Gawker’s SciFi blog i09 flirts with the eternal question — also explored on How I Met Your Mother — “Sure they love me, but can they love my Star Wars?”

It’s all fun and games until the Firefly box is opened, and all of a sudden you’re caught defending space pirates. How I Met Your Mother’s season premiere perfectly covered this silly question that those of us with short fuses and huge science fiction collections often find ourselves in….It’s a sweet look at the geeking out we all do when our most favorite movie is on and you really, really hope that your friend/buddy/significant other/or homeless guy on the street will enjoy it as much as you will. The nice thing about HIMYM’s take on the “deal breaker” movie is that at least Sarah Chalke was smart enough to lie. Which is my advice to those of you just getting into the scifi game.

Just this week a beautiful girl approached me and asked what she should do as she “discovered” her fiances’ in-depth collection of Star Trek episodes. I told her to ask him to play her his favorite episodes that he thought she would like, open a bottle of wine (or two), and if she didn’t like it just let him know he can have all the fun friend time he wants with his buddies that want to come over for Trek marathons.

I’m not saying all relationships lacking a mutual love of sci fi are totally lost to the dark side, but if your love interest isn’t willing to at least sample your geeky taste along with a bottle of wine, maybe they are not the droid you’re looking for?

(Bonus: io9 also asks this excellent question: “My favorite can-not-live-with-out-deal-breaker-if-they-don’t-at-least-pretend-to-like-it movie is and probably always will be Aliens. What’s yours?”)