We humans, as a whole, float through life in our own semi-porous ego bubbles, admitting only a select few into our fragile mind-lairs. Bubble companions must be carefully screened – after all, once someone has partaken of the freaky-deaky fruit of our head grapes, it takes more than an eviction notice to get them out. Indeed, many a broken heart (and probably several small wars) has been the result of two incompatibles performing a bubble-meld only to discover that the combination produces only a rancid cocktail of resentment and bitterness. Tread carefully, bubble-dwellers, for they’ll tread on your dreams!

Geeks have a tougher dilemma than most, as their bubbles contain immaculately catalogued stacks of precious materials, and it’s inevitably taken ages to arrange just right. What if your potential mate blunders into your bubble and knocks over your painstakingly collected Age of Apocalypse paperbacks, or unwittingly deletes your Final Fantasy save file? Worse still, what if they laugh at you? It’s a minefield. Except the mines are crammed with mockery and the shrapnel’s made out of red hot shards of humiliation.

Of course, once you’ve found a bubble buddy who doesn’t mind the clutter, and actually finds all those pictures you drew of Legolas kind of endearing, a whole new game begins. It’s called How To Get Your Partner Interested In Your Nerdy Pastimes, and it’s a game of honour and diplomacy (just like Bat Fight). It’s a cat-and-mouse affair, where you will have to convince your loved one to throw caution to the wind and turn your single-player existence into a co-op love-in. I’m no more than an intermediate player, but as a card-carrying geek who has managed to retain (without the use of shackles or chloroform) a distinctly non-geeky girlfriend for the last five years or so, I feel qualified to kick out some beginners’ tips.

Keeping score – it’s big and it’s clever

Saving money is boring, but open up a Lady Points or Jock Points savings account, and you’ll be surprised at the rewards. For guys, this means happily sitting through another double-bill of Sex And The City and doing your very best not to make snarky comments whenever one of the characters says something ludicrously shallow or egotistical. Which is much harder than it seems. For girls, it means watching the rugby or putting up with an hour of French cricket in the back garden, or whatever it is that normal males enjoy doing. This sustained agreeableness will bleed into your partner’s subconscious, making it much easier to persuade them to jump on board with your proposed Japanese horror marathon. Take advantage of birthdays, too. If your loved one tells you that today is all about you, the runway’s clear and you’ve got the green light to hijack the day.

Be economical with the truth

A tactic to be used sparingly and with restraint. If you’ve got a gut feeling (wishful thinking doesn’t count) that your partner is going to like a movie that they’re initially hesitant to commit to, it’s time to get creative. It’s not about lying, it’s about emphasising the parts of the movie to which they’ll respond. So, with Iron Giant, up-sell the heart-warming journey of self-discovery, downplay the giant robot from outer space. With Let The Right One In, up-sell the unfurling of a young romance like a delicate winter rose, downplay the decapitations and burning corpses. If your gut feeling is right, they’ll forgive you the deception. There’s a limit though – if you lead your girlfriend into Switchblade Romance under the pretence that it’s a charming rom-com set in rural France, the game will probably be up when that guy’s head gets crushed by a bookcase about five minutes in.

Comic strips, aka the gateway drug

If you want to get your girlfriend into comic books and graphic novels, don’t just wave a 500-page copy of Watchmen in her face and babble about sub-plots, superhero revisionism and the inherent fascism of Nietzsche’s Overman. That’s an awesome conversation, but you can’t have it yet. The format of comics can be pretty intimidating for people who haven’t grown up fawning over them, and comic strips are an ideal entry point, given that they present stories or moments in manageable chunks, and usually have a simple and instantly engaging art style. I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t been taken in with the homespun wit of Peanuts or Calvin & Hobbes’ precocious escapism. And Simone Lia’s Fluffy gets points for frankly absurd levels of cuteness. Strategically place comic strips in the crapper, so she’s forced to read them when there’s nothing else to do. Remove all other books if necessary. Thus, through the ruthless elimination of all other creative outlets, the embryonic comic book aficionado is slowly nurtured.