I don't identify as a "nerd"

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I think nerd is part of who I am. I don't think there has ever been a person I've met that has thought I'm a nerd. I ended up in the 'bad kids school' before I dropped out. I did a lot of hard partying and crazy s**t in general. My hobbies today are guns, cannabis, math/numbers, and reading psychology research. Am I a nerd? Meh, you decide, it doesn't really matter to me one way or another.

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I've never been ''geeky''. I used to feel a bit plain and maybe a little ''geeky'' before I got my hair styled, but now I've got my hair done I feel more like a social conformist. I'm not friends with geeky people either. And I speak like a cockney, even to people in authority.

In the adult world, glasses aren't considered ''nerdy''. A lot of people need to wear them as they get older anyway. I don't wear glasses but I probably will need them in the future.

I wear my nerdiness on my sleeve, or on my many shirts from teefury.com.
I don't fit in with other geeks or nerds. I know I am one but in a different way. I'm a massive Stargate fan and other kinds of science fiction but every time I write on the forum what I have to say is so separate and doesn't keep the flow of the threads.
I also don't get along with some nerds/geeks because I'm a massive non-conformist and I'm not saying that to sound cool. I get in a lot of arguments, challenge people a lot and feel really lonely and angry at myself at times. I hate social networking or "1984 in practice" as I call it, and let people know it.

I love my science, my sci-fi even more, and will not give it up if the most coolest group of kids welcomed me into their group. They are some people I look up to as cool and want to be like them. It's Sydney so they're arty, into music and probably a little geeky. But they sure dress well.

I don't identify as a geek although I have a few geeky friends. My boyfriend (NT) is an uber-geek - he loves computers, gaming, Star Trek, Star Wars, SF and fantasy books and he used to play things like Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. If it's nerdy then he will love it.

I'm not into any of those things, so my interests might appear a little more mainstream and not as stereotypically 'geeky'. At school I had a small group of friends who were girls, and they weren't particularly nerdy.

I do have a pair of nerdy/hipster glasses, but that is because I have poor eyesight and I wanted frames that I could see I wasn't wearing the glasses so I didn't sit on them!

Must confess the Wikipedia description sounds horribly like me, and very Aspie:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd

Love the bit at the end:
One cannot be an authentic nerd by imitation alone; a nerd is an outsider and someone who is unable or unwilling to follow trends. Popular culture is borrowing the concept and image of nerds in order to stand out as individuals

So I'm the real deal.

I'm ambivalent to it though. I worry about spending too much time on unpopular activities.....you know the one where you've just achieved something amazing with a special interest, and you want to tell people about it, but you know it would take hours to explain what you've done and why it means so much to you, and even if they can listen for that long, they won't find the result very interesting? Have you ever accidentally ignored a partner for hours because of the fascination of some nerdy pursuit? There's a social cost to being a nerd. So if loneliness bothers you, then you might want to think about focussing on people a bit instead of things.

I suspect that nerdy interests often turn out to be futile. Not always by any means, but there's more going on with the choice of interests than just the logic of "it would be nice to achieve that." All that repetition, collecting and categorising we do, the fantastic attention to detail and the mind-boggling perfectionism we apply to what we do........why? Is it actually good for us, or is it just something we can't seem to stop doing? When I look back at my special interests, I can see how my individualistic approach was often a ridiculously long way round, inefficient, antisocial, and largely unnecessary.

One saving grace is that nerds do sometimes get together with a shared special interest. I don't do that much. Frankly my special interests are mostly so obscure that they don't have names. There are no organised groups doing the stuff I do.

So I'm kind of nerdoskeptical. I allow myself time to do nerdy things, and usually enjoy the process, but I don't let it get out of hand. A timer is quite useful.....also I'm starting to get used to the idea of occasionally stepping back from what I'm doing to review where I'm at and what I want to do next.

But I still have a healthy respect and regard for nerds, especially female nerds, because they probably get more stick for it than men do, and they're much more rare. I like the claim that the "nerd" was originally spelled "knurd" which is "drunk" backwards. And they say alcohol's a social lubricant. Sure doesn't help me do my special interests. Maybe that's the answer?

Mmm, I definitely don't feel like a nerd. I feel a bit geeky sometimes but I definitely don't fit into any of those stereotypes that much. I think I know how you feel, you're not "popular" enough to hang out with the popular people or the average person but you don't really fit into the nerdy or geeky groups either. That's what I felt like, I was more or less a loner with a couple of friends and I always did my own thing. I didn't share a lot of interests with most people.

I basically felt like I wasn't smart or pretty enough to fit in with anybody who was popular or even average and I didn't feel smart or interested in anything the "geeky" people were into like anime and that kind of stuff. Then there were the "bad kids" I felt like I was too mature and smart to be around them. I did at one point of my bad kid faze that lasted for about one year in high school though. I just felt really out of place.

Oh and by the way I'm sorry about the stereotypes, I'm not trying to judge or label people but I think a lot of you know what I mean.

Not a nerd or whatever.

Eccentric, yeah.

I'm proud to be a nerd. In fact I knew I was a nerd before I knew I had AS . I also have a license plate to prove it (seriously, my license plate has Nerd on it, Woot!).

I also didn't realize that "nerd" is derogatory to some people. I was at a college football tailgate last year, and I commented on how much I loved my little nerd (my 3 year old) and one of the ladies (she is about 10 years older than me) exclaimed, "don't say that!! that isn't very nice!" I was like, "What?!? in my house being a nerd is cool!"

So, yeah. My husband is a geek though. If you haven't seen it you should check out the venn diagram describing geeks, nerds, and dorks. It is pretty cool.

I am most definitely a nerd.

i played Yu-Gi-Oh years ago im supprised it making a come back .

i get called a computer Geek all the time.

and im proud to be a Geek

if i remeber right it was wired who first called AS the Geek syndrome in 2003

I've never been called a "nerd" or a "geek" before. I'm not very into sci-fi/fantasy, math, or computers.

However... I do have one nerdy/geeky hobby, and that's anime. Loved it ever since the Pokemon craze of the 90s. I'm not obsessed with it like I was when I was a child or teenager - I just watch it occasionally these days and there is no specific series that I'm really into - but it still has a massive impact on my artwork and imagination.

But despite my fondness for Japanese cartoons, I consider myself a fan of Johnny Depp's movies above all else. Which is actually a pretty mainstream thing to be into, but the sheer intensity of my obsession may veer it into geeky territory, I don't know. I do know that drawing pics of Johnny Depp characters in an anime style, and said characters cosplaying as characters from various anime series is kind of geeky, which I do.