It's funny — I was recently thinking about the idea of a Deskthority secret Valentine's day, but there are virtually no known women (I can only think of two, and the username of only one) and too few people of unknown gender to reveal their gender (even if only in secret) — pretty much everyone I've dealt with there is confirmed as male. I get the impression that there are significantly more women at geekhack; why, I have no idea.
Having people crawl out the woodwork won't do, as you won't know these people well enough to make any kind of judgement call. At least, not if you're a real old-school character who can't think outside of technology, as I am. While I don't dress like stereotypical 70s and 80s computer nerds (with a tank top (sweater vest) and all) that era is far closer to my mindset. As a kid, it never quite occurred me that you would have to actually work out what to do with a girlfriend, and now that I've recognised the question, I still can't answer it — it's a complete mystery to me. It's actually well beyond discovering who Podworld were, on the no-hope/no-win/impossible to decipher scale. There's wanting something you can have, wanting something you can't have (whether it exists or not), and then there is wanting something that you don't even understand or have any idea what you would have if you had one.
I suspect I would be well served by a lobotomy. It can't be too many years before I can simply have all the offending neurons disconnected (maybe even as a home-use kit), so that I no longer have to be so hopelessly consumed by wanting something that doesn't exist, cannot be explained, described or even comprehended, and never will.
