Coolth? No, Warmth.

[mdlbear]

(This is loosely inspired by some of the post-OVFF discussion going on in my friends list. I just thought I'd get some of my thoughts -- partly from comments I've made -- collected in one place.)

First, a little background: I was never one of the cool kids. I expect very few of us were. The members of the Chess Club at my Jr. High and High School spent our years of purgatory reading science and science fiction, sitting out dances, and trying hard to be proud of our geekiness. I spent a lot of my senior year teaching myself guitar and learning folksongs, on a second-hand Harmony with cheese-grater action.

I wrote a couple of songs in college, and stopped going to dances.

It wasn't until ten years or so later that I discovered the SCA -- a young lady of my acquaintance told me I'd be able to meet eligible young ladies there. A year or so later she had to beat me over the head with a clue stick and ask me to marry her. I'm a geek, you see -- I don't take hints.

A couple of years after that we discovered fandom and filk. Filking was fun; there were whole conventions full of people like me, proud of their geekiness and writing songs about science fiction, fantasy, fandom, and the pleasures of singing weird songs slightly off-key. I wrote my first filksong a little while before Bayfilk I, but was too shy to sing it until a year or so later. I was always out on the fringes, mostly listening.

My first concert, at Westercon 40 (where I got a slot because I was married to one of the co-chairs) I was standing behind the lectern that the hotel had thoughtfully provided in lieu of a music stand. It was a good thing, because one of my legs was shaking so much I could hardly stand. Happened at the next couple of concerts, too, only I was sitting down; I assume everyone could see it.

I assume I'm not the only one. In fact, we're all geeks here. blueeyedtigress said it really well in a comment on the post that started the whole discussion (at least on my friends' list):

Hey, I'm not cool, either. I Am A Geek! A Misfit! A great horrible Weirdo! We outcasts should stick together ... wait, isn't that how fandom started??

We're all so used to being out in the fringe that even among our equally-outcast peers we feel alone. We got that way in the first place by having a hard time meeting people and making friends. Just being in a hotel full of other geeks doesn't make it any easier. In fact, it makes it harder -- nobody else is any good at it, either. It's true that some of us are less geeky than others. But it's hard to tell in specific cases, because sometimes that's just a mask that people put on so nobody will find out how scared they are. Sort of like a hall costume.

I don't have any advice, folks. I'm just another middle-aged geek who learned to play guitar, but never acquired any social skills. If you think I'm cool because I'm up there giving a concert, you're wrong: I'm just there because it's more fun than standing around in the hallway trying to work up the nerve to start a conversation with somebody I don't know. Maybe if I touch someone's heart with a song, they'll come up and talk to me.

I'm not cool, just looking for a little warmth and unsure about how to reach out and find it. Talk to me. I don't remember your name, either -- that's why we wear nametags.

Comments

[saffronrose.livejournal.com]

It's easy to talk to you, you know. You're not off-putting (unlike some people you know), and you listen well.

[mdlbear]

Thanks.

Hopefully you'll never catch me when I'm busy, distracted, or upset.

[harmonyheifer.livejournal.com]

I'm coming to realize that no matter how much popularity we may achieve as adults, most of us carry some scars from childhood about being not cool. When it is all said and done, fandom is still more about what brings us together than what keeps us apart. I happen to adore middle aged geeks, and I'm sending you all the warmth I've got to spare. What was your name again?

[mdlbear]

Hi! My name is Steve, and I'm a middle-aged geek.

Thanks.

[callahanshappy.livejournal.com]

I considered you to be one of the cool, interesting people when I first started reading alt.callahans back in 1991.

I still do, for that matter. :-)

[mdlbear]

Thanks.

[it-aint-easy.livejournal.com]

and trying hard to be proud of our geekiness

:{)} If you even conceived the idea of being proud of it, you were ahead of me.

But yah, we grok.

[mythdefied.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

Yes. Word. Everything you just said about the aloneness of geekiness. I read the sci-fi/fantasy, did the Star Trek cons, played the RPGs and yeah, I had friends who did the same, but I'm still socially clueless. And let me tell ya something, being a girl with no social skills? So much worse than guys have it. Society kind of expects the guys to be clueless, no one gets it when a woman is both a total geek and can't understand subtlety, or body language or any of those other fun things I think I was supposed to learn in high school. Yeah, back at those dances I didn't attend, the dates I didn't go on ('cause books were so much more interesting), etc.

Geeks unite!