You May Not Be a Geek, But...

Whilst having a conversation with my co-workers about how we grew up and the social constructs in which we resided in, she directed me towards this great article; Five Geek Social Fallacies. In this article it outlines 5 fallacies that "geeks" encounter in large groups of friends.

Now I do not consider myself to be a "geek" in any respects of the word, nor have I ever had a large centralized group of friends, but I have had friends that have been and still are in those situations.

I consider myself to be a "people watcher" and I tend to over analyze social structures between people and this article was spot on to the groups that I observed while growing up. The interesting part about this, though, is that the majority of them I didn't consider to be geeks, but they all had one thing in common; they all were somewhat of an outcast from the "popular" or "normal" groups.

These fallacies could also exist in those "popular" groups, but I never really had an interest in them.

Although, I did not have these large groups of friends the author did give people like me a shout out:

Less commonly, people form a sort of counter-fallacy which I call "Your Feelings, Your Problem". YFYP carriers deal with other people's fallacies by ignoring them entirely, in the process acquiring a reputation for being charmingly tactless. Carriers tend to receive a sort of exemption from the usual standards: "that's just Dana", and so on. YFYP has its own problems, but if you would rather be an asshole than angstful, it may be the way to go. It's also remarkably easy to pull off in a GSF1-rich environment.

I have one problem with this, I don't think I'm an asshole and I certainly hope that the people that I do hang around with don't think I am. I may be a bit callous and distant, I may not invest myself in relationships and I may make jokes that are offensive, but I'm certainly not without compassion and understanding. This isn't to say I don't have any friends (Most likely I have more than you;)) or that I have any drama with them.

It has taken a long time for me to accept the idea that I don't have a large group of friends. I use to envy those that did, but after observing them for this long I don't think I ever wanted that in the first place. I'm pretty sure if you take the time to read the article you can find that group of friends that you know or knew and you'll most likely find yourself, that is, if you don't have a problem taking a look at yourself.