[bflosabre91]

i'm kind of flabbergasted that they don't know who the hulk is. So i can understand your frustration there. I mean even if you don't like comic books or movies or anything like that, if you don't know who the hulk is, you have issues. Or maybe they just live under a rock and have been watching too much nascar.

[WolfCoder]

Or maybe you just suffer from myopia having an interest in comic books at all. I wouldn't be surprised if I could find several people sitting around me right now who only know of Superman and Batman.

[BenignDesign]

AlbuquerqueApache, on 07 May 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:

This is kind of sad. About b9 sitting all by herself in a cubicle/office.

They pay me to keep to myself.

Sometimes, I get antsy and try to socialize.

Then they put the shackles back on.

This post has been edited by BenignDesign: 07 May 2012 - 08:38 AM

[Craig328]

I have an active mental filter about outing myself as a nerd/brainiac due to previous social awkwardness. About the only people I don't use the filter with are the folks and kids. I keep it in place somewhat even for the wife although she's quite comfortable labeling me as a nerd.

When I was in school I played football and baseball, dated the cheerleaders, went to parties and was quite social...but it was always with a half thought on what I was saying/doing. Every school has cliques and, at least at the school I was at, the "nerd" clique was mutually exclusive from the "popular" clique (although I don't believe I was actually a member of either one). What's distressing is that I always assumed this kind of shit magically evaporated when people matured. The distressing part was discovering that that was a totally fallacious notion and that adults are just as or even more shallow than teenagers.

I'm a casual acquaintance of a fella who still lives in "jock" mode in his mind despite the fact that he's in his early 40's, is short, balding and his once-upon-a-time-if-ever 6 pack is more like a 2 kegs stuffed in a Hefty bag. The entire attitude is truly comical down to the vanity plate on his vehicle that spells out his high school nickname (on a red Volvo station wagon, no less). We were at a block party 2 years ago discussing the merits of slow cook barbecue (one of my hobbies/interests that I can go into great knowledgeable depth on but don't via the "nerd filter") when nickname boy wanders over and when his attempt to sidetrack the conversation onto football fails (because we'd already talked it to death) he pops out with "just like the nerds in the cafeteria" comment and slides off. There was a kind of pause for a few moments and then I kind of suggest to the guy running the two smokers and 2 grills that, while I'm sure he'd never let it happen, should he accidentally burn one of the items to set it aside for nickname guy because it'd prolly make him feel manly chewing carbonized meat.

As Martyr said, it's a choice between social acceptance and knowing. Personally, I like not being a pariah and accept that there are folks who, just because of basic math, represent the other side of the average IQ fulcrum point...and that they don't like being reminded of that fact and will ostracize anyone who does happen to highlight that.

[BenignDesign]

Once my kids started getting involved in sports, I had the opportunity to sit down and talk with some of the former-classmates-turned-moms who frequent the same venues. I've been told that I was seen as one of the "cool" kids... one of the "popular" kids... I didn't know this. I had no clue that I was cool or popular.

I've always been very uncomfortable in my own skin. I've always felt like I was the perpetual square peg who never quite fit in anywhere. This feeling has only gotten worse as I've gotten older.

In high school, I was in everything: chess club, art club, drama club, spanish club, math club, scholastic quiz team, newspaper staff, prom committee, volunteer tutor, volleyball team, basketball statistician, concert band, chamber choir, bell choir, chorus... my brother used to give me grief for being on "almost every page of the yearbook."

But I had never considered my clumsy, awkward, bespectacled ass to be "popular." I just thought I was the annoying dork who forced myself upon all the cool kids by insisting upon joining their clubs.

One of the other basketball moms told me that I was "the super-smart, kinda nice, quiet, popular girl who everyone thought was stuck-up." Nice.

[lordofduct]

Fucking christ, I'm surrounded by nerds, where the hell did I go wrong in life? One minute blowing lines driving 90 down US1 in the keys, the next on a forum with you people. I need to shoot myself...

[BenignDesign]

Hey! Fuck you!

[Craig328]

I know right? All that wasted time driving fast, doing drugs and all when you coulda been here?

Don't dwell on your wasted youth like that.

[baavgai]

Craig328, on 07 May 2012 - 11:10 AM, said:

I have an active mental filter about outing myself as a nerd/brainiac due to previous social awkwardness. About the only people I don't use the filter with are the folks and kids.

You, sir, are not a nerd. You are far too concerned with the perception of those around you.

One of the hallmarks of being a nerd is complete obviousness to the social politics in play around you. Then, when, or if, you figure out that people judge you harshly for just being yourself, you still don't care.

Screw filters. If you can't take me unfiltered, you're not the kind of person I want to deal with, anyway. Conforming to some other idiot's idea of normal is fucking tragic. I'll be my own idiot, thank you very much.

Do I have moments of "damn, I'm such a nerd?" You bet. Do I care? Hell no!

The funny thing is, the nerd has turned since I was a kid. Computers, video games, comic books, all the things that will get you banished from the "cool" of high school ages ago are now main stream. The top grossing movie this weekend, setting box office records; comic book based.

National comic conventions are media events. You have to go further into the depths of nerdom to get a reaction, and even then it doesn't seem that striking anymore. I met Mo Rocca at last year's Steampunk Con. His piece on Sunday morning wasn't even that ironic.

[jon.kiparsky]

bflosabre91, on 07 May 2012 - 08:50 AM, said:

i'm kind of flabbergasted that they don't know who the hulk is.

Even I know that one. He's the one who did those commercials for the frozen vegetables, yeah?

[lordofduct]

I don't know, I think myself a rather nerdy fellow. I still have my video-game collection from high school, I still have my rock collection from middle school, I was in mathletes and played chess in the courtyard, I memorized pi to 200 places, took AP Physics and AP Calculus, I can name publisher/game designer/year of creation/and trivial legacy facts about catalogues of games in the 80's and 90's. (yeah maybe a bit of lsd assisted in the memorizing and playing chess, but hey, no one said their was any anti-doping rules in nerdness!)

Not just that but I was the stinky, nasely sounding, wears the same 2 pairs of pants and 2 shirts, socially awkward, "human music-box", threatened to stab people in the eye with pencils, had NO friends, sociopathic "dweeb" with a family of psychotics in prison and mental hospitals all the way up through middle school.



But I fucking HATE comic books and only since the movies arrived learned who the fuck The Hulk is... and to be quite honest, really don't give a shit. And my anger for them has grown even greater in the years, like my distaste for Star Wars has as well, because nerds around the country tell me that I secretely, deep down inside, must LOVE and MASTURBATE to comic books and Star Wars... less I'm not truly a nerd.

Bitch... I was solving logarithms with pencil and paper when you were still playing hop-scotch at recess.



2 days ago I said out loud, "the star[sic] that burns twice as bright, burns half as long".

The guy I said it to responds with, "You want me to kiss you and then crush your skull in?"

I stared at him blankly as he giggled at his 'reference'. "What the fuck are you on about?"

"Blade Runner... duh".

Are you fucking kidding me? You thought that archaic fucking proverb I just said was a fucking sci-fi movie reference?

::shakes in fury::

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 07 May 2012 - 01:34 PM

[supersloth]

why do you HATE them? what about them existing causes you distress?

[lordofduct]

I described that already. I hate the fact that comic-book fans presume that because I like video-games and math that I must also worship Marvel and DC. And when I say I never enjoyed them they angrily attack me for it and insist that I secretly love them and only say I don't like them to seem edgey. After the 8 millionth time of this, you tend to be rather distressed and actually HATE them.


case in point, only light-hearted:

Quote

I mean even if you don't like comic books or movies or anything like that, if you don't know who the hulk is, you have issues.

This post has been edited by lordofduct: 07 May 2012 - 01:38 PM

[supersloth]

comic books NEVER make that assumption. you are talking about some stupid fucking assholes that are not inanimate objects that happen to read those inanimate objects. your problem is not comic books, your problem is people. you're just projecting.

that said your answer really does show that you are quite the fucking nerd. nerds always hate that other people like things that they dislike.

[WolfCoder]

lordofduct, on 07 May 2012 - 02:28 PM, said:

(cool story)

::shakes in fury::