I’m a nerd. I fought it for a long time, but now I’m here.
A lot of my reluctance to accept my nerd-ness came from wanting to fit in. Maybe that’s not a unique story, but it’s true for me.
I played middle school basketball in 8th grade after not making the team in 7th grade. I always competed hard in sports in high school, whether on the school team or at lunch time. I watched a lot of sports and talked a lot of sports.
I genuinely liked sports. I don’t write this to imply I was faking. I write this to say that I denied acceptance of myself, or at least that part of myself, because I didn’t want people to judge me. In reality, I now realize, I would have ended up judging myself.
To kick off this blog, this is my story of accepting my nerdship, who inspired me (without realizing it) and what it looks like today.
I don’t know if Jake (not real name) would remember me. It’s been a long time. I did, after all, only last see him at my high school graduation running on 10 years ago. Gosh, I’m old.
Anyway, Jake was an unabashed nerd. I could list a lot of ways in which he was, but I’ll share two examples.
Jake did not play any sports or really do much physical activity (that we saw at school) at all. He was a nerd. He spent most of his free time at school plugged into his computer or playing Super Smash Bros in a teacher’s class during lunch. Each of those instances serve as my examples.
At my school, all students needed a PE credit to graduate. If you played a sport — whether at school or rec, cheerleading, dance/ballet, anything — that counted. Unfortunately, we didn’t have high school PE. So when senior year rolled around, Jake needed something.
It was decided, somehow, that he could receive credit by running around the school a certain amount of times at lunch every day over the course of a certain number of weeks. I don’t remember the exact quota he had to fill. What stands out most from this time is that while he jogged or walked or whatever he was doing, Jake carried his laptop with him, headphones plugged in, to listen to music. It was what you would expert a nerd to do.
Some people made fun of him, others sympathized. I kept my thoughts to myself.
Second example: a regular feature of lunch time at my high school was Super Smash Bros action in Dr. Miller’s room. I don’t know why he let us do it other than he was just a kind-hearted person. I imagine he still is.
Anyway, Jake was one of the ringleaders of this group, and when he wasn’t running around the school during lunch, he was usually in Dr. Miller’s room, trying to take Mr. Game & Watch or Pikachu to victory. He was a fairly regular winner.
But there were a couple times yours truly, utilizing Kirby, the pink ball of air, defeated the lot and walked away the winner. I got half good at swallowing my opponents, leaping off the edge of the map and dropping them out. I could bounce back on to the stage, but often they could not, and an elimination would be mine.
I distinctly remember Jake expressing his frustration loudly a couple times I did that to his character. I was proud, but I cautioned myself to not be too proud. If I was really proud, I thought, I would be a nerd. I wouldn’t be the jock-lite I really wanted to be.
What’s interesting in retrospect is that the stage was set for me to accept my nerd-dom. All my friends would be classified as “nerds.” The “jocks” were mainly people I didn’t like.
Anyway, Jake taught me something very valuable. But I didn’t realize it for a long time.
When you’re in high school, you want to be liked. You’re still developing who you are, or at least trying to come to terms with who you are. So it’s not really surprising, and I try not to shame myself for, acting and believing the way I did. I had a lot of other things going on mentally and emotionally as well, so again, not surprising that’s how I thought.
But what I saw in Jake was someone who was — and still is, to my knowledge, based on some Facebook creeping — unashamed of what he enjoys.
I’ve almost never felt comfortable in my own skin. Right now, I feel overweight and out-of-shape. I also don’t like the way my hair is right now. That feeling also extends to some of my passions and likes. I’m in the midst of a Batman obsession — video games, movies, Funko POPs — and I’m a little nervous to tell people about it because I don’t want them judging me.
The reality is that Jake had it right in the first place. Jake was a guy in high school who knew what he was about, who had everything down. He knew what he wanted and he went after it. Would he have liked for girls to like him? Probably. Would he have liked for people to not make fun of him? I’m damn sure of it. But he did his thing.
I’m not saying we always need to be so unashamed of what’s on our mind and what we’re passionate about. Sometimes speaking from the hip can be an issue. Sometimes our passions can lead to other people being harmed in some way, and that’s never good. Expressing yourself requires some self control and wisdom. If I were to comment a picture of Batman on all my friends’ photos on Facebook, that might not be the best thing.
But what Jake taught me is that passion, even for something that might seem as trivial as nerd culture, is something that must be embraced, at least to a point, for you to be comfortable in your own skin.
So here’s where I am with it.
Like I said, I’m in the midst of a Batman obsession. Not the Burton/Nolan/Snyder films, but the animation and the comics. Within the last couple months, I’ve read “The Dark Knight Returns,” “Tales of the Demon,” “The Long Halloween” and “Death of the Family.” I’ve played through “Batman: Arkham Asylum” and “Batman: Arkham City.” I’ve watched “Batman: Mask of the Phantasm” and recently purchased “Batman: Under the Red Hood.” I’ve bought four Batman-related Funko POPs: comics-look Ras al Ghul, Detective Mode Batman from “Arkham Asylum,” Armored and Unmasked Batman from “The Dark Knight Returns” and Joker from “Death of the Family.”
There’s something about Batman that I gravitate toward. His detective skills stand out — I’ve always loved Sherlock Holmes and at one point wanted to be a detective growing up. The way he became a superhero, motivated by a personal tragedy and dedicating himself to making sure that didn’t happen to anyone else. His single-minded drive. His struggle with his own mental health issues related to shame, depression and loneliness.
I can’t totally relate to Batman. I don’t have millions of dollars to pull from to make a different suit for every new issue or animated movie. But I love it.
While I’m more in the animation/comics/video games realm right now, I do love the movies. “The Dark Knight” remains the best superhero movie I’ve ever seen. I love Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face in the “Long Halloween”-inspired portion of that movie. I didn’t hate “Justice League” and hope to see the Snyder Cut.
I’m still struggling to embrace my nerd-dom though. The other day on a work call, my team was talking about what we like to do in our free time, and I tried to state my Batman obsession in the most couched terms possible. I still worried how people would react, searching their faces for any hint of disapproval or rejection. There were none, but I definitely imagined there were.
So I’m still on the journey. I probably will be for a while. I hope to one day achieve the level of satisfaction in my self that Jake had. While I’m on the way, I tip my hat to you, my friend. I hope we can reconnect one day and I can tell you how you inspired me and continue to inspire me.
For Gotham.
