After seven seasons of relationships with on-again off-again boyfriends Angel and Spike, show creator Joss Whedon let his heroine ride off into the sunset (or really, run off into the sunset), alone. I remember watching the episode and finding the idea shocking and refreshing. It wasn’t a happily ever after ending, but it also wasn’t a tragic ending; it was completely realistic. The show ends with Buffy at age 22/23, and what girl at that age has relationships all figured out?

I remembered this scene today while I was talking to my friend Rocky* about our friend Veronica’s* current relationship. I was expressing a few things that were bothering me about it, nitpicking at the things that have bothered me when she was in previous relationships and continue to bother me now. Rocky gently reminded me that Veronica doesn’t have it all figured out yet, and she pointed out that neither do I. I’d somehow expected Veronica to learn all that there is to learn about relationships between the one she was in last and the one she is in now, but the only thing that has really changed is that we’re not in college anymore.

We might be in the “real” world now, where when we meet someone we like, there’s nothing standing between us and “forever;” no more summer vacations to force our boyfriends and us apart, no worry about the impending relationship-breaking doom of graduation. Now we’re in the time when people date often for the sole purpose of settling down. But, instead of floating along, it’s like we’re in the deep end of the pool, desperately trying to touch the bottom. There’s no longer anything to hold onto. No obstacles, no problem, right? Not at all. The relationship hang-ups we had in college are still hang-ups; insecurities are still insecurities. Only the setting has changed.

On Buffy, heroes aren’t always righteous and villains aren’t always obvious, love isn’t always loving, and relationships don’t magically get easier as you grow up. Joss Whedon knew that just because Buffy saved the world for the last time and could settle down in a relationship didn’t mean she should, or would be able to.

Why did I find it so compelling when Buffy said she wasn’t done growing up and figuring out relationships, and yet I expected my own flesh-and-blood best friend to have it all figured out? The truth is, now that I am out here, living in this world, things aren’t as cut and dry as I want to believe. People don’t suddenly learn lessons or change their ways. And my best friend’s relationships aren’t going to change just because they should.

After all, there is a lot of work that goes into a perfectly baked cookie.

[*Not their real names. Duh. Who are my friends? Cartoons?]

And they’re surprisingly date-able.

I sat down the other night with two of my geekiest friends, Patrick and Jeff (not their real names), to discuss geek love. I asked them why a girl should date a geeky guy, and they gave me an intricate look at the geek lifestyle and how it translates into relationships.

First, we lay down the definition of a geek. They explain to me the difference between a nerd, a geek, and a dork. In their opinion, dorks and nerds are both socially awkward beings –– dorks because they’re too dumb and nerds because they’re too smart. A geek, on the other hand, is the perfect specimen.

“How do you approach a girl you have a crush on?” I ask.

“I do that?” Patrick asks back. Jeff explains to me that geeky guys don’t approach girls they like in order to ask them out. Out of a fear of rejection, they try to be friends first. I ask the guys how well this works out, they agree: not well.

Patrick tells me: “In high school [Jeff] pitched to me the idea of Dungeons & Dragons because he said girls would be there.” I ask Patrick if this worked out and he just gives me a what-do-you-think? look.

According to Patrick and Jeff, geeks are the perfect boyfriends for three main reasons: they are sweet, loyal and smart. It only makes sense that the same guy who memorizes a hundred Star War’s alien species will remember every last detail about his girlfriend and her love for all things Gossip Girl. And the imaginative guy that plays games like D & D (Dungeons and Dragons, for all you non-geeks out there) will also be the guy who comes up with adorable date/gift ideas…and maybe some awesome role-playing in the bedroom. Rar.

“God doesn’t give with both hands,” the old cliché goes. I firmly believe this. In my ten-odd years of dating, I’ve learned that the prettier and more charming the boy, the more vapid the boy’s brain. Those of us not blessed with fashion model looks or disarming charm had to develop (gasp!) personalities to compensate.

Geeks have personality in droves, and the coping mechanisms they developed in high school help them considerably in relationships. They weren’t the most popular kids in school (duh), and their after-school activities weren’t considered cool (audio visual club, etc.), so they formed tight cliques with like-minded friends, thus developing their loyalty. Geeky boys also had to rely on humor to survive; who could make fun of them when they were making fun of themselves first?

All the qualities that make a geek a geek also make a geek a good boyfriend. What girl doesn’t want a sweet, loyal, imaginative, romantic, funny guy who can also fix her computer and explain how a supernova forms? So, while you might have been glued to the football field bleachers in high school searching for the perfect boyfriend, now that you’re out of school it’s time to move away from the jocks and towards the geeks.

The relationship will be far more rewarding.

[Photo courtesy of hollywoodjesus.com]

It was refreshing to talk to a guy who shared my interests and taste, because in New York it was hard to find someone I had anything in common with. I felt like I’d struck gold, and then I remembered: I wasn’t in New York anymore. This was Los Angeles, a city full of my kind of people.

It’s not just a myth that everyone in Los Angeles works in the entertainment industry in one capacity or another; you’re hard pressed to find someone with no industry connections. Everyone in LA seems to have a script they wrote tucked under their arm, and most would rather win an Oscar than a Nobel Peace Prize. Some might hate this, but I love it and talking to this guy at Coach & Horses felt incredibly good.

Unlike life on this side of the cap and gown, people who share your interests – or at least similar day-to-day experiences – constantly surround you in college. There are shared teachers, shared majors, friends, gossip, dining halls; you get the idea. While in college I’d always make sure to get to my classes early on the first day of the semester so I could scope out each guy, tallying in my head who I’d date or hook up with. Eye candy and silly class crushes are what got me through Expository Writing and Brit Lit. I had the security of knowing that if I met a guy in class I knew he was around my age, was also interested in writing and literature, and was at least intelligent enough to get into college.

Post-graduation, the convenient college admissions funnel that weeds out the freaks and morons is gone. You’re suddenly thrown into a pool of singles that would appear to be an endless sea of possibilities, but is actually the ninth circle of hell. Instead of bars full of potential boyfriends, there are bars full of unemployed college dropouts, divorced guys, and (in one particular encounter of mine), sleazy paparazzi photographers.

If you live in a multi-industry city like New York, you’re going to meet people from many varied professions and backgrounds. If you like this, then you’re in luck. If you’re more interested in meeting people on a similar career track and with similar life experiences (like the good old college days), there are a few tricks I’ve learned.

First, find an after-work bar near your office; there’s a better chance there that you’ll meet someone with a job similar to your own. If not, you will at least meet people who have come from a job, and not some freaks off the streets.

Second, accept the reality of your location. If you want to meet a stockbroker and you live in Los Angeles, you might just be out of luck, or at the least you’re going to have to search pretty hard.

Third, and most important: try to keep an open mind. Bill Gates, after all, was a drop-out (yeah, it was from Harvard, but still), so you never know if that unemployed college-failure ordering his scotch-on-the-rocks at the bar is the future richest, smartest, wittiest and most-successful man in the world.

Growing up, I was daddy’s little girl. If my mom said I couldn’t have ice cream after dinner, I’d run to my dad; if my mom said I couldn’t stay out past eleven on a school night, I knew dad could be convinced. I was never really a tomboy (except for that brief period when I was five and told everyone I was a boy, but that’s not important right now…), but I always got along with guys better than I did with girls. Anyone who has seen Mean Girls and/or was picked on by other girls in high school knows why. Girls can be horrible to each other. Girls can be judgmental, catty, and sometimes just plain bitches. After being tormented by other girls all through school, I found it incredibly hard to get close to girls, and incredibly easy to get close to guys.

Sadly, something I have discovered in the post-college world I now inhabit is that it’s no longer easy to find guys to just be friends with. After you get your diploma and toss your hat up in the air, you’re thrust in to a world where everyone seems to be looking to pair up, and no one just wants to hang out and get a beer.

Sometimes you’ll make friends with people at work, but often you’ll want to keep your work life and your weekend life separate, and if you’re anything like me, you’ll find your weekend-life group of friends has dwindled since graduation. People tend to scatter after college, and often you’ll find that the plans you had with your friends to get a house together in San Francisco, or wherever, has fallen through, and now you’re living in a city with just one or two good friends. So now you want to make more friends, and now you come upon one of the greatest unspoken challenges of being in your 20s: making friends, especially with the opposite gender.

Here’s a scenario that seems to be repeating in my life lately: I’m hanging out with friends at a bar hanging and a guy strikes up a conversation with me. He’s friendly, funny, he’s a writer like me, and he’s got some great anecdotal stories about his first job working as a PA on “Conan O’Brien.” In other words, he’s a catch. He asks me for my number and I hand him my business card. I should be thrilled, except there’s one big problem: I’m not attracted to him. Whatsoever. So how do I forge a friendship with someone I’m going to have to let down?

These are the three options I’ve tried:

1) Give him your number but don’t pick up when he calls asking you out to dinner.

This is a massive waste of a perfectly good business card. Don’t hand out your phone number if you don’t plan on picking up the guy’s call. Although I will say that if he hadn’t asked for dinner and instead invited me to a museum or something else in a more platonic setting, I would have called him back.

2) Go out on a pseudo-date.

I went out on a date with a guy who had awesome credentials but not-so-awesome looks. We got along really well, but at the end of the night I still just wasn’t attracted to him. Even though we had a good time together, and I managed to dodge the goodnight kiss, I blew him off when he called asking for a second date. Looking back on it, I wish I’d tried harder to be friends with him, but I was new to the game, and gave up too easily.

3) Go out and make it subtly clear that you’re not interested in sex.

This is by far my best suggestion. From the get-go, you should set the ground rules. If the guy asks you out for dinner, suggest some happy hour drinks (way too early for a goodnight kiss or a drunken sleepover); if he asks you out for drinks but you’re not ready for one-on-one time, invite him out with your friends. Then, when you are hanging out, try to sneak into the conversation something about a guy at work you’re crushing on or about your vow to be single until you’ve moved out of your parent’s house, found a job, gotten your trust-fund payout at age thirty, whatever.

In my experience, it is possible to forge a friendship with someone of the opposite sex post-college, it just takes a little more work and cunning than it did while in school, and it’s bound to be more awkward. But if you’re a guy’s girl like me, and mean girls have scarred you for life, it’s worth it.