How not to get yourself invited to a girl geek dinner by me

Crossposted from geek feminism, with some additional commentary at the bottom:

My friend @orenmazor tweeted this:

way to increase visibility for the girl geek dinner by challenging the male geeks to figure out a way in http://is.gd/2Cc3F

The guy in question (Will Armstrong) first talks about how awesome the girl geek dinner will be. Okay, great. Then he whines because as a guy, he's not invited. Okay, less great, but understandable. And then he offers a contest, "with the winner having yours truly as your guest at girl geek dinner and getting a featured blog post on startup ottawa."

Uh, seriously awkward? Insulting? Worst way to ask for a date ever? Over-inflated ego much?

Certainly, I'm not impressed, and if I see this dude at the dinner (I'm hoping no one invites him), I'm going to be seriously tempted to pour a water pitcher over his head. And it's putting me off the startup blog, too, with that "hey, the easiest way for women get on our blog is to pimp themselves to Will" vibe.

So some take home messages here:

1. Woo! We're finally getting a girl geek dinner in Ottawa! Must remember to seriously thank the organizers. I've wanted this for a while, but hadn't had time to organize.
   
2. Please don't invite this dude. Seriously.
   
3. If you want an invite, don't do what he's doing. Ew.
   
4. I have not got plans for inviting a male companion, so if you really want to go, we can talk, but I'm not feeling terribly inclined or charitable at the moment.