Embracing the Nerd.

Oh yeah... it's how we roll.

I play video games.  I watch anime.  I read comics.  Big deal.  Just because you spend your time on other pursuits doesn't make you any better than me.  (I would argue that I am the better one in this case, since I'm not a judgmental prick, I won't.  I'm above it.)

I spend just as much of my time involved in leisurely pursuits as you.  

And that's really what this is about: how we spend our time amusing ourselves.

You spend your time watching football with your friends and memorizing pointless statistics about the performance of the players and their teams.  I spend my time with my friends playing Dungeons and Dragons and memorizing pointless statistics about the Hit Die and Armor Class of the varied ages and races of dragonkind.  

Ultimately, all of the time we spent on those numbers will be meaningless in a few months to a year when the teams' roster's change or when there is a new Monster Manual printed.  What's important is the time we spend with our friends.

Sure, the television programs I watch tend to be in Japanese.  But does that really matter?  I'm fully aware that some of the shows I watch are crap, as I'm sure you do about the shows you watch.  I refuse to believe that anybody watching The Jersey Shore could not be aware of how horrible it is.  

When you get right down to it, we are really just interested in the stories these shows have to tell.  You like gripping, formulaic medical mysteries?  I like gripping, formulaic giant fighting robot shows.  

What's important are the stories we like to hear told.

I've been told that being a nerd is socially suicidal.  It's not.  

I have a rich social life with a handful of lifelong friends.  Real, honest, true-blue friends too, not just some random dudes I added to Facebook one night at the bar.  We just have differing social interests.  I could (and have, just so you know) spend my weekends down at the local watering hole, just like a "proper" twenty-something should.  But I choose not to.  I can't stand being around a bunch of drunk assholes.  

Besides that, I would rather not drink an entire paycheck away when there is a blu-ray boxset of "Highschool of the Dead" just sitting in the store, waiting for me to buy it.  This show, like a fifth of tequila, is best shared in company of friends at one in the morning.

 Really the whole point I'm trying to make is that, even though our interests are in two entirely different spectra, we aren't that different at our cores.  

We like to hang out with our friends.  We like to consume media and revel in the stories it tells.  We are essentially the same.


With the exception that I collect swords.  Keep that in mind.

Jason Zebrowski is just a guy pretending to be a writer instead of being the janitor he was trained to be at his last job. His favorite activities are being sarcastic and never updating his own blog: http://theoriginalxenotaru.blogspot.com/