I (heart) Nerds

I should have taken my first crush as an omen. I was sixteen years old, and my crush was on Tom Brokaw. He was smart, well spoken, tall, and had a wonderful voice. Each night, from 6:30 to 7, he ruled my world. My friends, all mad with crushes on Tom Cruise or Jon Bon Jovi, were convinced that I had lost my mind.

"Renn", they would sigh. "Tom Brokaw is, like, old. He's like, I mean, ewww." I would not be dissuaded. I was hooked. In the process, I came to learn something very important: A pretty face means little if there is nothing behind it. So began my quest to find the perfect nerd.

As no plan is every truly perfect, I hit some bumps along the way. While in college, I fell for a rich boy, a frat boy, a gay boy; my crushes ran the gamut from cowboy to PETAhead.

My taste in men was so bizarre that my friend Janine came to call me The Leftover Queen. According to her, you could line up 100 men from any remote corner of the world; Renn would consistently choose the ONE guy that no one else would ever possibly want.

I took that as a compliment.

Late in my sophomore year, I met the guy. I thought. He was tall, smart, funny...and WEIRD. He was the kind of guy that you could be friends with or date. In short, he was nice. We dated off and on for about two years, never quite making it to the point of 'serious'. In the end, he found his true love in a girl just as nice as he; they now live in a DC area condo with a passel of kids. [ I should probably mention that he was 6'6" and dressed like a pirate.]

After years of research, I finally settled down. I'll be honest; it didn't happen in the way I had planned. I moved south to NC one year after college graduation. Journalistic opportunities were next to impossible in Parkersburg, WV; I was working as a bartender in a dive joint that forced me to dress as a gas attendant.

It all started when Chachi called.

to be continued...