Ryan Glitch, Geek Lover-Boy

His speed-dating show brings knowledge you can use to The Learning Channel.

For every Scott Summers cosplayer who has ever wanted to meet their Jean Grey at a convention, Ryan Glitch is a self-appointed Cupid of comicdom. A cosplayer himself (he's part of the Lucasfilm-approved 501st Legion, and likes dressing as Anakin Skywalker), he's been doing Sci-Fi Speed Dating for con-goers for just over a year, and now the world will get to watch his results, with the TLC premiere of two specials entitled Geek Love, based on the service he provides. We asked Ryan about the ins and outs of spacey socializing.

GeekChicDaily: First question about Geek Love: you must get a lot more men than women signing up for it, right?

Ryan Glitch: Initially, yes, online - but towards the end the girls sign up and it's usually the same way at the convention itself. We'll have all the guys there and almost no girls, and we have Tracy Niemynski outside, and she just goes out and drags people down to the room. But usually we manage to get it exactly 50/50.

GCD: Is that difficult? Does it take a long time to get it to 50/50?

RG: When it's just online sign-ups then yes, but once we get to the convention it balances itself out pretty quickly.

GCD: Are you able to judge how many success stories happen, or how many matches are actually made?

RG: Actually, yeah, because most of 'em keep in touch with me on Facebook, they send me a note. I know one couple is engaged. I know one had a shotgun wedding. I know a few others currently seeing each other. So I would say that we've probably had 25-30 success stories coming out of all the ones we've done.

GCD: What percentage would you say that is of the total?

RG: Oh, five percent. I mean, it's probably not a good number.

GCD: How long have you been doing this before the TV cameras started filming it?

RG: Since August of 2010. The TV cameras only rolled at one convention. So, just about ten sessions, maybe.

GCD: So both your specials are from the same show?

RG: Yes, both were filmed at New York Comic Con.

GCD: So presumably you film the actual speed-dating sessions, but what else can we expect to see on the show?

RG: You actually will see very little of the sessions. Without giving too much away, the show's not directly aimed at following me and my company; it's kind of indirect. They choose convention-goers, follow them through the sessions and then they see whether or not they end up with a date and how that date goes.

GCD: Is this your main job, or do you have other things going?

RG: It is my focus, but it's not the only thing I'm doing. I also work part-time at a Wal-mart store. They're pretty good to me there, but this is something that I'd like to do full time, and if the show goes to series it would definitely be feasible to do that.

GCD: Have you been an actor or an emcee before? Is this something that's been a long-term goal of yours?

RG: I've always wanted to be famous, one way or the other. I used to have my own radio show at a small, local station, I did some stand-up comedy here and there in the Rochester area, but nothing major.

GCD: So how did the TV show come together?

RG: I never had any intentions of turning it into a TV show, but I got a phone call after our second time running it from a lady in L.A., Kristin Peace, who left me a very to-the-point email which said, "you need to call me back." Very serious sounding. I thought we had stepped on somebody's toes, so I called back and she just went off with all these things she knew about me, everything she's heard, and finally she gets around to the speed-dating and goes, "Long story short, I wanna turn it into a TV show." I started laughing hysterically in my head - I thought it was a joke. Like one of my friends put somebody up to this just to make fun of me. So I got really sarcastic with her, like , "Oh yeahhhh! Sure! Whatever you need from me, I'm TOTALLY down with that!"

 I probably did that for 15-20 minutes back and forth, then she hung up and I figured that was all I'd ever hear from her. I got home, and there was a contract in my email that looked real, so I Googled her name and went oh, my God, she's serious. So then it was back and forth about contracts, trying to find a production company, getting a camera crew...they sent a small crew with us to C2E2, where they filmed a 5-minute pitch reel they used to sell to the networks. It was a month to get that edited together, then it was another five months of them hitting the road trying to sell it and finally TLC stepped up. Then they sent us to New York to do the specials that we hope will go to series.

GCD: Have you tried speed-dating yourself? If so, did it inform the way you put your version together?

RG: Yeah. At a convention about three years ago they had pseudo-speed dating. I tried it out and it absolutely sucked. I don't mean to be rude, but it wasn't fun, it felt like we were in boot camp and the host was very, very wooden, for lack of a nicer way to say that. People were getting up halfway through and leaving, including me - I hadn't met anybody that was worthwhile. I know that's a little mean, but it just wasn't cool and I figured I could do it better. That's how the whole thing of trying to make my own came about.

GCD: Are most of the people who sign up quite similar, or is it more diverse?

RG: I wouldn't say it's ultra-diverse. I mean, it's diverse within the attendees. We have people who are there just for comics, people that are there just for movies, just for collecting, what have you. At the end of the day, everyone's still a hardcore fan of something.

GCD: But would you say they're from all walks of life? Some would be cops, some would be teachers, lawyers, that kind of thing?

RG: I do know for a fact that we've had policemen at them. We had one guy who was a neurosurgeon once. There were some people that work retail, some car salesmen. There were other various professions I wasn't expecting to see: one guy was a competition shooter.

GCD: There's been a real trend in pop culture lately of hot, model-types who talk about Star Wars and say they're geeks. Do you feel like that's genuine, or some kind of geeksploitation?

RG: I would say for the most part, it's more exploitation. Our show definitely isn't going to be. The geek thing right now is in a very exploitative phase, while ours is just documentary, just honest. There have been some really attractive girls and really attractive guys [on our show] and then there's the very stereotypical fans, but for the most part, it's really not the kind of people I would have been expecting. It's a really good mix of all types of people.

GCD: Do you see any commonalities among the success stories?

RG: They're just as varied as the people that do it. I see a lot of the really good-looking guys and girls strike out, and I see some of the more "common" people do great.

GCD: Is it all hetero dating, or is there same-sex too?

RG: We do same-sex too. Unfortunately, though, the gay population isn't that big at our events; there's usually around eight daters, and we have them in a separate part of the room so we don't mix the two sessions up as we're cycling through, but so far all the gay participants we've had have had a good time. They didn't choose any of the gay geeks to follow on the show, which is kind of a bummer. In New York, though, we didn't really have a good turnout of the gay community.


Geek Love back-to-back specials premiere Dec. 18th at 9 p.m. and then 9:30 p.m. on TLC.

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