Ruminations

Embracing Geekdom

January 22, 2009 at 9:08 pm (Pop Culture) (A Beautiful Mind, Acceptance, Cool, Epiphany, Geek, Geekdom, Homestar Runner, Howl, Junior High, Teaching)

I think I’m a cool guy. Or I used to (the HomestarRunner quotation has already set this blog’s tone).

In elementary school, I was awkward and talked to myself a lot. I smelled weird things.

In junior high, I was love-sick and got bullied. I boot-legged South Park episodes for other kids at school.

In high school, the weekends I spent playing ping-pong and GTA 3 easily tripled the amount of parties I went to. I wore the same grey, hooded sweatshirt every single day.

In college, I played WoW, and found the bar scene repetitive and unfulfilling. I once turned down a threesome because I was too shy. My room mate and I threw pool parties, and I would sit at the blender table, proudly reading a newly purchased novel from the nearby used-book store.

After college, I obsessively researched MFA programs, and took a job writing trivia for bars. I still had video game posters on my walls, and spent nights playing Zelda and Chrono trigger. I transcribed ‘Howl’ in its entirety on a long roll of butcher paper and taped it to my wall. I taught myself how to text without looking, and to use chopsticks left handed. I smelled weird things.

But despite this timeline of ‘geeky’ behavior, I never honestly identified myself as a geek until this passing week.

This realization has come gradually–ebbed by a constant series of little occurrences. It was important to reach a certain state of self-awareness before I could really see it as fact, however. So I guess that’s something to be thankful for, that I’m self-aware enough to admit that I’m not cool.

But it wasn’t until I joined the Peace Corps and surrounded myself with a bunch of middle school kids, that I realized how ‘uncool’ I really am. Junior high is a culture obsessively focused on outward appearance, and simply being in its proximity has made me aware of how that mainstream culture might perceive me. My students have watched me accidentally run my shopping cart into boxes at the nearby supermarket. I drop stuff in class, and wipe chalk all over my pant legs. I play soccer with my kids, and continuously fall down until they beg me to just stand in front of the goal where they’ll pass to me. 

My kids adore me, and I get tons of hugs and high-fives, but I think my role as a ‘cool American’ has waned into a ‘geeky’ American.

Trying to keep the facade unconsciously stressed me out. I wasn’t knowingly trying to be hip with the kids, but I admit I’ve been extra lenient to win approval. Class disciplining was a mess because I was worried about whether the kids would still like me if I was strict. This came at expense: the last few days of school I’ve been cranky and exhausted because I’ve been trying to juggle being nice and not having chaos in the classroom. Typical first-year-teacher mistake, maybe.

Anyway, when I realized that I was sort of pining for the approval of a bunch of 12 year olds, it made me realize that I wasn’t completely being myself. Or, rather, I wasn’t completely embracing what I actually am. And what I am is a giant geek. Not worrying about approval will help me manage my classes.

Here, I originally tried to list some of my geeky traits. But it seemed sort of masturbatory and insufficient. Suffice to say, I’m clumsy, crazy passionate about some nontraditional things, and a little OCD.

Imagine the scene in A Beautiful Mind when Steven Nash realizes that some of his closest friends are characters created by his imagination. I feel the same. It’s weird and at first it kinda sucks– not to be ‘uncool,’ but I feel even geekier for not having realized it for so long. And I feel like a tool for sort-of imagining I was something I’m not. I think that’s the worst part.

But here’s the best part: coming to terms with my geekdom is also vastly liberating. Rather than trying to excuse certain aspects of myself, I can accept and embrace them. The last 8 months, I’ve become more and more comfortable as myself, and I think this was a big turning point for all of that.

I still am a little embarrassed that this took over 24 & 1/2 years to realize. But then again, being a little bit oblivious is something I now need to revel in. It’s me, and it’s not changing.