People are always asking me how they can improve themselves to be better humans. I assume that’s because of my nigh incomprehensible awesomeness, or possibly because I’m not listening to what they’re actually asking me and I’m a raging narcissist. In any event, to address these people’s question I look inward, towards my geek soul, and find that the best answer I can give is to be more of a geek. To that end, start with Star Trek. The following is a guide to help you better communicate with your significant other via the magically language of Star Trek.
Quantifying Her Impact in Your Life
“Before I met you I didn’t think I could love again, but you’ve opened a transwarp conduit directly into my heart.”
It’s possible that love is capable of reaching warp speeds — though one has to wonder how exactly it’s capable of creating a stable subspace warp field — but the issue is that your heart is so far away that it cannot be reached in a reasonable time frame through normal space. This could have happened in a transporter accident.
Making Her Feel Sexy
“Your tits are like a pair of plump hairless Tribbles.”
Everyone loves Tribbles.
Complimenting Him on His Physique
“Your testis are like two prepubescent Tribbles.”
This can also be used as a means of telling your partner he needs to shave his balls.
Communicating Your Disappointment
“It’s like discovering a stable wormhole above your war-torn planet, and then you find out that the Jem’Hadar live on the other side.”
The Jem’Hadar are dicks.
Proposing to Her
“Resistance is futile. I will add your biological and financial distinctiveness to my own. Your life will adapt to service mine.”
Errrr… actually, maybe you shouldn’t say that. Instead use the following:
“Darmok and Jalad at Tenagra.”
If your girlfriend understands what the above means without having to Google it then she’s the most awesome girlfriend EVER!
When He Takes Too Long to Fix the Garbage Disposal
“Geordi could have done it in 5 minutes with shields down to 10% and warp core containment about to collapse.”
You could also throw out there that he did all that while also appearing on Reading Rainbow.
When She Tries to Play the “Geordi Card”
“Yeah, well, I can’t just reverse the polarity on this thing!”
I guess you could also say, “I’m giving her all she’s got… she can’t take any moorrrrrre!”, but that’s only if she doesn’t know the difference between Scotty and Geordi. However, doing so means you lose 100 geek points and you have to surrender your Vulcan ears/Klingon forehead ridges immediately. We will take pity on you and allow you to keep your Bajoran nose ridges, because they’re lame.
When He Tries to Play the “Reverse the Polarity Card”
“True, but you don’t have a visor that looks like a giant hair clip glued to your face.”
I don’t care what anyone says — I refuse to accept those synthetic eyes they gave him in First Contact as canonical.
Comparing Her to Your Old Girlfriend So That She Feels Good About Herself
“Babe, you’re like Dr. Crusher and she’s more like Dr. Polanski.”
Polanski was old, ugly, and almost as crotchety than McCoy. Crusher was a hot single mother who was rocking the 80’s style power jacket. No contest, even with that annoying punk kid Wesley.1
Comparing Him to Your Old Boyfriend So That He Feels Good About Himself
“Honey, you’re like Worf and he’s more like Tasha Yar.”
This is saying a lot, too, ’cause Tasha Yar was one handsome dude. Wait… he was a chick? That explains why the security chief of the flagship of the Federation who was raised on a war-torn world where she had to kill or be killed was ultimately killed by an unarmed man-sized sludge monster.
Maybe more appropriately would be to say:
“Honey, you’re like Will Riker and he’s more like Tom Riker.”
Because having Will Riker duplicated in a transporter accident which yields Tom Riker is about as original as TNG was getting in it’s later seasons. At least Voyager had the good sense to go back to the Borg well when they ran out of ideas.
Telling Him He Needs to Put on Fancy Pants
“You need to dress for Enterprise, not Voyager.”
Granted, if I was stuck 30,000 light years away from Earth with Kate Mulgrew as the captain and the guy from the He-Man movie as the driver I’d be in a casual Fridays kind of mood too.
Getting Her to Give the Open Bar a Rest
“You’re like a Klingon fresh from a Targ hunt.”
In her defense, drunk Klingon chicks have great taste in clothes.
On Her Ability to Catch You Lying
“She saw through me like a distributed tachyon detection grid sees through a Romulan cloaking device.”
This isn’t actually a problem I’ve ever had, because I use a phasing cloak for my lies.
When She Confuses You With Her Feminine Double-Speak
“That makes about as much sense as the Klingons altering their DNA with enhanced bioengineered human DNA which makes them look like humans for a hundred years and people in the Federation not knowing that happened even though they were directly involved with that event.”
If that’s not good enough you can instead form an analogy to a Klingon Bird-of-Prey traveling back through time to Earth circa late 80’s to retrieve a pair of Humpback whales because they’re the only creatures capable of communicating with a fucking rod floating through space that kills planets, with the assumption, of course, that the floating space rod only wants to talk to someone and the whales know just the right thing to say to it to make it go away and not kill Earth. Because, honestly, that makes no sense.
- Have I told you about the time I met Wil Wheaton? I’ll have to remember to recount that story one day.↩
