Living the Computer Geek Lifestyle w/ a Significant Other?

Edward Almos asks: "I live with my girlfriend in a small apartment (about 65 sq yards) and over the last six months I've installed a significant amount of computer and network gear. The count at the moment stands at two servers, a firewall, two workstations, an ADSL line and an apartment-wide network with at least two CAT5 points in every room. There's also two laptops and a load of HiFi gear. Last night she finally cracked when I installed a network point in the bathroom and told me that either the connection went or she did. After a romantic evening for two everything is patched up and all is OK but this got me wondering. I can't be the only Slashdotter living with a significant other so how do the rest of you pursuade them that all the cables, cupboards full of servers and sky-high comms costs are really essential to the geek lifestyle. This also ties in nicely with the latest poll, ain't love grand!!"

Comments

Uhhhhh....

[cmowire]

Well, for one, I have a little more restraint than you.

My wife and I have an extra bedroom for our computers, books, etc. So that cuts down on the crampage.

You don't need a port in the bathroom. The reason why your girlfriend is pissed is probably not because you shouldn't have a port in the bathroom, but because the port in the bathroom is showing her what a nutcase she's going out with. Plus, it gets damn humid there when you take a shower. A moisture-short across the line is not going to do wonders for network performance. Just use wireless ethernet and be happy. Do you have a phone in every room? Of course not, you probably have a cordless phone. Same thing here.

For another, try to be organized about things. With a nice telecom rack, you can stick your 2 servers, the firewall, your UPS, your switch, etc. etc. etc. in a small 2'x3' area in the corner somewhere and have room for expansion. I've met very few geeks who really needed more than 1 server + firewall unless they were trying to compensate fo a small penis.

I mean, look at this from her prespective. She's going to like it if you have a nice network connection for her internet usage, an e-mail account for her to use, a nice home-movie experience so you can watch movies together, etc. She's not going to mind it if your computing gear is humming away neatly in a corner somewhere. She's going to hate it if you spend all of your time tinkering with all of your crap and not spending quality time with her. She's going to hate it if you have a messy piles of computing crap in every room that she has to watch out or she'll trip over, that keeps her up all night because the fans are obnoxiously loud, etc.

I mean, look at Alan Cox. His wife isn't filling her weblog with stories about how obnoxious and self-centered he is. She mentions about how he's fixing one problem or another with her laptop and seems to be more amused than anything else with his geekishness.