Marge, there are two types of college guys - Jocks, and Nerds

In high school, I was categorised under a number of different, yet ultimately synonymous, labels. “Dweeb”, “Geek”, “Dork”, “Brain”, and of course the classic, “Nerd” were but a few of these. At uni, however, I have never found myself branded with such tags. The main reason is that in the higher education system, especially in the prestigious surroundings of Sydney University’s Camperdown campus, the line between “Nerds” and “Anti-nerds” is far less distinct. Basically, everyone who wants to continue learning, and moreover, wants to do it at the place that that Doctor guy with the Polish surname gives talks, is a nerd to some extent.

But of course this definition then leads to a whole number of sub-definitions, or sub-categorisations. And I typically divide these sub-categorisations in terms of a single glass wall – that which divides the room in the south-east corner of Manning Level 1 (more familiarly known, of course, as the SUTEKH room, and to which I typically refer as ‘the Glass Menagerie’ and am waiting for the moment when a busload of Japanese tourists presses their noses against the wall and goes “Ooh, Nerd san”), from the rest of Manning Level 1.

That particularly categorisation, however, only works (or at least, only worked for me) up to the point where you actually sit down and chat with some of the more esoteric inhabitants of said menagerie. Because this is the point where I noticed that essentially they bear a striking, if not uniform, resemblance, to me and my dearest. The largest difference I noted is that they simply know more than me. And this, my dear friends, is the greatest irony in mankind’s evolution, in that the first and foremost reason that I was dubbed titles such as ‘geek’ or ‘fuckingfuckface’ seemed to be that I simply knew more than other people, or was, to coin a phrase ‘more intelligent’.

And so I ask the question: What is the point in being a social outcast if you don’t know more than everyone?

It occurs to me, however that perhaps the major reason I don’t know as much as these people who for no apparent reason put ‘K’s in their society names even though it’s completely orthographically nonsensical, is simply because I’m still that insecure 11-year-old who resented name-calling and who would happily burn a copy of Les Fleurs du Mal if only someone would invite him to their birthday party to eat cupcakes. In other words, have I ever truly embraced my nerdship? Perhaps not.

Therefore, ladies and gentlemen, here, on the greatest dork sanctuary known to mankind – the internet – I stand up with bosom thrust out and proudly declare that I AM A NERD. I admit I read Plato just for the sake of reading Plato. I admit I got a huge power trip when I was the only person in my English tute who recognised that Chaucer’s quote ‘Let me sing of arms and the man’ (House of Fame, Book I) was a corruption of Line I of Virgil’s Aeneid. I admit I feel like kicking the wall when I have all but one clue in the Herald Cryptic Crossword. But most of all, I admit that I like knowing more about something than any given person. And this is not simply because it makes me feel superior to do so, but also because in sharing my own knowledge of a subject, it brings another person one step closer to the veiled round table of nerdhood. (Is there room here for a ‘MENSA’ pun? Probably not, let’s move on)

Interestingly, the further thought often occurs to me that the main reason I no longer come across as remarkably knowledgeable on certain topics is that I tend not to refine, or alternatively, confine, my interests to any particular domain. This is of course both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s a good thing because, essentially, everything interests me. Conversely, it’s a bad thing because in conversation, once we pass the bridge of surface knowledge and begin hiking into the forest of intricate detail and over the mountain of historiographical contexualisation, I generally tend to get a hole in my canteen of ability to continue in conversations or really badly ruined and strangulated metaphors and have to go back to the fountain of giant robotic killer ants to fill it up with the water of sentences that are far too long and make no sense whatsoever.

I do sometimes remind myself of Lisa Simpson in that episode where the Eric Idle-voiced documentary filmmaker criticises her for not choosing a path and following it. Because the trouble is, as soon as I venture down any unexplored avenue, someone invariably comes the other way down it, and hands me a map of the whole street that they prepared earlier. Or at the very least, I see a sign on the corner that says “No Through Road, 6AM-10AM Mon-Fri, Buses Excepted”, and I tend to lose interest, as well as the ability to make metaphors coherent.

This isn’t entirely true of course, since I am just ranting and the truth often gets in the way of a good trough of pig shit, but nevertheless, the three things that have ever truly piqued my interest – movies, writing and Medieval Icelandic Literature – have about as bright a future as when Kennedy said “It’s such a beautiful afternoon, how about a drive on the motorcade?”

Which brings me back to my original point. Is it just that I’m too smart to be normal, and yet not smart enough to be a freak? Or is it just that my particular area of freakishness is incompatible with others’?

Or, radically, is it just how they always taught me in pre-school (in between me vomiting apricot muesli bars and pulling down my pants to impress the girls) that everyone is just different and no amount of social categorisation leads to any amelioration of one’s comprehension about civilisation’s idiosyncrasies? And just as a pointless side note, why can you never use the word ‘idiosyncrasies’ outside the context of sounding verbose for the sake of verbose?

It seems, overall, that I am destined to be rather stuck in the middle. Which I think is the truest possible way of defining me. One minute I could be corrected by someone for accidentally mistaking Milton’s time period to Dante’s (which, for those of you who may not know, is a really fucking stupid mistake for someone who spent more time on his holiday to Queensland reading Paradise Lost than he did cruising the beach inspecting bikinis, to make), and the next explaining the semiotic paradigm of Icelandic family sagas. While I will never fully comprehend the surrealism of The Real Inspector Hound, I will always scoff at someone who says “Stoppard? Didn’t he write that movie that woulda bin shit if it didn’t have Paltrow’s tits in it?”.

But realistically it makes far more sense to stop defining myself relative to others. It makes far more sense to enjoy what you have and revel in yourself. And to that effect I will say, in the words of that great raconteur and wit ‘anonymous’ “I think it’s pretty clear that I am a nerd. Well done douche bag”. However, in a world where intelligence is more intricately defined than simply being the ability to spell the word antidisestablishmentarianism in 4.7 seconds, it’s fair to say that unfortunately, I’m not the smartest person who ever lived.

Fucking Pythagoras.