MG: Geek for So Long
The Modern Geek Chronicles:
Geek for so long…
I’ve been Geek for so long I’ve begun losing my non-geek perspective…and I’m okay with that.
Once a week myself and my two best geek friends get together for weekly shenanigans. Typically, this involves steaks, movies and/or video games. And while we’re all pretty hardcore geeks in our own right, when the three of us get together, the Geek Meter gets ratcheted up way past ten, and I’ve been Geek for so long, I hardly notice the oddness of it, but I sometimes wonder how it looks to the world around us. Here’s what I mean:
Three geeks stand outside a crowded steakhouse staring up at an ill-lit two-foot screen. At regular intervals numbers appear on the screen. The three geeks, and the rest of the crowd huddled in the chilly night air, look down at their little slips of paper. The fortunate whose numbers on their little slip of paper match those on the screen enter, get seated, begin dining.
The unfortunate wait.
The three geeks kill time by catching up on whatever it is that needs to be caught up on. Work is discussed only briefly—“let work stay at work” is their motto. They talk about some video games, some interesting scientific articles they’ve come across, all the while keeping an eye on the small board and its sequence of numbers. They call it the Random Number Generator, and make Geek jokes about the inherent flaws of such things.
The geeks have been given the number 9. When the Random Number Generator shows 9, the geeks may eat. The geeks stand and watch numbers come and go for fifteen minutes. They mock mathematics. They make jokes about the Real Numbers. The others who are standing and waiting in the cold watch the geeks. They point without pointing. They stare without staring. Not quite understanding what these three men are talking about.
Then the number 9 comes up. A bright, red 9. “Huzzah!” cheer the three geeks. They enter the steakhouse only to be told that their number has not been called. They look up at the screen. The 9 has become a 59. The geeks are confused, but not in any particular rush. So they return to the night and begin new jokes.
“Why were there 7 hostesses?” asks one geek.
“Have you ever seen a restaurant that needed that many hostesses?” answers the other geek.
“Maybe they’ve all got separate jobs,” the third geek enters. “You know, they all take care of specific tables.”
The number 11 comes up red on the screen.
“Maybe one hostess handles only the prime numbers.”
The three geeks laugh.
“And then,” add another geek, “there’s one that handles only Fibonacci Numbers.”
“And she takes progressively longer and longer as the night goes on.”
The three geeks are buckled in laughter, unaware that they have shown themselves, undeniably, as strange and different creatures moving through a non-Geek world. People around them slowly mover further away—they pretend there is something of interest on the ground not very far away. Then they move closer, stare down at the darkened sidewalk, shake their head, and continue their conversation about how geeky the three men “over there” are.
At the time I didn’t realize just how Geek my friends and I were being. I realize it now, but not then. Just then I was having too much fun. Just then I was among geeks. Just then my jokes were being laughed at, they were being understood. I didn’t have to “tone it down.” Didn’t have to find the non-Geek version of my punchline to get a laugh.
In short, I could be myself.
About a week ago a geek friend remarked how she pitied non-geeks. “They’ll never understand how much passion there is in what we do,” she said.
I’m inclined to agree with her. And that isn’t to say that non-geeks lack passion, but it is to say that non-geek tend to embrace only socially acceptable passions. They love American Idol. They’re passionate about whatever reality show is at the top of the ratings chart this season. They dress so as not to be noticed, yet they are passionate about their wardrobe choices.
But what non-geeks lack, I believe, is the willingness to be themselves in the face of others. We can’t all enjoy the same shows. There have to be times when we’re passionate about some obscure and hardly-known show, something that only geeks know about. But non-geeks (and, to an extent, “classic geeks”) are different in that they keep these loves secret. They won’t wear that Battlestar Galactica t-shirt in public no matter how much they used to love that show.
I’ve been Geek for so long that I’ve forgotten how strange geeks are. I’ve forgotten that jokes about Random Number Generators and the Fibonacci sequence isn’t something that everyone will understand. But, as I think about it, I’ve come to realize I’m okay with that. I’m okay standing out. I’m okay with the fact that, sometimes, I won’t entertain the crowd with my jokes, but only the Geek minority—the quiet, secret masses that understand why saying the seventh hostess handles only the prime number tables is funny.
As a Modern Geek, I’m okay with having only the geeks get my jokes. I’m through being anything other than what I am.
End Transmission.
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Is loving American Idol socially acceptable? Gross!