What makes someone a nerd? How about a dork? What about a geek? How do you define these terms? I'm making an assumption that some people think being a nerd is being smart and being passionate or deeply interested or excited about intellectual things. I have some level of identity with nerdiness but I thought it was particularly interesting when this guy called me a nerd and he was really excited about it and I didn't know exactly why he called me that, although I knew it was a compliment, because he said "I like nerds," or something of that nature. So what do you think? Are you a nerd, or any of the other terms?
People who post pictures of their bookshelves on an internet forum are nerds. Am I right deviate? haha. I don't really call people those names. Everyone is an individual. My best friends husband is into D&D and those kinds of games. They actually call his group of friends "The Nerds" He's so different from my husband who is all about sports. The 2 of them have pretty much NOTHING in common. We don't even call her husband a nerd but if she comes over and I ask what he's doing she'll say "The nerds are coming over tonight to play video games".
Hello, I think the boundaries between nerds and geeks are a bit fuzzy nowadays. Maybe part of the problem is that most people propably don't know the original meaning of the terms. I avoid the term nerd. But if I use it, I think about a person with a deep (I mean really deep) interest and knowledge in comics, games, RP, SF and that stuff. While a geek is more into 'technical' aspects like math, computers, mechanics etc. That is not a very strict distinction and it's mostly wrong, but that's how I use the terms. Personally I'm a Unix hacker or engineer, depending on how professional I want to sound . That means I'm a geek also. Regards Gyro
My wife calls me a nerd sometimes, but usually only when she wakes up in the middle of the night and she sees me reading.
I don't consider myself any of those terms if any of them are associated with being smart. In regards to interest in a particular subject being associated with a nerd, geek, etc... then I qualify. I'm interested in everything. In addition to my wife, my stepdaughter has called me a nerd but she also said that I couldn't be because I used to box, kickbox, and right before I got to old, I tried MMA for a couple of years. I don't think that would disqualify me from nerd status though - especially since I wasn't good at any of it, so I think I could still be a nerd, geek, or whatever, haha.
I'm kind of an expert on nerds, since I went to MIT. In those days, there were nerds and tools. Tools were people who never questioned anything, they were content to be a tool of the military-industrial complex. The word geek did not exist. I think the meaning of nerd has changed a bit over the years. In my day, a nerd was a guy who had many of the characteristics of autism. They are smart and shy. Deeply anti-social, altho it is often the result of social phobias. They never have sex -- they are too lacking in confidence to meet girls. They often did weird things, like get in a pattern of sleeping during the day and staying awake all night. They are a lot like the Woody Allen character in "Play It Again Sam".
