# 257: Big Bang Theory
Story behind the Passage
With a dear friend and mentor of mine, we talked about nerds and sex today. And then she said: “You have to watch The Big Bang Theory! There you have it all. A bunch of nerds and a sexy down-to-earth woman.” Well, guess what, I never watched The Big Bang Theory. Of course, I know the title and maybe zapped through a few times but have no clue what it is all about. This might sound funny because I have spent most of my life among nerds in the university, even among physics people. Maybe this is exactly the reason why I never watched nerds on television.
Maybe I am a nerd myself.
So, what I was not able to do today is actually watch an episode of The Big Bang Theory. But, as you might have imagined, I found a book about it. Actually, I found many, of course. I could have searched for “Big Bang Theory and Sex” from the start. But then, I just punched in “Big Bang Theory,” found Big Bang Theory and Philosophy and searched for sex in the book. It was not difficult to find passages about sex, obviously. The one above jumped at me because it was so much speaking to our topic of today’s conversation. I mean, nerds are defined by their brain acvitity (now that I am writing about it, I am realizing that I wrote about nerds before, right? So I am sparing you a definition here again). In any case, body and mind have been separated since Descartes’ philosophical triumph but in the case of nerds, there is a mismatch between the two that is mostly brain-related, I guess.
You might wonder how we came to talk about this in the first place. The point is — there are things you talk about on a blog and there are things that you keep to yourself. This issue is of the latter type which does not mean, however, that I am hesitant to sharing my general findings. Sometimes in life, you discover patterns, e.g., among the people you meet or people that become interested in you more closely. This also means that you notice certain personality traits. And guess what, in my case, I discovered the nerd pattern quite a lot. Before I move to the sex part of the passage, I need to emphasize that I am not judging nerds in any way. Given the fact that I am quite nerdy myself, I have no reservations towards brain overactivity. Still, I do wonder a lot how much that affects your bodily awareness and your ability to take care of basic human needs..
My Learnings
“Sex is particularly uninteresting to him.” This is such a short and simple sentence but for a nerd, the word “uninteresting” has huge significance. This might be the entire flaw of being a nerd anyway but since nerds, I am including myself, always try to understand everything and only like things and people via a cognitive process that precedes anything else, not being interested in sex also means — sex does not happen. It is quite logical. Why would you do something like having sex if there is no cognitive appeal to it? If you cannot understand sex, why would you do it?
I know, this might sound funny to some people, but I can understand Sheldon.
And that is a huge problem, I guess.
Sheldon seems to be very far away from the experiential learning side — i.e., the people who practice “just do it” all the time. Still, this is also very puzzling to me, which made us talk about this in the first place today, because nerds are experimental about everything else they do. But here comes the thing: Since nerds are into technology, they love building things with things — not with people, not with body parts. That makes all the difference, I guess. And the fact that Sheldon seems to not care about his body that much anyways also makes it understandable that sex would not bring much pleasure to him and his body.
What I always wonder about when thinking and talking about these issues with trusted friends (which I do not do every day, just to let you know), is how human beings can turn out that different from others and how much socialization plays a role here again. I mean, even nerds are human beings with basic human needs. And the fact that sex is a human need is part of this. So, how on earth can the brain of some people cause that much irritation to the rest of the body? And why is it that they cannot change this themselves (if they actually wanted to)?
Well, the first answer I already provided above — they see no incentive in it. The question then is: How do you incentivize thinkers to have sex? And with whom? The easiest way to solve the issue, it seems, is to solve it among nerds exclusively. I mean, seriously, most nerds I know are married to nerds! This is a completely and seriously bullshitty judgement, I know. But really, it is true — as true as something can be from the perspective of one individual. I have never seen a sex bomb holding hands with a nerd (apart from Elon Musk’s and Marc Zuckerberg’s girl friends, I guess). But here is the thing: Maybe you become more nerdy when you date a nerd? And what makes you date that person in the first place, if it is definitely NOT physical attraction?
As you can see, I am quite confused today which means we did hit a nerve here. That is good in the first place. Whenever that happens, I know that I am moving out of my comfort zone. If that comfort zone belongs to a nerd or if that nerd in me has become so nerdy because of academic socialization — I do not know. At least, I know that most people I see in university who undergo this academic/nerdy transition, even if they were quite non-nerdy before, do change. You see this simply because it takes them quite a while to come back to “normal” afterwards, i.e., reach the state of self-esteem and worldliness from before. So, there is something infectious about this. This also more or less automatically takes us to the question of how much sex academics/scholars have.
And you know what?
I am not going there now…
Reflection Questions
1) What characterizes a “nerd” for you?
2) Do you think that people whose brains are hyperactive have less sex or more? Why?
3) Have you ever watched Big Bang Theory? If yes, what do you like best about it?