Am I a Nerd or a Geek?
So, if you actually know me, or have listened to my show for very long, you may have figured out that I am kind of a nerd. Or am I a geek? That is the question at hand isn’t it.
Not that it’s an idea that has plagued me or anything, but once a thought pops into my head it is difficult to kick it until I think it through. Such is the case now. I’ve always said that I am kind of a nerd. I was good in school. I picked up a few college credits early. I aced every class with hardly any effort. By most interpretations, I would be called a nerd. I’ve also been a video game fan, and comic fan, and movie fan… I guess I’m not really helping the nerd argument here.
Nowadays there is quite a dividing line between what is a “Nerd” and what is a “Geek.” Honestly I never really knew or cared that there was a difference. But, since the thought popped into my head, I just had to look it up. I had to see where I actually fall in the whole nerd-geek spectrum. So, I looked into it and according to Urban Dictionary a “nerd” is somebody who is smart but not very social. They don’t talk much and have few friends. They are generally nice but lack the social skills to go out and make friends. This sounds a lot like me. “Geeks,” on the other hand, socialize but it is usually based around some passionate obsession. Comic books, video games, Dungeons and Dragons, and other such groups come to mind.
Honestly I’m not really digging these definitions. I found a couple infographic things to try to make more sense of it, but they just made things more complicated.
To break this one down for me, I personally can go either way with coffee or soda, maybe more toward coffee. But then I live in t-shirts and sneakers and have played guitar for 17 years. But I also am both a cat and dog lover. So I’m leaning more geek on this one.
So in this one I do have a particular interest in academics, but my knowledge also has that mundane to encyclopedia thing going. I am absolutely introverted and generally socially challenged despite being quite long winded and hosting a comedy podcast. On the nerd side, I absolutely have a wide range of generally impractical skills just because of my interest in everything, but that blends into both having an interest in movies and games. I’m absolutely a fan of new gadgets. They are like new shiny toys. I don’t even know how to call it on this one. I’m once again pretty split on where I fall.
So what have I learned here? Apparently my chronic indecisiveness extends even to this most superficial element of my personality. It’s bad enough that I can’t pick out what I want to eat at a restaurant easily, but now I can’t even figure out if I’m a nerd or a geek. But really does it matter? Yes it’s both a very profound and utterly stupid question. I don’t require a personal definition of what I am. I don’t have to fit into one particular category. Honestly I feel better not being one or the other. Nobody should be just one thing, or obsess over labels. You be you and I’ll be me, in all my smart-assed indecisive geeky nerdom.
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