Geekness

So, what makes someone a geek, because apparently I am one!!

Someone decided, based on knowing just 2 facts about me, that I am a geek. And, just to be clear, it wasn't used in a positive context !!!

I was doing a double shift and the chap I was with on the 2nd shift was someone I haven't worked with before. So, as I'm going through the shift change stuff we start chatting. Fairly standard stuff, work, women, football, the weather etc. During this conversation I happen to mention that I play computer games to keep me out of the pub and to save money (which is why I was working a double shift), then when I tell him he can some some films or whatever on my laptop he drops the geek bomb!!

Anyway, this upset me a little and I proceeded to verbally pwn the cocky little git !!! However afterwards I got to thinking about what determines whether you're a geek or not. General society seems to infer that anyone with an interest in computers is a geek. This is re-enforced if you happen to be from my generation and have been interested since the late 1970's or early 80's. That would indeed make me a geek, however questioning friends and colleagues they disagree, mainly because they actually know me.........

So, whats the description for a "typical" geek?  Urban Dictionary (by no means the definitive source) has several "interesting" descriptions  view them here however it would seem on the whole that geek is not viewed as that derogatory these days. In fact its actually worse to be called a nerd now, with geek almost being socially acceptable.

Having realised that being "a geek" was no longer the social outcast it once was I got to thinking about one particular definition that I had read and how it applied to the people I socialise and game with. Now I have a pretty diverse collection of friends and reading the definitions of what a geek is, most of them would fit, however when I looked closer you wouldn't have thought it.......

Example :  "A geek is someone who is generaly not athletic, and enjoys Video Games; Comic Books; being on the internet, and etc."


Me - Gym 3 times a week, former semi-pro paintballer
Guild Leader - Ex US Infantry now Security Contractor
Guildie - Construction ground worker and amateur footballer (that's a soccer player to you US readers)
Guildie - Fire-fighter - nuff said
Guildie - Paramedic

Now admittedly I picked one of the more derogatory definitions but it does illustrate peoples pre-conceptions. The wierd thing is, I also had those same pre-conceptions or else I wouldnt have reacted so badly.