The History of Sex: Geneva -- Why Car Nerds Aren't Cool -- (Chap. V, Pt. 15)

So in the same spirit as Chris the West-Country Mechanic, if not exactly Jean & Jean-Jacques, I feel compelled to make a confession of my own: I don't 'get' cars.

At least not in the way most men do.

Don't get me wrong: I appreciate a well-designed car as much as a well-designed egg beater, but I'd never lust after one, let alone be tempted to stick my bits in it.

Not exactly an egg-beater: a handle-powered vibrator from Germany
(from the Prague Sex Machines Museum)

To me, an excessive love of things that go vroom is symptomatic of the same quasi-autistic streak that drives other men to spend their free time logging the comings and goings of choo-choo trains.

And whereas it's commonly accepted that trainspotters are to be pelted with stones and driven from their homes with burning torches, I've never understood how a 'motorhead' who can bore the chrome off a 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz is celebrated as 'a man's man'—muy macho.

If anything, it seems to me that train anoraks are more endearing than car nerds because

a) they're self-aware enough to realize they're crazy and even a bit sad; and
b) there are fewer of them so there's less threat of them breeding. 

Indeed, what's frightening about the Geneva Motor Show is just how many car-nerds there are—the official tally this year is 730,736 (minus one) over ten days!

I'm clearly missing a kink in my chromosomes.

Which is why Lena the Latin South African is here.

With her curls and curves, she's got enough kinks for both of us.

For starters, she lets me in on the secret psychology of auto-nerds: 'It's not what you know about your car; it's what you know other people know about your car.'

Frankly, I wouldn't know.