Woes of a Geek

I've recently decided to upgrade my phone---I've had it for going on three years and it's started acting quirky (though as one of my friends insists, it's because it knows I'm planning to replace it. :D) But I'm also on a budget (who isn't?) and there are other things I want to spent my money on so...

I did some online research but I still had some questions (and it's impossible to play with a phone online anyway,) so in I went to my local store. I should probably preface this by saying a few of my friends go to this store and have never had this particular issue, but it was apparently my day for it. I told the sales clerk what phone I wanted to look at, and making a long and torturous story short, the salesman apparently thought I was only interested in what colors the phone came in.

Right. 

I wonder what gave him that idea? Because I was female? Probably. It's not the first time I've dealt with this attitude; I once walked off a car lot because a salesman refused to pop the hood on a model I was looking at (I couldn't find the release latch) because, as he said, "Why?  You'll never look at it."

Right. 

The thing is, I like technology. I was a PC user for years, and now I use a Mac full-time. I've used computers, of one sort or another, since I was ten. I was also lucky that my dad, the main gadget geek in our house, never discouraged me from learning. So my interest in computers, in phones, in cars, tends to be a little bit more than "Oooh, what color does it come in?"

Sigh. I walked out of that store, of course. And if I need help with my phone, I'll go to another store. But in this day and age--2012--it's astonishing that the view that woman= not good with technology is still so pervasive.