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| Reprinted with permission from New Scientist, July 25, 1998. Permission should be sought from New Scientist should any person wish to reproduce New Scientist articles in any format. |
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Abstract
Are you a lonely heart languishing in a white coat? Don't worry, Rosie Mestel has a number for you.
God. Summer. There you are, stuck in the lab, tallying praying mantis movements, pipetting fluids from tube to tube or wondering why your sequencing gel is overheating. Outside, the sun is gently setting, and normal people are walking hand in hand beside the surf or supping by candlelight, as an altogether different kind of chemistry comes slowly to the boil. It is dusk in July, and they have found love. You are a lab troll, and you need to get a life. Maybe you should try Science Connection.
Science Connection, so its brochures will tell you, is "a low-cost, easy, practical (and fun!) way to extend your social network." Just think - if you're a man, your future happiness may lie in the hands of "35, S 5'2, 115 [pounds, that is]: Adventurous, energetic redhead food scientist in chocolate industry." Or maybe Dr. Right is a "pretty and witty" systems-support coordinator "with Meg Ryan looks," a professor of plant pathology who "likes cats and some people," or a feisty young chemist: "Can't start a fire without a spark: what's your flashpoint?"
True, Glamour magazine cruelly dubs Science Connection "the nerd connection." But biologist Anne Lambert, Science Connection's founder, knows the truth - that scientists and science-lovers are really ever-so-cool, and that many a hot-blooded heart beats under a lab coat. What else could have convinced her to start the service seven years ago, instead of the garlic farm she'd dreamt of?p>Back in 1991, to get the ball rolling, Lambert placed ads in newspapers and popular science magazines - and she learnt hard lessons along the way. Response was excellent, she found, to "Fullerenes, fulmars, fungi, fossils: Single people interested in such topics are meeting via Science Connection." Thus she was mystified by the atrociously poor response to her next ad - "Lasers, lemurs, lichens, latex: Singles interested in . . ." - until a friend murmured a few quiet words in her ear. "I was thinking of latex in its botanical context," she insists.
Despite such occasional gaffes, today Science Connection is 1,200 members strong. It is especially popular in Canada and major cities on the East and West Coasts of the U.S., and has a smattering of members in Britain, Australia, and other countries. This year, Lambert intends to add same-sex listings for gay scientists. Astronomers, biologists, computer scientists and nature buffs, they're all here - as are teachers, business people and even the occasional retired fighter pilot. Some have Ph.D.s, while others baldly state that they would "rather be boiled alive in skunk oil" than start one. Some want desperately to meet a scientist soulmate - ideally someone they can publish with. Others are just interested in connecting. "Science," comments 35-year-old "Sanjay," a Texas computer consultant, "is the last thing people [in Science Connection] care about."
In their hearts, of course, Science Conners hope for more than simply friendship. "We want chemistry - no, we want nuclear fusion," says "Willow," 44, of Los Angeles, whose Science Connection experiences take her mind back to those heady teen years she spent trawling for boys at school science fairs. In the seven months since she joined, she has dated a physician, an engineer-turned-accountant, and a physicist, she has emailed others out of state, and is an unabashed Science Connection fan. "It's great," she says. "What a relief to have dinner with a man who actually knows what a Hamiltonian operator is."
But wait! Is this really the way to find a mate? Readers beware: the approach has its hazards. Geneticist "Buffy," 39, is considering joining Science Connection, but is haunted by the memory of a recent tryst with a science enthusiast, one "Dirk," which was ushered in by many long, deep, stimulating conversations about mad cows and molecular biology. "There we were, in bed," she recalls, "and he looked deep into my eyes and crooned: 'So did you read that paper in Genes & Development about the Creutzfeldt-Jakob transgenic mice?'"p>
There are other hazards to consider. Some dates can be scientific teases - as poignantly recounted by "Harvey," 43, a Washington, DC, businessman whose passion for science is such that he spends his leisure time penning theoretical articles on climatology. Surrounded by the vapid, social climber's world of the U.S. capital, "Harvey" drinks deep of science wherever he can find it and, when he met "Nina," a physicist, he knew he was in for a treat. "Her papers were brilliant," he says. "I thought this was going to be an intellectual feast - but when I met her, she wouldn't talk about science, she just kept asking me about personal things like my family. I asked her what she did, but all I ever got out of her were two words - 'magnetic fields.' It was so frustrating." Happily, "Harvey" has met more than enough women to satisfy his intellectual cravings, though he has still to find his one and only.
Not so 40-year-old "Babette," a clinical trials coordinator from western Canada. "Babette" joined Science Connection in 1996 after trying to meet men in "various other embarrassing ways." She argued fiercely about AIDS via email with an epidemiologist on the other side of the country. She discussed the ins and outs of DNA sequencers with a Californian molecular biologist - they even reached that heady, research-paper-sending stage. But it was not to be. She was destined for another.
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Today she's married to "Bob," another Science Connection member from Seattle, who contacted her just as she was about to jack in her membership and retire to a cabin in the woods. She wanted a scientist; she fell for a firefighter. Such is fate. "Still, he's got a few brain cells - and he's had a course or two of human physiology," Babette says. "He's also the most wonderful man. I couldn't imagine not being with him." Now she and her daughter are waiting to move to the States to be with "Bob" forever. Good luck to all three, as they grapple with a force for which rational thought cannot prepare them - the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.p>Jack and Jillp>"Jill," too, has found true love through Science Connection. A West Coast journalist, her love of science was deep - while her marriage, she could sense, was in deep trouble. "I'd read about Science Connection in various articles, and I always thought that if my marriage broke up, that was where I was going to go," she says. "To my ex, the only thing interesting in science was heavy machinery and trains blasting through tunnels: next time I really wanted a scientist in my life." A year after her marriage ended, she joined Science Connection.p>
"Jill" looked at this profile, "Jill" looked at that profile, but none quite took her fancy. Then, in August, "Jack," a delightful, witty biologist, joined the listings. Unbeknownst to either of them, each had requested the other's longer, detailed biography from Lambert. "I e-mailed him at once and he replied almost immediately, saying he had been planning to e-mail me: he just hadn't moved from neurospace to cyberspace when my message arrived," she says. "Jack" and "Jill" have been dating ever since, and - oh bliss! - he reads New Scientist and Science instead of Sports Illustrated and Cars & Parts, and raises prairie dogs into the bargain.
Even when you don't find love through Sci Con, you will find - who knows? Petri dishes brimming with caterpillars in your quarry's kitchen. Bats, literally, in the belfry. What better over coffee than a good, meaty chat about heart-lung machines or roundworms? What better in the morning than a cyber-weather update from a potential mate on Baffin Island? One day 46-year-old "Mandy", a lab scientist living in Seattle, strolled up the drive of a contact's perfectly normal-looking house - and was led down to a mad-scientist basement positively humming with scanning electron microscopes and spectrometers. (She wasn't scared, plucky girl: she asked him if he'd teach her how to use them.) "Marge," meanwhile, didn't promise to grow old with "Kent," but he's still glad she took him fossil hunting.
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Sci Con members shouldn't be surprised if communiqués occasionally lack some of the more mainstream social skills. Thus "Candy," 38, can giggle at the e-mail that crisply informed her: "I have looked at all the résumés and yours is the best." (She turned down the job.) And there's something slightly charming about the member who comments: "I received today an email reply from a lady member . . . however, the interesting point was that the person could not read the MSWORD 6.0/7.0 file which was attached (via using email function of Netscape Gold 3.0) . . . it helped me to realize that, despite the tacit implication of Science Connection with regard to technology possibly employed, there may be some or many members who do not have the contemporary software facilitation."p>
Nor can you fault some members on the kind of analytical thoroughness that properly befits an outfit called Science Connection. One enterprising chap concocted a detailed "compatibility list" in which physical style, emotional style and more were to be filled out by potential mates - including their tendency to be "goal-oriented" during sex. Sometimes Lambert tugs her hair about this kind of thing - as she did when one member, a psychotherapist, wrote angrily to complain after being contacted by a lowly civil servant, or when a report came in of a date gone horribly wrong. "She was commenting on her weight problem and he responded by saying it was merely a matter of thermodynamics - energy consumed minus energy expended, and so on - and hence, her energy intake was excessive," recalls Lambert. "This discussion took place in a doughnut shop and he was surprised that she left abruptly."p>Sometimes, much as in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, members join and then sit back and wait for those alien signals to come in, sending out no signals themselves; and then complain, in dismay, when they sense no signs of life. But top of the list for squabbles must be the age-old saw: men wanting younger - much younger - women. Is Science Connection any better in this sphere than the big wide world? "Harvey," our DC businessman, reckons yes. "Jill" remains skeptical. Still, there's definitely one thing that's different: you won't leave a Science Connection discussion on the topic before you've been drilled on the latest evolutionary rationale for middle-aged men wanting hot young babes.
Are Science Connectionites nerds? "I don't think I've ever met a science nerd," says "Suzanne," 41, a nature guide from British Columbia. ("Oh mom, that guy from Saskatchewan was a nerd! He had thick glasses and he wasn't real excitable," pipes up her 18-year-old daughter in the background.)
Nerds with Attitude
p>Stereotyping scientists this way "seems to be one of the favorite things journalists like to do - 'oh, ha ha, a dating club for nerds' - and frankly, Anne and I are getting a little tired of it," comments "Ted," 47, a systems mathematician, and a long-standing member and friend of Lambert's. He bites his tongue later, though, when he reads his own bio to me: "'Interests in system mathematics and network modeling and material and energy utilization in agricultural systems, natural ecological systems, manufacturing systems, economic systems, these models can be used to examine alternative' . . . boy!" he breaks off. "This really sounds boring, doesn't it? This is a nerd!"p>
But dig a bit deeper. "Ted," with his wild cat "Kittycakes" for company, also lives and farms in a part of Michigan that is stuffed with wild turkeys, coyotes and deer. He's a dab hand with a tool kit and he's whizzed through 23 countries on his motorbike. Other Sci Con "nerds" include "competitive swimmer with great legs," "advertising goddess," and "CPA by day, thrill-seeker by night," to say nothing of that ace fighter pilot, a smattering of park rangers and, of course, our firefighter "Bob." And while it's fun to make light of such matters, and great fun to spotlight the quirky things that some members do, a lot of Science Connectors seem to be just plain enjoying themselves: more, I suspect, than I am. I begin to think about joining: I start flicking through the long list of sample bios. Then I idly begin to circle my selections.
Hmm, I wonder: Which ones responded to that "latex" ad?
p>All names apart from Anne Lambert's have been changed to protect the privacy of members and their pets. To find out more about Science Connection, dial (800) 667-5179 or visit their Web site.Rosie Mestel, a former U.S. correspondent with New Scientist, is a health writer for the Los Angeles Times.
Andrzej Krauze is an illustrator, poster maker, cartoonist, and painter who illustrates regularly for HMS Beagle, The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, Bookseller, and New Statesman.
"Best Of" Science Connection Member Comments - Science Connection members discuss dating.
Opportunities Expand for Two-Career Couples - an optimistic view of job-hunting for two-scientist couples. From the June 8, 1998 issue of The Scientist.
Dual-Science Career Couples - an extensive Web site offering more information on the "two body" problem.
Keeping It in the Family - one scientist's views on why biologists marry other biologists. From HMS Beagle.