I love my family. They are a great group of people. But one
thing that is plainly obvious is that they are not geeks. Which is strange
because as anyone who knows me can tell I very much AM a geek. A nerd. A comic
book reading dork. And very proud of it. So how does such a family of non geeks
produce someone like me? And more so, how does geek like myself get along so
well with a group of people who are very much non=geeks?
To be perfectly honest, I think my parents tried hard to
push me towards non-geek activities in my early childhood. My dad pushed me
towards sports and my mom pushed me towards academic and creative pursuits.
Sadly both of their attempts failed and I became a geek. And I often wonder
why. I’m the eldest of four children and while none of my siblings are similar
in any way, I can’t say any of them are geeks. In fact if I had to call the
rest of my family any thing it would be preppies and jocks, the natural enemies
of the geek (at least if films and television are to be believed).
So what happened? Why did one out of four kids end up a
geek? Is geekiness some sort of random mutation? Am I the X-Man of my family? See,
even questioning my role in the family is tough because I use the preceding
terminology and I get looks from my family like I just spoke Klingon.
Especially when I actually DO speak Klingon (I’m not fluent or anything but I
know a few phrases). Certainly I have given my family plenty of exercise with
the amount of eye rolling they have done in my direction.
If geekiness is a random mutation, it is certainly more
common than any other. While I am a freak in my brood, I have found a large and
welcoming community in the world around me. There is a plethora of geeks and
nerds in every major metropolis I have called home. And not to mention the
great invention that is Internet. The Internet could lead one to believe the
population of the earth is nothing but geeks. Like The Planet of the Apes, the
non-geeks have become the mute humans living in the wilderness, only to be
captured and experimented on by the geeks.
Geeks have dominated the worlds of technology, pop culture,
and society in general. Which is why when I interact with my family, they
usually try to force these subjects into the conversation. Or perform technical
support. Nearly every weekend my parents ask me to rate the current crop of
films, despite whether I have seen them or not. I am the Rotten Tomatoes of my
family, regurgitating merely what I have heard about a film or television series.
I am their lifeline to the world of geekdom.
Perhaps my concept of being an outsider has been slightly
manufactured by my own insecurities. Being an artistic kid I was picked on a
lot growing up. And I received no end of grief for being a comic book fan in
high school. Such attacks have perhaps given me paranoid insecurity when it
comes to places I should feel safe. So while my family may show no interest in
my hobbies simply because it has not inspired them like they have me, I see it
as an attack on my very identity. The line between me and my hobbies is rather
thin and I myself can’t tell the difference sometimes. If a man is his thoughts
and feelings, and all my thoughts and feelings revolve around comics and sci-fi
then I truly am my hobbies.
There will probably always be a rift between geeks and
non-geeks. Simply because the geeks will always consist of the outsiders. But I
think geeks need to realize just because we are on the outside does not mean we
are hated by the non-geeks. Just misunderstood. And to be honest, that’s about
all we can ever expect.
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