Nerd-life influences how you interact with your partner, what you talk about, what you fight about, and, well, what you nerd-out about. Although the stereotypical nerd loves science, science fiction, gaming, comics, and so on, you can be a nerd about all sorts of things — books, history, theatre, tech, fashion, and whatever else might keep you enthralled.
Nerds bring all of that to the table in many aspects of their lives — including romantic relationships. Of course, not all nerds are the same, and not all nerds act the same way in relationships. Nerds share certain interests and common ways of interacting with culture, but they also each have their own histories and baggage that they bring into the dating scene. At the end of the day, nerds are just people even if they are awesome people, from my totally biased perspective , and people, as we all know, come in infinite varieties.
That said, there are certain things you can expect from being in a relationship with a nerd. A lot of nerds express their love for whatever they happen to be nerdy about in fun and creative ways. They may, for example, be into cosplay, going to cons, roleplaying games, or tracking the filming locations of their favorite shows. Some people go to great lengths to appear detached and coolly ironic.
Despite the fact that I think everyone is a nerd, we still cannot shake the stereotype. Or he or she was…. And as new personalities like Cara Santa Maria , Phil Plait , and Joe Hanson , spring up, the old geek guard once again can lay the foundation. Science writing is at its best with full networks of all-star and up-and-coming communicators at Wired , Scientific American , SciLogs , Discover , and National Geographic.
New online magazines like Nautilus and Aeon are there to fill the traditional media gap. Being a nerd is cool again, and there is no shortage of content for you to indulge in. It is as though an entire generation of young people has reached the end of that proverbial high school hazing and has space to let the geek flag fly. But there is a dark side to acceptance. As I said above, being a geek or nerd has more to do with how you approach what you do, rather than a comic book collection or World of Warcraft account.
It seems like a good thing that these qualities are being recognized as equally valid or even cool. Introverts unite! Books like Quiet: The Power of Introverts and articles such as Caring For Your Introvert are useful and sound empowering, but to me come off as a diagnosis. How should we deal with these people who prefer intimate hugs to handshakes?
How can we talk to those who need constant human contact? Cultural shifts can only embrace labels after they have been divorced from the damaging cultural baggage they carry. As each successive generation has been more accepting of homosexuality , the label shifted along with society. I call myself a geek and I call myself a nerd. The terms feel empowering now.
But though a common set of personality traits may unite us, defining nerds and geeks by personality alone can be just as demeaning as the terms we wanted to change in the first place. Imagine extreme extroversion and you think of someone who if the life of the party or a blast to be around. Sometimes this division takes the hipster tact.
I feel it. Clothing even matters. A young guy dressed like Bill Nye the Science Guy is now considered hip, as are suspenders, thick glasses, and graphic t-shirts with Marvel characters or faded emblems of old videogames on them. There is a fake division here. A nerd was once something you never wanted to be called, let alone something you would freely identify as. While there may be those who are just into being a geek for the fashion, the tribal mentality has to stop.
It is not as if great fiction has stopped—there are other great novels than Dune , other great movies than Blade Runner , and other great games than Ocarina of Time. And if active passion is at the heart of being a nerd, there was never a better time to be one. The active passion that drives nerdiness, for me, has a perfect home in science and scientific thinking. Science provides a reliable way to think about the most astonishing questions in the universe, and reveals indescribable wonder in the answers it uncovers—the tip of the iceberg though they may be.
Nerds are geeks are drawn to this way of knowing, this way of interrogating the universe, by the meticulous, curious, and tinkering nature that unites them. Facts and figures are used as evidence for debate instead of as an end in themselves.
Problems are seen as open-ended and subjective. Empathy and intellectual openness are likely to be key traits of Political Wonks. Being lovers of debate, they are also likely to be more extraverted at least among their peers than other types of nerd. Mad Scientists represent yet another variation. While equally intellectually driven and attentive to detail, chemical engineers need a more concrete focus to solve specific, immediate problems.
Helpful for a job involving potentially unconventional working hours and environments, Mad Scientists are often among the more introverted nerd types, and tend to prefer to work independently, in their own way, without excessive supervision. Comic Book Geeks are perhaps the most stereotypical, widely known subspecies of the nerd genius. Like Mad Scientists, Comic Book Geeks are likely to be introverts who prefer working independently and relish unconventional hours.
Kerry Schofield heads up the U. Skip Article Header. Skip to: Start of Article.
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