AS's Shadow Syndrome: Geekdom?

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Oh yeah?! Well, well, well... so THERE! Blah!

I know you are but what am I???

What?! I am confused as to your response. Oh well.............

HA HA HA HA HA HA! I HAVE ALL FOUR FILMS ON DVD WITH SPECIAL EXTRAS! AND THEY ARE KICK ASS! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Confusion, eh? Muahahahahaha-- my plan is working! Muahahahahahaha!!!-- Er... *cough, cough, hack* Muahahaha.

*devious movement of eyes back and forth and twitching of mustache*

Muaha!!

Sometimes people like to split hairs and distinguish between geeks and nerds. Geeks are said to have some social ability and less purely academic interests: I.e., more technical interests. Nerds are less social generally and more attuned to reading physics and mathematics text for hours on end. Geeks play computer games, program, watch science fiction shows, and hang out together outside of school and libraries. That is the stereotype.

Recently, fairly normal, outgoing people have usurped the label geek to describe themselves if they have a habit of buying the latest technical gadgets just because they've got to have it (I would use the term consumerist for them). They may know their specs and parade these as if it makes them gods on earth, but they are not as intelligent or as technically knowledgeable as the prototypical geek.

Gamers and animé fanatics are two loosely associated groups that overlap with classical geekdom. Gamers are more mainstream than typical geeks, however. Animé fandom is simply a lesser form of geekdom, in my opinion. You can also find geeks are very sociable and outgoing but who simply happen to enjoy computers, programming, and that sort of thing.

Anyway, these qualifiers dissolve soon after high school, only leaving a residue of interests and a possible career path.

Since I went to an all-girls high school, I couldn't really tell the line between geek and nerd. There were a few girls I would have classified as nerds. But still, I always thought the difference between Geeks and Nerds was that Geeks had poor social skills and weren't excessively intelligent and studious, and I thought Nerds were simply all this but with intelligence and that particularly studious nature. Oh well. As one can see the dilemma: many people define the terms differently, even if only slightly.

Oh well. In the attempt to define a geek, many people may describe what to others is a nerd or a hybrid of the two. Either way, it is difficult to define what is geek and what is nerd. And as well as that, the term changes in its meaning in different parts of the world, in the sense that nerd may be more affectionate than geek in one part of the world and vice versa in another. The thing is that, either way, geeks and nerds have been gaining more favour in the public eye among fans of DIlbert, due to their 'hero' (although that title should be reserved for Dogbert) being classed as a geek/nerd.

If you have symptoms of aspergers - i.e cannot empathise, do not understand the concept of small talk, cannot understand body language, have severe difficultly relating to people, have an obsessive behavioural patterns and have self diagnosed because of these personality traits then it is highly likely you have aspergers. If you also like star trek and like dressing up like spock then you are a geek with aspergers.

I love star trek and most other science fiction. I love computers (my job). I also like mainstream things too. I do not fit within the typical social stereotype of someone who likes science fiction. I am not a geek by any means. I like mainstream fiction, I like horror flicks, I love mood music. I am pretty well rounded in my hobbies and interests.

You might be an aspergers goth chick who hates star trek nerds and hates the fact that people associate aspergers with geeks,star trek fans, anime freaks so on so forth. You might be a aspergic star trek nut who thinks goths are stupid.

MY POINT? This forum seems to be full of self righteous people who believe that aspergers belongs to them. They want to deny others the right to say they have aspergers because they don't want to associate themselves with that other persons personality or preference on life. What I say to you people is GROW UP. Our world is a mass of culture, personal preference and beliefs. Don't harrass others for their personal obsessions. I could rant all day about other peoples hobbies (and I mean some people who have aspergers have some really mad obssessions like collecting door hinges etc). I don't like their hobby but why should I? I don't want to collect hinges so I won't. But I won't do what some of you people are doing and try to deny that person has aspergers because I don't want people to think I also might have a secret hinge fetish because I share the aspergers personality trait.

I'd love to hear arguments against my position.


Don't take this the wrong way BTW. I love this forum.

I agree. Geekdom doesn't put you into a specific group. You just have differences. People have a right to their obessions and interests.

I think a lot of us are to atypical to be really considered full-on geeks in the NT sense. Its probably more true even for shadow aspies. I'd imagine there's a lot of shadow aspies who have a magic draw with a lot of people just for being good people, but at the same time they have that pain related to socializing which keeps em in that semi-shy frame of reference. My guess is there's probably more than enough shadow-aspies what we probably wouldn't even affiliate as such unless we'd talked to em at length for a long time, mainly because they have no traditional outward or behavioral resemblence as geeks. As most they'd come off, like I said, as shy or sharply shy/outgoing NT's; then again I get that impression about a lot of us if we were to see eachother on the street.

Autisitic Pride Day tommorow.

Thanks for telling us Malcolm.

Was that sincere or not?