Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Tip for Men and Women #23: Gots to get me a Nerd!

Before I engage this topic substantively, I'd like to send out a call for clarification from someone who is perhaps more informed than I: What, roughly speaking, is a nerdfox? I saw a profile to-day where s/he said s/he was looking for one of those.

So, everybody's looking for a nerd these days. At least you all say you're looking for a nerd. I have my doubts. Back in high school, right? I was a nerd. Not a caricature of a nerd, like Screech, but the real kind. The "no week-end plans because I've got a debate tournament out of town" kind of guy. The "I'm going over to my (male) friend's house to-night to play video games and RPGs kind of guy. The "I can't believe people in high school actually had s e x and did drugs" kind of guy. All true.

No, what you're looking for is, more often than not, is one of those people who now, in their mid-20s, self-identifies as a nerd because they've seen Star Wars twice and maybe read "Howl" in college lit class and remembers people in high school carrying around tattered copies of Ginsberg's poetry books before it was required reading in college lit class. That person isn't really a nerd, they're just the guy who, post-high school, realised that it's not as cool anymore to make fun of the smarter people.

I consider myself a reformed nerd. I'm socially adept now, although if the date conversation somehow turns to Tolkien, I'm generally going to blow myself right of the water with the outpour of nerdiness.

You really want a nerd? Go sit in on a graduate seminar in the philosophy department at NYU or wherever, and see what nerds really are. Or better yet, rent that movie "Pi". The guy in that is a nerd. Still looking for one of those?? I didn't think so.

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