Several years ago, I took an online quiz, "Are you a Nerd, Geek, or a Dork?"
The results? None of the above.
(FYI: Today, I took that same quiz and was told that I am now "A Modern, Cool Nerd.")
This is of particular interest to me today because I went to GeekGirlCon yesterday. I went there feeling that I'm not particularly geeky and came out of it feeling . . . mostly the same way. I think.
Being a geek seems to be, by broad definition, about being passionate about something. Whether it's comics, sports, Joss Whedon, films, Bible verses, etc., a person can geek out about anything, even if it isn't something that's traditionally considered of geeky interest.
There are so few things that I'm passionate enough about to be a geek over. The closest I ever came was during the years when I was totally into Buffy. I watched every episode repeatedly, knew all the episode titles, joined a Buffy forum. It was hard for people to have a conversation with me without me quoting the show or saying things like, "That reminds me of that one time when Spike/Xander/Willow/Buffy . . . "
I didn't take it any further, though. I've never been to Comic-Con to meet the actors. I've never dressed up as any of the characters. It's been at least a year since I've watched an episode. I don't think I'll ever NOT consider myself a fan, but it seems unlikely that I'll ever regain the passion that I once had.
Since then, I've gotten into new things, but it's usually been fleeting passions or moderate interests. I've read all the Harry Potter and The Hunger Games books. Sure, I like 'em, and I can probably debate about them, but I don't usually bother. I love The Clone Wars cartoon, and I actually can recognize some of the planets by sight now, but I don't know most of the minor character's names, or even many of the major ones. I'm not even a true Tetris geek because I cannot for the life of me get a T-spin to work!
Here's further evidence of my non-geekiness:
- I played Magic the Gathering a few times in college, and thought it was very fun to create my own deck (which I still have), but after maybe a dozen games I was totally over it.
- I attempted a role-playing game that same year, but the boys got annoyed and didn't want to play with me anymore because when we "went to the fair," I wanted to ride the ferris wheel. Which, apparently, didn't exist in this particular world where I was a twelve-foot cyclops.
- I loathe Lord of the Rings. Utterly and completely.
At GeekGirlCon, I was very interested to hear people talking about finding/embracing their geekiness (including Jane Espenson - OMG!), but I didn't particularly relate to it. It's true that I felt alienated growing up, but it wasn't because of my interests and it didn't draw me toward any particular interests. (Maybe reading?Nerdy!!!!)
And now that I've gotten this far into typing this, I seem to remember that I've blogged about passion several times in the past, and about the fact that I don't seem to have much of it. And that's the conclusion that I'm coming to once again.
Maybe I'm just too lazy to be geek?