NERDS!

The crowd I hang with is a Geek Crowd. There are a lot of Threadless tees and listening to the Decemberists and watching Dr. Who. Geeks are not to be confused with nerds and dorks. Yes, there have been conversations about this. Nerds are usually more techy, much more about hanging out with their computers and less likely to care about human interaction. Dorks love human interaction, but have zero social skills. They get really into things and will talk at length about them, but unlike the selective geek, they like Everything. It's probably their most charming characteristic. Geeks tend to like one thing, like sci fi or comic books or video games, and they like it to death and can tell you anything you want to know, or didn't care to know, about it. Do not confuse geeks with hipsters...though the clothing might overlap, you know you're dealing with a hipster when they don't like anything. Well, they like stuff if it's obscure enough that only they know about it, but there isn't enough love involved that they won't hate it when it gets a tiny bit popular.

Trench is a geek. Since getting together with him I can hold my own in a conversation about Batman. His Halloween costumes are usually intense homemade mythological creatures. I have to harangue him about putting on pants that aren't falling apart before leaving the house, or getting a haircut twice a year (if I'm lucky). We go to low budget musicals about David Bowie hosting Xmas themed variety shows, and the only sport we follow is roller derby (though Trench did have a brief fascination with curling during the Olympics).

Sometimes I feel like a geek imposter. I love Dr. Who, but can't remember every detail of every episode like Trench can. When we hang out with really hardcore geek friends, I find myself tuning out when the conversation turns to D&D or fantasy authors I haven't read. And I couldn't get into Battlestar Galactica at all. So maybe I'm just a dork in geeks clothing.

Let's figure this out...I'm geeky enough to love watching the Guild, but I don't get any of the World of Warcraft references because I don't play video games, unless you count the wii, which gamers don't. I am geeky enough that I recognized Wil Wheaton's cameo in the Guild, but I know him better from Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead rather than Star Trek. I am geeky enough that I can talk about Buffy and Harry Potter for hours on end, but not geeky enough that I've read any of the immense amount of fanfic that surrounds both those series. You get the point. So I'm probably just geeky enough. And Trench is a very lucky man.