By Carolyn Y. Johnson, World Staff

Joyce Dales had 30 dudes on Match her Jedi Knight in shining armor before she found.

“I became either too strange or they certainly weren’t strange sufficient,” she stated.

Fundamentally, she discovered and married Jeff Dales, a “recovering attorney” from Nottingham, N.H., who had been geek sufficient to sprinkle Star Wars recommendations into their very first e-mails that are flirtatious.

Nevertheless the list that is long of, from instructors and attorneys as well as other experts spread among the list of an incredible number of pages she encountered on popular internet dating sites, revealed Dales that folks like her had an issue: online dating sites — after the domain of geeks — had opted totally conventional.

“It is just like the play ground once again. We are perhaps perhaps maybe not the cool young ones,” stated Joyce, 35, whom last summer time established SweetOnGeeks, a secure haven where in fact the socially embarrassing are able to find a special someone whom shares their fantasy to build a Hobbit Hole or passion for jousting.

The Dales cofounded Sweet on Geeks with James Crosby, Joyce’s 37-year-old cousin — a self-identified history geek whom stated he had been refused as he attempted to fill a profile out for eHarmony.

“we think they deny you,” said Crosby, who compares the big dating websites to walking into a nightclub with The Killers playing — a nightmare for a guy whose idea of a good time involves vinyl records and a Renaissance Faire if you get a little extreme in your answers.

Sweet on Geeks is spot where tossing away a mention of a individuals “midichlorian count” — a means of calculating exactly exactly exactly how strong the Force is with in Star Wars — would not end a discussion just how it did whenever Joyce had been searching for a mate on Match.

Users choose names such as for instance “AlphaGeek,” or “entropy73.” For very very first impressions, they provide explanations such as “Nintendo fanboy” or ” soft-spoken and shy” and point out Nikola Tesla and Leonardo Da Vinci because their heroes.

There are some other geek dating web sites on the market, which range from gk2gk to Trek Passions, nevertheless the geeks behind Sweet on Geeks wish their site, which includes a few of the features folks have started you may anticipate on other social-networking sites and from now on has 4,000 users, becomes a go-to spot for Trekkies, gamers, among others.

“we are attempting to escape that one-geek label of a man sitting in a lab coating or winning contests,” stated Crosby.

All facets associated with web web web site is vetted because of the three founders — “two away from three geeks must accept,” Joyce claims. brand brand New features are developed in a process that is collaborative that the group experiments with brand brand new a few ideas — to their Macs, needless to say — thinking about things that produce them laugh.

When it comes to first couple of months, account is free for users; from then on, it costs $5 four weeks. But fundamentally the founders want to result in the website that is whole, sponsored by geek-friendly advertising advertisements just like the Dungeons & Dragons advertising that currently seems on the internet site.

“You need to promote to your market, and now we have actually a fairly good demographic,” stated Jeff Dales, 41, with a person base that likes devices, games, and spends considerable time on line.

Nevertheless the geekiness is not only area of the pages; it is included in the extremely base of interactions on Sweet on Geeks.

whenever a user “winks” at another individual to obtain the banter going, by way of example, they will have a choice of giving a variety of digital items — the letter that is greek, a unicorn, a floppy disk, a crop group, or a dilithium crystal utilized to power the warp drive on celebrity Trek. And so they can decide to share with the receiver regarding the basis for their wink; be it courtly love (“as a token of my esteem”) or the nerdish form of making a move (“as a spontaneous display of careless flirtation”).

“Our web web web site is extremely thoughtfully developed so an individual may be who they really are. It is okay to be smart. There is great deal of force in internet dating to be removed as one thing in your profile image,” Joyce stated. “We created a comfy location to geek away a conversation, a bully-free area.”

That is one thing the users appear to appreciate. Alex Riviere, a theater that is 21-year-old from Atlanta, joined up with the website a year ago and posted a photo of himself with a solved Rubik’s cube. The screen was taken by him title Fimion — that is elvish for slim guy.

Riviere, whom dresses as a pirate “as frequently he found browsing more conventional dating sites as I possibly can,” said the website offers something a bit more genuine than what.

“It is for those who realize that society would like to shun them. But we are actually pleased with the truth that we are geeks itself very lightly,” Riviere said so it just takes. “such a thing I put on Sweet on Geeks will probably be real and truthful; on, like, a dating that is normal I’d provide it a bit more consideration.”

That is simply the effect the founders are dreaming about because their web site grows in to destination where geeks meet, mingle, and perhaps also marry.

But behind the larger fantasy, there is an inferior one.

Crosby, using eyeglasses with blue octagonal contacts and a top saying “I’m maybe perhaps not dead yet,” continues to be solitary.