Geeks aren’t anti-social – we just
love talking about stuff we know most people have absolutely no opinion about.
While the majority of society seems constantly ready to launch into a Romney
vs. Obama compare/contrast (or death match, depending on who’s talking), we
want to discuss the finer points of the Mary Jane Watson vs. Gwen Stacy
question renewed by the upcoming “Spider Man’ movie (but started long, long ago
in the comic books). Not that geeks don’t have political opinions – we love a
good argument, if nothing else – but the “Spider Man” question just seems so
much more interesting. (Or the corollary – is Toby Maguire or Andrew Garfield
the better Peter Parker? Movie geeks can get involved in this one.)
One of a geek’s greatest joys is
acquiring a huge knowledge base about something that interests them (sort of
like a serious football fan, but that’s a discussion for another day). Part of
the fun of having such a deep knowledge base, however, is using it to analyze
the show, movie or game you spend so much time thinking about with someone who
knows it as well as you do. The blank looks most people give you just aren’t
enough.
In fact, it could be argued that we
seek out social companionship more than the non-geeks out there. For most
people, a decent conversational partner can be found almost anywhere – if the
person in the cubicle next to yours doesn’t want to talk about “American Idol,”
the person sitting next to you in the carpool probably will. Someone who can
intelligently discuss the possible implications of the Observers in “Fringe,”
however, can probably only be hunted down on the Internet.
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