The Great Geek Manual

Here it is the week after the most romantic weekend of the year, Valentine’s weekend. Some struck it luck, while some just struck out. For those of you to fall into the later category, here’s a list of twenty-two less than mainstream sites that are favors among Geeks of all makes. A little investment this weekend, and who knows, maybe next Valentines, you’re luck will different!

Airtroductions
Airtroductions is a service to help frequent fliers meet up with other people who are going to be on their flight. It’s a tight niche, and I can’t imagine a relationship growing out of a shared destination, but hey, it takes all kinds. Users profiles can feature photos, occupation, astrological sign and all the other typical dating data.

Booklovers
By far the coolest idea for a dating site I’ve ever heard of. After all, the books you read say a lot about you. Dating profiles invite users to share a list of their favorite books, books on your night table, and your favorite films. The site isn’t well designed, but there seems to be a large selection of profiles to browse.

Collaboradate
A dating site with all the latest cutting-edge web 2.0 features, including mapping, tagging, voting, widgets, and a fresh design. The service is completely free and seems to have an enormous membership. It’s not very geeky, but it’s very high-tech.

Consumating
A site owned by CNET Networks and designed with the hipster crowd in mind. The site was originally marketed towards geeks, but over time, they’ve drifted towards the mainstream. The site boasts over ten thousand members, about forty percent of which are female. The site features a number of social networking tools, such as tags, Flickr-esque photos, and a voting system. The site claims that the approach lets members describe themselves without conforming to stereotypes.

Engage
A viral approach to dating. Add your friends to your list and wait for them to add their friends. As the contact grows, the potential for a match increases.

Gaming Passion, Nerd Passions, Shy Passions, and Trek Passions
These are basically the same site. Each offers blogs, chat rooms, and user profiles, along with streaming radio, advice columns, and links of interest to a particularly Geek niche. Accounts are completely free, and the sites do enjoy a good bit of popularity, as evidenced by the large selection of profiles available to browse.

Geek 2 Geek
A traditional subscription-based dating site aimed at Geeks.

Greatboyfriends
A unique service that lets users recommend their friends as “great boyfriends and girlfriends”.

I’m In Like With You
A one-of-a-kind site for people who love games. Users can play games to earn points which they can use to bid on a chance to speak to the game’s host. The game host can choose the winner from the top five bidders. Games include arcade classics, such as a clone of Tetris.

Kizmeet
A service for listing missed connections, like the category on Craigslist. The service only allows listings in selected large cities.

Meetmoi
This mobile dating service help you find other single geographically near the location you enter. The service costs about a dollar ten notification messages. This sort of service could have real potential at a major con.

Meetup
Easily the most efficient way to meet like-minded Geeks in your geographical area. Though it’s not a dating service, Meetup has to be the most popular event-planning site on the net. You pick an interest and a place, and other users are invited to attend. They can then rate the events and follow up with members. Interests include a wide range of Geeky topics, including comics, computers, roleplaying game, software and technology. Meetup events frequently fall through, and even if they do happen, they aren’t necessary going to be packed with eligible singles. However, this is a great way to make friends.

Networking for Geeks
Ufies’ website definitely has the smallest number of profiles, but it definitely deserves a mention for catering to the Geek crowd. The site features minimal profiles and profile searches for free, but, unlike other sites, there is also an option to post event invitations and pen pal profiles.

Paird Beta
An online dating site where users can search for their own match or play matchmaker for other users.

Plenty of Fish
While it isn’t particularly Geek, this site is definitely growing popular. Plenty of Fish is your typical dating site, complete with social tools.

PodDater
PodDater is a service for submitting and searching video dating profiles via tags. The name comes from the fact that users are encouraged to downloaded their potential matches onto their iPod for later viewing.

SweetOnGeeks.com
A self-described “bully free zone where people can fly their geek flag as high as they want to.” looking super cool, being very good looking and that’s not what most geeks are about.” With four thousand users, this site caters to Geeks with a fun, light-hearted atmosphere. It features anonymous emails, blogs, and instant messaging.

Truedater
Truedater is a site that lets you review your past dates and partners. Users can log on and check to see if their potential dates are already rated or not.

Wannago
A slightly hipper, less geeky version of Meetup. Users can post an event in order to find members with the same interests in your geographic location.