column: Nerds Gone Wild! #1.4 Apr/May 2007

agony nerd #2

Nerd versus ball sports

Dear Agony Nerd,

My family has always been into sport, and since a young age I have always been enrolled in various ball games by my parents. As fun as it may have been at eight years old, I soon grew bored of the routine of sport and delved into other areas such as music and reading. This was a big shock for my father who lives and breathes sport.

But last Sunday I found myself at the A-League soccer grand final surrounded by screaming hooligans. I do admit that I watched the game, but I felt no urge to jump up and shout at the top of my lungs. And as I sat in my seat, I couldn’t stop thinking about the comics I had bought earlier that day. I realised then that I cared more about reading a comic, which could be done at anytime, anywhere, than watching one of the most exciting soccer games ever played. Many times I was tempted to pull my precious reading material out of my bag and indulge myself, but for fear of been beaten to a pulp by the half drunk rowdy soccer fans behind me, I stayed my hand.

I can only hold on to the charade that I am a true sports fan for so long. Please NGW!, tell me how I can come out of the nerd closet to my sport fanatical parents without giving them heart attacks.

— Josh

Dear Josh,

This is interesting. Interesting inasmuch as I have never met your parents in my life! Josh, what do you want me to say? Your parents will be happy if you do a, b and c? Well, these are people I’ve never met, for all I know your parents are Bert and Patty Newton, so no, I don’t see how I can reasonably offer you instructions in dealing with them, much less anticipating their psychology. Perhaps you, having known Mr and Mrs Josh for, I don’t know, your entire life , are better poised to deal with that task.

The fact is, Josh, that I wouldn’t know how to advise you even if I did meet your parents. I pretty much don’t understand anyone over 50. Even after watching Understanding 50 . What do I know? I know they’re annoying, they’re boring, and they value cats above human life, there you are, the end.

But then, I will offer you this. A look at a different world. A world in which you are your parents and your parents are you. Consider that, Josh. Consider how you would feel if that theoretical child gazed up at you and asked if he or she could stop reading comics so he or she could play in a field, catch a ball or roll like a pig in shit. You wouldn’t like it. I wouldn’t like it. Would you bash the child? Maybe. Maybe not. The fact is, Josh, that I would bash that child.

Remember.

I’m not taken seriously as a nerd

Dear Agony Nerd,

I try very hard, very hard indeed, to be an uber-super-mega nerd, but I can’t seem to succeed — there always seems to be some limiting factor. I play video games incessantly, I have long ago given up my social life, I know incredible amounts of incredibly fascinating information (read “useless” if your un-nerdy), spend more time on Wikipedia than any other single activity, and own all the right merchandise (i.e. complete collection of Buffy, manga, figurines, etc.).

The real problem is I have recently begun to believe that I’m not socially awkward enough for anyone to take me seriously as a nerd. Please help. I have worked out the Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient of nerd related activities and I’m still coming up r=0.000. Just how can I be nerdier? Is there a training regime? An epic quest I must undergo? I can’t go to another convention and be mistaken for staff … I just can’t …
— Nerdified

Dear Nerdified,

I have no idea what you are even talking about. You’re telling me you want to be more socially awkward, but you’re not actually telling me why. So the other nerds know you’re a nerd? So you can be “in” with them? So you can play Chinese whispers and sardines, and spend your time rammed up against another nerd’s butt?

Look, Nerdified, baby, I can tell you what you think you want to hear. I can tell you to bathe in Mountain Dew and eat pizza till you shit cheese, but you won’t thank me in the morning, when your arse is leaving a grease trail through your workplace and your face is sweating like a champagne ham. Seriously, do you think the other nerds will follow your rancid meat breath like rats to the piper’s tune? Well, it’s unlikely.

The fact is that there is a more pressing issue here, and that issue is why you care. Things might be different if you had a specific goal. My brother, for instance, is actively gaining weight specifically in order to haggle more effectively for computer parts. He feels that not being Asian puts him at a constant disadvantage, and yes, he’s right. It does put him at a constant disadvantage. In a perfect world, my brother would be fat and Asian, but it’s not a perfect world. It’s not even a Perfect Strangers world. It’s this world, Nerdified, and for better or worse my brother is slightly overweight wog, with aspirations to be a very overweight wog. Will he make it? Only time will tell. The difference is that my brother’s end goal is constructing a super computer that can ground planes. Yours is to be accepted.

Only you can accept yourself, Nerdified. Remember, everyone dies alone. Not a happy thought, but a true one. All that matters is that while you were here you were the biggest, fattest nerd you could be. Qapla’!