I’ve always wondered. I’m talking about juniors/seniors is HS, 16/17/18 years old, not like 14 year olds.
You always notice that jock guys are always flirting with girls, but never really “nerd” guys. To me, you’d think they’d notice girls just as much as the jock guys because they are at the same stage puppetry-wise, and it’s natural to be attracted to the opposite sex (or whatever sex you like).
Maybe nerdy guys are less confident because they believe girls are only interested in jocks, so they don’t make the effort for fear of rejection .
I’m sure the “nerdy” guys have better things to do than flirt with girls all day.
DS doesn’t, but I notice girls checking him out. I wish he realized it! 
Boys mature later than girls. That’s part of the problem.
Why is this even a concern? You go to school to learn. Not to check out whoever you’re attracted to.
There’s a joke about the engineer walking past a frog who calls up to him “if you kiss me I’ll turn into a beautiful princess and you can be my prince”
He picks up the frog and puts it in his pocket. About 3 more times the frog repeats the offer and each time he looks at the frog, smiles, and puts it back into his pocket.
Finally the frog says “can’t you hear me!?”
He says, “I’m an engineer; I don’t have time for a girlfriend but a talking frog is cool!”
So yes, they notice, but often they know they’re 5 years away from settling down and feel flirting is a waste of time and energy.
@basedchem quiet now, your lack of experience with the opposite sex is showing…
Often those who seem entirely disinterested in the opposite sex lack the confidence, or are simply too awkward. Those who can flirt, do. It’s quite simple. Even those who are brilliant. If they can flirt to some extent, and feel comfortable doing so, they do.
No one “is too busy”. It’s an excuse to prevent potential (and often likely) rejection and things of this sort.
@ZBlue17 , go back and read your original post. Read it through the eyes of one of those “nerdy” guys. You know those kids-- they’re always on the outside, not sure why other kids don’t accept them.
And here you are, absolutely confident that you’re one of the cool kids, putting them down as not even noticing girls. Oh, good, it’s the start of another school year, and some kid they don’t even know is putting them down.
So I’ll answer on their behalf. Yes, they do notice girls. Many simply lack the confidence and social skills to talk/flirt with them, pretty sure that they’ll do it wrong-- and that some kid will make fun of them as a result…perhaps even do so online.
The good news is that, as they mature, they stop caring about what others think. That’s one of the great things about maturing-- you learn to discern what’s really important.
I have a friend who is traffic stopping gorgeous, and always has been. She went to college, and fell for a football player, and married him. He was the ultimate “cool kid jock”. It was “happily ever after” for a few years and 2 kids, then she realized what a jerk he is. Eventually the marriage ended. A few years later, she ended up with someone I had gone to high school with-- one of those quiet, shy kids that no one knew. He ended up being the man of her dreams, and they were together until his death.
The moral of the story is that high school isn’t life. Those titles-- nerd, cool kid, jock, loser-- mean nothing in the real world. All they do is say something about the maturity of the people making those judgments.
Of course nerdy guys NOTICE girls. It’s just that girls don’t notice them.
To the nerdy guys out there: hang in there… there’s justice in the end.
@bkjmom I find it interesting how you immediately jumped to those conclusions…The only reason I put those labels in my post was because I assumed mostly those in HS would respond, and I wanted them to be able to relate to what I was trying to convey. At my small high school of 300, literally everyone is a “nerd” and it’s cool to be smart, but the “nerds” I’m talking about are the ones who are above average smart, innovative, want to go to MIT/Caltech, and be physicists, chemists, engineers, etc. They’re different from the rest of us because while we consider ourselves of average intelligence, we consider them of much high intelligence. So, we look up to them for help with our physics, Calc, or chemistry classes. And these “nerds” come from really wealthy families and dress in really nice clothes. The difference between them and other guys is that they seem to not notice girls even though girls at my school fall at their feet.
Btw, I despise the outright incorrect assumptions you automatically made.
@HarvardMaths ok please I’ve had a boyfriend before ok 
Let’s not get our panties in a twist. I have plenty of guy friends too. It’s just we have a lot more things to focus on at school than the opposite sex. When we’re outside, it’s fine to do other things.
OP, to answer your original question: of course nerdy guys notice girls. It happens a lot at my school. It’s just that again, they seem to have a lot more to focus on than girls to make a move.
My nerdy boy noticed girls more than I wanted. He even had romance with girls one or two years older than him.
@Zblue17 the whys vary from teen to teen. While my s17 is not MIT material and is a cross x runner, my s’s friendship ratio is 5 girls for every 1 guy. But he has never had a g’friend. He has always found girls far more interesting to talk to since he learned to talk. But if I suggest he ask one out, deer in the headlights look. Though one of his friends did convince him to ask a girl to prom last year, but only after assuring him she would say yes. So at least several things are at work: confidence, a lack of desire to engage in teen age girl dramas so prevalent at this age, a preference not to screw up a perfectly good friendship with a girl by dating her b/c right now his friendships are really precious to him, and he is particular. Finally, teens do not go through puberty at the same pace. My s is much later like his grandpa. He will not be done until close to 20. My guess is he will sort it out in college.
He has a female friend who is academically brilliant (Calc 9th grade; some Ivies and Stanford wooing her since 8th grade when she 1st took the SAT, world class cyclist, and very attractive to boot). She has given up any effort to date in HS - too much drama and distraction.
@goldensrock Bingo! You stated everything that I could’ve said about my DS16. He is quite the nerd and I often call him my 17 year old trapped in a 50 year old body. He has quite a few friends that are female and he too would be horrified if I suggested he even consider dating any of them. We often run into female classmates who are very friendly towards him, but he would never consider dating any of them. He too will sort it out in college I believe. I often tease him that he will end up with a “cougar” . But he got the last laugh as he told me with a smile " You may be right " as he pointed to the statue of a cougar on our most recent tour of his college of choice.
@ZBlue17 nice try.
I googled the definition of “nerd” just in case somehow common usage has changed it. Here’s what I found:
"nerd /nərd/ noun informal
noun: nerd; plural noun: nerds; noun: nurd; plural noun: nurds
a foolish or contemptible person who lacks social skills or is boringly studious.
“one of those nerds who never asked a girl to dance” "
OK, let’s try a different source:
from the Urban dictionary:
"Nerd One whose IQ exceeds his weight. (by Anonymous July 23, 2003)
20 Words related to Nerd (I’ve edited out the more offensive ones)
geek • dork • nerds • loser • dweeb • smart • nerdy •
cool • computer • gamer • geeks • noob • idiot • wow •
emo • stupid • lame • awesome "
So maybe your school is incredibly counter culture, and it really is a place where “nerd” is a compliment, a synonym for “someone even smarter than the rest of us really smart kids.” In my school, and with my teenage kids, those synonyms are pretty much right on target.
If so, then it kind of begs the question: did you never, in any science class, take basic bio? Learn of basic biological urges? Anything to tie a lack of those uges into “nerdiness” as you define one-- one to be admired because the girls are falling at their feet?
I agree-- your post was aimed mostly at high school kids. But the funny thing about the internet is that if you put something out there, it’s fair game for anyone who wants to read it.
@ZBlue17 at my s’s HS the brightest kids self-describe themselves as “nerds”. One of my s’s friends, an adorable redheaded girl, wears a necklace with the word “nerd” on it and she is one of the student council leaders. He and his friends wear the label proudly and use it to distinguish themselves from the “pops”. I have always been amused that a collection of bright, independent thinkers who tend to be loners all found each other and formed a community. So my s and his friends would use the term the same way you do and not take offense at all at your observations. In fact my s’ would chuckle knowingly.
I should note that this self-labelled “nerd” group crosses all academic areas and includes artists, musicians, science and engineering types and even a professional model who the “pops” try to torture because she ditched them after 9th grade preferring the “nerds.”
@bkjmom did you fail to notice that I deliberately put the word “nerd” in quotations in my post? Care to ask why?
And kids today don’t look up terms in the dictionary before using it. Seeing as you aren’t a teenager, and you aren’t in HS, I don’t expect you to understand us. So don’t act like you understand, or like you experience anywhere matches my own. Thx.
@goldensrock my school is known in my area as the “nerd” school because it’s an alternative school for those who want to focus more on academics than sports. So, basically anyone who choses to go to my HS is a self-proclaimed “nerd”.We don’t have any varsity sports, and the group of guys I’m talking about above all do cross-country actually.
I only used to word “nerd” in this post to convey that these guys are above-average smart and far more driven than the rest of the school population (even though the rest of us are also driven).
This is really funny lol
@bkjmom Where did the OP suggest that being a nerd was a bad thing? And different schools can have different cultures, what happens at your school doesn’t apply to every school in America.