks to a new "flirting course" being offered to budding IT engineers at Potsdam University south of Berlin.
The 440 students enrolled in the master's degree course will learn how to write flirtatious text messages and emails, impress people at parties and cope with rejection.
Philip von Senftleben, an author and radio presenter who will teach the course, summed up his job as teaching how to "get someone else's heart beating fast while yours stays calm."
The course, which starts next Monday, is part of the social skills section of the IT course and is designed to ease entry into the world of work. Students also learn body language, public-speaking, stress management and presentation skills.
"We want to prepare our students with the social skills needed to succeed both in their private life and their work life," said Hans-Joachim Allgaier, a spokesman for the institute at Potsdam University where the course is being offered.
Can the youth of today really have fallen so low that they need a course in this stuff? Can they no longer do what comes naturally? Is this even possible? For goodness' sake, when I was a computer operator and programmer, rising to Systems Engineer over the years and then moving into management, the problem wasn't to get our fellow workers out of their geeky, nerdy shells - it was to keep their libidos suppressed while on the job! Anyone suggesting they needed help to make more than professional contact with the opposite sex would have been laughed out of the building!
Perhaps we lived a little closer to nature in those days . . . after all, the computers broke down often enough that we had time to go for a walk, or get a nice meal together, while the technoboffins waded through (literally) miles of cable to fix them!
Peter
8 comments:
Don't you think that video game mania and texting and ... has led to a lack of personal skills and empathy needed to flirt effectively? I seem to remember similar classes being offered in silicon valley during the hey days.
Obviously we don't know the same engineers.
Of the 10 engineers I have as friends (including my husband) only 1 naturally has the social skills necessary even to deal with his boss; the rest struggle to "understand" how to deal with even their coworkers.
As for getting a date, well, I can't count the number of times I've been asked what another woman's actions and words meant in "engineer".
The course may prove to be very popular...
The way to MY heart has never been a text message.
A 16 year old girl might be impressed with your texting skills but a real woman is not.
I once read in a Harper's Magazine that there was a German CD of house sounds, such as walking to the kitchen running water to wash dishes, etc. for sale because there were many Germans living alone, that there was a decline in couples living together. This would fit into the same picture, would it not?
If I wrote a software app to teach that, I guess I'd name it Cyrano...
1. It depends on the individual geek. I've met more than a few whose natural social skills were just fine. And others who, like Melody says, really need a translator.
2. Here's another thing to consider- both Silicon Valley and Los Alamos have pretty nontrivial spikes of Asperger's syndrome and autism, and the proposed explanation at the moment is that geekier geeks are reproducing and doubling up on genes that may, under the right circumstances, lead to these disorders. I do know that LA is jokingly referred to as the place physicists go when they realize they don't WANT to have a social life outside the lab...
Kids today have NO social skills by and large... I friend told me his 13 yr old, plus friends were sitting in the same room, AND TEXTING EACH OTHER! Not even talking!!! sigh...
Of course, lack of opposite sex interaction is what kept a lot of computer nerds working... :-) The frustrations HAD to go somewhere
Well, I noticed that ThinkGeek has a book for ladies on how to date geeks. And yes, I have a brilliant associate who (in his mid 30s) still finds approaching members of the opposite sex an unfathomable mystery.
LittleRed1
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