I fell in love with an engineer

My father is an engineer. My best friends are engineers. My ex-boyfriends are engineers too. I married an engineer. When I look at the way my son plays with cars and is scared by little girls the only thing in my mind is “he is not going to study French Literature”. I live in Nuremberg, a city packed with engineers. I studied engineering and my job consists mainly in talking with other engineers.

What I am trying to say is, I think I understand engineers. When talking with one of them I try to be very specific. I would never say “my cat got electrocuted chewing the cables of my laptop”. I would say, my cat got electrocuted chewing the battery charger cable from my 11 inches, 512 GB RAM MacBook Air… And I could be understanding if my engineer gave me back a response that could very well come from the offspring of a genocide dictator “maybe we could replicate the scenario... it was connected, I presume”.

Generally I do not mind when an afternoon in a pub involves activities such as drawing satellite’s orbits in a napkin, requires basic training in quantum computation in order to follow the conversation, and excludes anyone that didn’t ever build an antenna out of a Pringles box. I tolerate that buying a new phone is predictably followed by a discussion iPhone vs Android, the same way I endured Microsoft vs Linux, Mozilla vs Netscape and Google vs The World. I don’t get upset if asked “what do you want for your birthday?” when sure as hell they are not able to purchase any object without a USB port stuck on it.

Having engineers around have its perks. They are the people that give ESA merchandising to your son. They always have that cable you need. Leave your computer unprotected and when you come back from the toilet they might have cleaned it and optimized it and even installed a PDF converted. I don’t remember if my father ever cooked dinner for us, but to this day he makes sure my computer is spyware free.

Engineers are pragmatic. You can’t share your feelings with them, they probably rather share their Facebook account with you mum, however, their idea of keeping the relationship alive is helping you choosing your new sound equipment. When an engineer fancies you he is more likely to offer installing your router than just saying so. He might as well drink five tequilas and stick his tongue in your mouth. They do not have a middle point. World is just made of configurable and not configurable equipment and while the first group takes ninety percent of their time, the things that fall in the second group seem always blurry and confusing. When asked about the wedding dress of a friend my husband said: Long. White. Then he paused and made some effort: no sleeves.

Engineering is a language on its own. My father and husband communicate just fine. They say “codec”, “script”, “port” and it’s as if they belonged to the same sect. They pull out their iPads and show each other apps. Sometimes my son joins and they download Lego games. And I think “this child is not going to be a football player”.

In the other hand, living with an engineer one have to be prepared for the fact that sometimes what is happening in the PC screen is more important that what can happen in bed… But at least they are not very likely to realize you didn't shave your legs in a month.

And I can’t complain anyway. I deserve it. If I thought well matched clothes are sexier than a well made Fourier transform, maybe I would have married some hot fireman. If our family time would not include sketching a flow diagram to see who washes dishes, it we didn't have a book in the bathroom with riddles such us “you are reduced to 1/100 of your volume, being your mass constant. You fell in a blender…” then maybe I would have hooked up with a movie director and my son would be obsessed with Audrey Tautou.

Instead, I come home at night and find a reenactment of Korea war going on in the living room and Daniel having cookies for dinner. Martin tells me he was busy at work and, because I think I understand engineers, I say to myself, poor thing, he probably started coding and lost notion of time.

And then I find this in the table.

 This is a comparison of the different types of daggers, bows and swords in the latest game that is steeling my husband’s sleep.

And I think. French literature. In my next life, French literature.

Note for my engineers friends: It is not relevant if the game is Zelda, WoW or other, it is not relevant is the axes are correct or not and if it is clear or not which weapon is best depending on your level. The only relevant question is if I should change the router password and not tell, or force him to chew the battery cable until he gets electrocuted.