Veolia Water Technologies by GineersNow Engineering Magazine GineersNow Engineering Magazine September 2016 | Page 52

WHY I MARRIED
AN ENGINEER
By Margaret Banford
Reader, I married him. The man of my
dreams, the love of my life, an engineer.
I know what most of you will be thinking
right now – an engineer?! A civil engineer?!
Aren’t they all introverted, unsociable nerds
who have pocket protectors?
Well, reade r, maybe the stereotype has a
grain of truth to it (though obviously not in
every case), but why is that automatically
a bad thing? Not everybody likes going out
that much – I certainly don’t – and while
it might take a few glasses of wine to get
me to admit to an encyclopedic knowledge
of the Wheel of Time series (I’ll never tell),
what’s wrong with being nerdy? In practice,
all it means is that you are knowledgeable
about the things you love, and really…is
there anything wrong with that?
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SEPTEMBER 2016
Clean Water Technologies
Be assured: smart really is the new sexy.
I admit that sometimes we have our
differences – our personalities can be very
different, with him not understanding that I
just need to vent sometimes: I don’t need any
problems solved, I don’t want a reasonable
voice explaining to me what is happening – I
just want to be heard with a sympathetic
ear! But all types of engineers – chemical
engineers, mechanical engineers – have
been trained to seek solutions for problems.
That’s just how they approach things, and
unfortunately it sometimes bleeds over into
their personal lives too. All it took was an
explanation (and, to be completely honest, a
few reminders…), and my husband now lets
me vent, gives me a hug or a drink depending
on how bad the venting session was, and we
get on with our lives!