It was a point in the book where Cadel (the main character, who happens to be an amazingly genius teenage hacker) was feeling particularly sad because he was pretty antisocial. In the bathroom, there were two boys trying to make a small bomb out of something (nothing serious, something that would explode and liquid would fly everywhere). Cadel then showed them how to make it 10 times better. He should have just walked away and accepted that geniuses are not accepted in society. Instead, he basked in the glory of having impressed two people who were far less smart than him, and whose opinion would mean nothing to him for the rest of his life. So, while he was basking in this social acceptance/impressiveness, he realized that he could just keep impressing people and he would be socially accepted for the rest of his life. After he talked to his psychologist about it (who happened to be the protagonist, but also Cadel's father... it's a REALLY good story), his psychologist told him that true geniuses are not accepted in society, because no one understands them properly.
I feel the same way about geeks. Even nerds (yes, there is a DIFFERENCE) have their own little society. Geeks? They're few and far apart (at least, in my age/year/place/life), so there's no group. Geeks are the ones who have spent their whole lives online. I know a few semi-geeks at my school, but gamers don't count. Gamers are the ones who yell "l0l n00b!" at their screen after dying 4 times in a row in Black Ops. 13 year old gamers are the worst kinds of people to deal with. 13 year old PC gamers are a little more acceptable, but they need to have memorized the Fibonacci Sequence up to at least 144, pi to at least 3.141592653589, or semi-know a programming language and how to use it. Otherwise, they're unbearable too. Where was I...? Oh, yeah.
I know no real geeks at my school. I know wannabe geeks, I know /b/ros, I know gamers, nerds, etc. but no geeks. No one who can program, no one who enjoys a computer challenge, no one who has ever encrypted anything in BASE64, no one who has used a keylogger (sorry!), no one who knows what RAM is/does, no one who can tell what 1000 is in binary, etc. I'm not trying to say I'm the only geek, but what I'm insinuating or implying is that I AM THE ONLY GEEK.
Therefore, my level of social acceptance is really low unless I start basking in those moments when I impress people. I hate impressing people though, because then
- They take you for granted sometimes. Oh yeah, he did that one cool thing, but he can't do anymore.
- You start making a name for yourself, but you're still just that one kid who can do that one thing with the computer thingy
- I realize, "Hey. This will mean nothing to me next week, next month, next year, next decade, etc. It only means something to me in this moment. Why am I trying to impress this stranger again...?"
- Then I realize, "Oh, it's because there's no other way I can bring up a conversation with anyone because they talk about stuff like sports/normal people things and I just say "...k."
- Then I realize, "If we had a geek here, I could talk about anything/everything to them, but we don't, so I can't."
- Social acceptance
- it's fucking HARD if you're a geek
