Congratulations, everybody: Wired says that we’re one of the nation’s top ten tech towns, putting us in the company of undeniably geek-friendly cities like San Francisco, Austin and Seattle.

But to be honest, Wired’s methodology seems a little bit suspect. Other cities made the list on the basis of a high number of comic book stores per capita, the ubiquity of free wifi, or the popularity of the local Dorkbot chapter. Our qualifications? We’re desperately lonely: apparently D.C. has more postings on dating site Geek 2 Geek than any other town. We score high for Circuit City penetration too, but let’s get real — as much as we hate to throw DC1974 a bone, there’s no competing with Fry’s for embodying the geek ethos (although we do love Microcenter).

No, it’s pretty clear why we made the list: the federal government and its attendant inefficiencies. D.C. area nerds may not work on the most exciting projects in the world, but if you want to build gigantic robotic spiders for Raytheon or maintain a database written on punchcards for the Bureau of Indian Affairs — and be well-compensated for doing it — there’s no better place to be. That’s not to say that there aren’t exciting dot-coms in the area. But it’s clearly federal largesse that drives the industry around these parts.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. If you’re a like-minded technologist, why not help make this town a little more worthy of Wired’s list by attending a 2600 or Dorkbot meeting, the ShmooCon conference, or another geeky get-together?