Being a Nerd Then Doesn't Make Me a Geek Now!

My wife called it to my attention. "SearchWarp is having a writing contest on embracing your geekiness! You should write something!"

I'd seen the promo, but had purposely ignored it. "I don't think so," I replied.

"What? Why not?" she inquired.

"While I may like computers and enjoy technogadgets, I'm certainly no geek," came my immediate response.

The look on her face told me she believed otherwise. "What is your favorite TV show right now?"

I didn't even have to think about it. "The Big Bang Theory," I answered.

"Why?" she wanted to know.

Five seconds of dead silence was followed by my comment: "...oh, shut up."

(For those of you out of the loop, "The Big Bang Theory" is a comedy about young geeky supergenius professors in college. I like the show because the humor is razor-sharp, the characters are classic social misfits trying to live their lives in a world that doesn't understand them, and I actually know what they're talking about when discussions turn to Stephen Hawking, string theory, and Dyson spheres. God help me. It's nearly as unsettling as realizing you're beginning to approve of Frank Barone's world view on "Everybody Loves Raymond".)

Terms like "geek" and "nerd" have been around for awhile. The connotation has usually been less than kind. It's only been in the past few years that "geek" started becoming fashionable. Shows like "Chuck" and "Heroes" portray the geek as more than the social pariah who lives to play video games and stands in line for days to buy tickets to the opening showing of the next "Star Wars" movie. I mean, he still does those kinds of things, but now he's somewhat sociable with a little bit of cute thrown in for good measure. And on occasion he even gets the girl, who's usually much more worldly than he is and is more than happy to show the young man "the ropes". And you know geek has stepped up a notch or two on the coolness ladder when the theme song for "Big Bang" is performed by the Barenaked Ladies!

But I digress. Yes, I enjoyed spending time alone as a child, prefering to read books over playing with the kids on the playground. Yes, I could have spent my summer vacations going to school instead of taking time off. Yes, I viewed homework as an exciting privilege rather than a punishment. That didn't make me a geek. That made me a nerd. Ask my wife. She'll be happy to point out the pictures of me in her high school yearbook, especially the one of me in Concert Choir as a sophomore, wearing my long-sleeved shirt, my red-white-and-blue patterned sweater vest, my lavender polyester pants (high-waters, of course), and my US-flag-pattered canvas tennis shoes.

In junior high I learned how to use a slide rule, and loved it. I preferred doing my math on paper, rather than switching over to the scientific calculators my classmates used in Trig and Calc. When my wife and I were dating and talking to each other on the phone, she'd doodle by drawing stick figures and making little designs; I solved differential equations. Definitely a nerd.

As I grew older, the nerdiness began to disappear. Polyester pants were replaced by jeans. Plastic frame glasses went away, and aviator wire-rims took their place. What did it matter if I started collecting comic books in college, or bought the entire original set of "Star Wars" character and fashioned them into a mobile? I was slowly transforming the outside to conform with the rest of the world--for the most part.

See, I've always considered myself a non-conformist. I don't want to be like everybody else. In fact, I took the Myers-Briggs personality test a number of years ago through the hospital where I worked, and found to my delight that I am a member of the smallest of the 16 personality groups, the one whose membership actually enjoys being different (hooray!). It seemed only natural that a guy who doodled in algebra would gravitate to the computer field. It was the logical left-brain complement to my right-brained musical abilities. And music types aren't nerds or geeks: They're cool!

I didn't see any conflict wearing clothing that expressed me, like the time I bleached out one leg of a pair of jeans and wore them everywhere, or bought the neon-colored fleece and had my mom make me a patchwork sweatshirt. It didn't bother me to get excited about the various "Star Trek" incarnations (especially Deep Space Nine!) or admit I was a card-carrying member of the ALF Fan Club. That didn't make me a geek.

With the tech toy explosion of the Nineties and the Naughts I discovered all kinds of cool stuff to play with. MP3 players, flash drives, Bluetooth, portable hard drives...I was so there. And while I loved the novelty items, like the T-shirts with the sayings only those in the know would understand (like, "There's no place like 127.0.0.0"--ask one of your computer friends), I didn't buy them. That was a dead giveaway. I was not a geek! I was still cool! Heck, I got my ear pierced in my 40s!

Oh yeah, I still watch Saturday morning cartoons. But the CGI ones especially appeal to me, and the storylines have to be somewhat plausible ("and men fly"...ask my younger daughter about that one!). I'd rather explore the capabilities of a new applications program than play a computer game (with a few exceptions, of course). And I still have to visit the electronics and computer shops every so often just because. It's a part of my job function, after all.

So the bottom line is no, I am not a geek--I am unique, and I embrace my uniqueness. Now leave me alone. I am way behind on restocking my Neopets' shop, and I have to talk war plans with the guild members on my latest MMOG venture, and then I have to get to Fry's because there's a sale on this 32G flash memory drive I've been wanting, and then...oh, shut up!