Nerds because we choose it?

I was probably considered a nerd in high school.

At least, I considered myself one. . . and was slightly traumatized all my pubescent life thinking I was one. . . and idolized my sister who was a punk&grunge dude-person three years below me.

In a moment of needed quiet today, I read the first few pages of Hackers & Painters, by Paul Graham. His first idea is that nerds are unpopular because they are too busy being smart, or rather, striving to increase their arena of knowledge. Becoming popular, as he says, is a constant effort, a “following the consensus,” of which nerds don’t have as much passion for, as much as learning how to create things.

My moment of quiet eventually turned into a nice afternoon nap, of which I’ve just woken, but I remember thinking as I slid into peaceful oblivion that I didn’t quite agree with Paul the Nerd. Was I really not bothered enough to really want it? Was all the passionate hatred of sweatpants, obsession with scrunchies and facial hair, writing down and scrutinizing every outfit that Claudia from the Baby-sitters Club wore, not wearing my owl-eye glasses to the prom to look prettier (but a lot more blind -- let’s save that for another post, shall we?), stealing moon-eyed glances at Danny and Chris whenever I got the chance, and sheer desperateness to get any sort of acknowledgment from any of the girls in the in-crowd – was it all “not really wanting it”?

I agree with Graham that, eventually, it became more of a conscious choice not to keep trying, and to take it off the priority list and onto the wishful thinking list. But I don’t agree that it was because I was smart. I think it was more because I was naive. Believe it or not, I do recall being popular back in nursery school, all the way through 2nd or 3rd grade, which culminated in all its glory by going to a really popular student's house with a whole bunch of other popular students to film a science project.

That's when the trouble started happening. I wasn't allowed to go out until I had finished my homework and practiced piano, which oftentimes ended up being too late in the day, as my parents needed to check my stuff. I couldn't make or receive phone calls from boys. I couldn't attend social events that had boys in it. I couldn't sleep over a girl's house. But I could talk on the phone with "girls only!" to ask about homework, and get straight A+'s, and win piano competitions.

Being raised in America by conservative parents, who were raised in Eastern Asia until their early 20's, really affects the level of awareness that makes its way (or doesn't make it's way) into a developing child's mind, their idea of choice and control. The same family environment that I experienced may have propelled me into popular-dom in Asia, but there was a fear left exposed in American society that prevented me from getting farther than 2nd grade. Perhaps for Graham and other American nerds (OK, so this post isn't quite PC. . .), interest in constructive projects led the way to nerd-ity, but for me, it was fearful innocence that led me to fall behind in the "social" system, and choose to go for something easier and more predictable: the academic system.

And so, myself in my early 20's, a fresh awareness was wrenched out of me that has helped me determine the quirks of what we call life -- unlike the academic world, there's actually the concept that there is no wrong answer and there doesn't have to be any judgment.

So I'm not a nerd.