20131117.0750

I would normally scorn to read something that comes from the pages of Cosmopolitan.  I would consider it beneath me to read such a publication, to sully my eyes with the pap of beauty tips and sex tips that are entirely too elementary to consider useful.  I would normally wholly avoid the kind of trite banality and reinforcement of artificial body image encapsulated in the publication, scorning it as transmissive of patriarchal double-standards that trend to the continued self-oppression of women.  I do not think that I would be wrong to do so.

In my morning readings, however, David Ingber's 11 November 2013 piece "10 Reasons Why You Should Date a Nerd" caught my attention.  In the piece, Ingber differentiates the nerd he discusses from the older stereotypes before offering the promised ten reasons the "modern" nerd is worth dating.*  On the surface, the piece is simply another iteration of mindless pap, presuming to offer relationship advice to a presumed or intended readership that, by even buying into the publication or reading the piece, demonstrates something of an inability to display the personal depth that allows for an actually fulfilling relationship.**  But there are some things in the article that actually appear to support comment.

One of them is that Ingber's assertions are not entirely correct.  For example, his tenth point, that "Nerds are comfortable in their own skin," is far too broad a generalization.  Having been a nerd for much of my life, and having spoken most with nerds and observed their behavior through being among their company, I can attest that many nerds are far from content.  Many of us look at the many others in the world as they scurry about from place to place and are envious.  The way that the contributions of the non-nerdy are celebrated far above and far more consistently than those of nerds--even in colleges and universities, which ought to be the nerdiest of places--grates on me and, from what others have told me, breeds a sense of discontent.  The oft-cited lamentations of graduate students, those who are nerds and are in training to become yet greater nerds, bear this out; Graduate School Barbie (TM) is a case of "funny because it's true," except that it is not really funny...because it is all too true.  Bespoken is a fairly constant self-questioning and second-guessing of life choices that do not indicate people's comfort in their own skin, but the exact opposite of that thing.

Another, broader problem is Ingber's misidentification of actual nerddom.  I am aware that the polished, witty characters on such shows as The Big Bang Theory and others are taken as representative of the corps of nerds.  They are not.  Instead, they are rarefied, idealized nerds, pretty people with a thin veneer of nerditude lightly brushed on.  True nerds are far less polished, far less refined, and far denser in making arcane references than their television and (recent) movie counterparts; they are not likely to be presented accurately or well on screen, probably because they would not test well with audiences.

But there is one thing that Ingber has exactly right.  The essence of nerdhood is, as he suggests, enthusiasm.  Being cool is as much a matter of being detached as anything else.  Nerditude is typically the opposite of coolness, and that opposite is enthusiastic engagement with something.  The traditional nerd engages thusly with things outside the mainstream, admittedly, but even those people who are greatly enthusiastic about such things as baseball and football--solidly mainstream athletic constructions--are called nerds, not for the knowledge itself, but for the intensely enthusiastic display of it.  And, writing once again from the perspective of having long been a nerd, that enthusiasm applies itself to matters of love as much as matters of...anything, really.

*In another venue, I have discussed comments about the uselessness of the "nerd" label--although it is still very much applied, and I still very much identify as one.

**I get to set myself aside from this, since I am a scholar and cultural critic.  One of the benefits of the position...