Sport, music and cooking — I'm pretty rounded for a tech nerd. Sure, let's get the basics out of the way: I'm 34/M/bi, studied Maths at Churchill, still live in Cambridge (the 🇬🇧 one), and work as a Linux kernel developer. I even have Asperger's Syndrome. But I'm more interesting than those bare facts might suggest.
Edward is athletic: I regularly rollerblade multi-mile distances, either for fitness or for practicality — up the Busway to visit friends in Northstowe, skating around the Tesco aisles picking up groceries, even dozen-mile trips to catch a flight home from a conference. Perhaps as a consequence, I have a lean, slim, wiry build, emphasising tone and endurance rather than raw power or muscly visuals. I also play village cricket, because I'm English like that (I bowl wrist-spin, so you know I'm good with my hands).
Edward is domestic: I wouldn't claim to be a brilliant chef, but I enjoy making hearty home-cooked meals like curry, gumbo, and ragù, and I'd enjoy it even more if I had someone else to cook for.
Edward is eclectic: I'm well-read and can hold a deep conversation on many subjects across both the sciences and the humanities. My detail-oriented mind loves to build an understanding from first principles. Particular obsessions include aviation history, economic philosophy, and space. But don't be surprised if I suddenly reference Macaulay on 17th-century English politics or start arguing that the Iliad is actually an early example of gay fanfic. I'm a lover of classical music, and play the French horn in a couple of amateur orchestras, but I also have time for other genres, so whether your vibe is Gilbert & Sullivan or 5 Seconds Of Summer I'll gladly meet you there. Elsewhere in the arts, I'm poetically inclined, so if you like having sonnets written about you I can certainly deliver.
I'm a late and erratic sleeper, which has its compensations in being up for late-night adventures, and I'll never be the one to end a lazy morning cuddle. Thanks to my naturally frugal habits I've already hit FI, enabling me to shift to part-time work and have more time to spend with you. I can be scattered and disorganised at times, but the important things (and important people) don't get forgotten.
I grow my hair long and am not over-fastidious about regular bathing; I could almost be mistaken for a hippie, but really I'm from a different subculture, hackerdom. (Indeed, you could get a fairly accurate mental model of me just by reading ESR's Portrait of J. Random Hacker.)
While I'm not so eager to please that I'll completely alter myself to match you, any individual part of my life is probably changeable if it's a problem; don't assume that autism necessarily means rigid habits.
Ideally you should have at least a tolerance for being physically active and a playful, youthful attitude (which does not necessarily mean you need to be younger than me! While I do like twinks — I make no apology for appreciating beauty — I like other types too); similarly, you need to have some kind of intellectual or cerebral interests for us to have enough to talk about. Anyone who only has gossip and small talk will bore me, and I probably won't have much to offer them either.
I'm drawn to people with a penchant for harmless mischief; indeed, a well-judged balance of 'annoying' and 'infuriating little shit' can be overwhelmingly attractive to me.
My relationship goals are mainly companionship and someone to whom I can give my overflowing affection (to the extent that love languages are a meaningful concept, mine is definitely touch); I'm not opposed to having children but it's not a priority for me. I would be quite as happy with a soft cuddly boyfriend so that we can explore new adventures, play chess or cards at home when we fancy a quiet evening, and care for one another as we grow old together, as I would with a conventional wife-and-2.4-children life.
…you're looking for a short fling. I tend to be overeager to commit, so if 'clinginess' gives you the ick I might not be for you.
…you hate right-wingers. My politics are unabashed libertarian free-market ideology. Communists and other capitalism-haters will decide I'm the enemy soon enough, so I may as well make it clear up front. Similarly, don't expect me to have the Approved Opinions on identity-politics questions.
… you want humility. I'm confident in my abilities and the rightness of my principles; to some people that comes across as arrogant.
My 𝕏 profile pic is from over a decade ago; I wish I were still that pretty, but sadly the years do show at least a little. I don't have many photos of me, but here are a couple taken in the last year:
(I promise I do smile sometimes, it just never seems to get caught on camera.)
Easiest way to shoot your shot is probably to slide into my DMs* on 𝕏, but if you wanted to flirt on the public timeline or even do a creepy amount of research on me in order to contrive an apparently-chance IRL meeting you're welcome to do that too I guess. Just don't stay quiet and expect me to find you; I'm too autistic to read your mind and what you see as subtle indicators of interest (especially if you're female) I probably won't pick up on at all.
* Annoyingly 𝕏 is full of bot accounts that do this too, so if you want to make extra sure I don't mistake your DM for one of these, you can include the word 'penguin' to prove you've read this ;)