Warning: if you believe that I am a really cool person and have no nerdy tendencies at all you shouldn't read the rest of this blog post. I would hate to let the few people down who actually think I'm awesome.
Also if you value our friendship you will swear on the life of Scott Pilgrim that you will not judge me too harshly for the things you learn from this post.
I've always known that I am a little more nerdy than the rest of my family, and I've come to completely accept that in my life. I love and enjoy my nerdiness, even if it may embarrass my jock brother. But recently I have hit a new level of nerd that I never imagined possible!
Throughout the years I've noticed that there are many different kinds of nerds: gamer nerds, book nerds, computer nerds, anime nerds, comic nerds, art nerds, band nerds, theatre nerds, the role-playing nerd etc.
Side note: The more I keep typing the
word nerd it's starting to look less and
less like an actual word.
Nerd nerd nerd nerd nerd nerd nerd...
Being a nerd doesn't mean that you wear the stereotypical nerd glasses and that you can't associate with other people, especially the opposite sex. Being a nerd simply means that you genuinely like stuff. My favorite author John Green has a quote about being a nerd that I absolutely love: "Nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff. . . Nerds are allowed to love stuff, like jump-up-and-down-in-the-chair-can't-control-yourself love it. When people call people nerds, mostly what they're saying is 'you like stuff.' Which is just not a good insult at all. Like, 'you are too enthusiastic about the miracle of human consciousness'."
I believe in this 100%
Nerds like things, it's what we do!
I've always known that I'm a book nerd. I learned about my love for reading at a very young age while discovering the wonders of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, Amanda Pig, and A Series of Unfortunate Events, and I have continued to read as many books as I can possibly devour throughout my life.
During my teenage years I learned that I was also a closet gamer nerd. I love playing video games! The only problem is that I don't have money for them which is why that nerd side has always been less apparent. And even though I have a younger brother we still don't have many video games at our house. My brother has always been the sporty type who would rather go out and play catch than stay inside and play video games.
Eventually I found my overall passion in life when I discovered the theatre world! Ever since then I have been a die-hard theatre nerd. I audition for everything I possibly can, be involved in any way, and I'm currently working on getting my BFA in Musical Theatre.
I've also dabbled in comics, anime, and art, but the one thing I promised myself I would never do is the weird role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons or LARPing. They were just so beyond nerdy that I honestly couldn't bring myself to even imagine participating in them. My high school had a LARPing club that would meet after school once a week and they would fight in the common area with foam swords and axes. After watching them a couple times I couldn't help but making fun of them with my group of friends. They looked so completely ridiculous and it was just too easy to jab at what they were doing. That was when I promised myself I would never become one of those people!
I eventually went on my merry way to college and found myself surrounded by wonderful theatre friends. I never realized that when I picked my major it brought me one step closer to role-playing games. Theatre is role-playing. That is what we are paid to do. We pretend to be other people in front of an audience for the sole purpose of entertainment. . . obviously it was only a matter of time. . .
This school year I had the opportunity of becoming friends with an absolutely wonderful guy named Tony who happens to be very into D&D. When I first learned this information I must admit that I laughed out of pure shock. One thing you need to know about Tony is that he is absolutely gorgeous! He practically has women throwing themselves on him left and right. And I don't mean that in a rude way! He's not a jerk about his good looks, and he doesn't take advantage of them either. He's just a genuinely nice guy with a wonderful personality who happens to be very handsome as well. So when I found out that Tony was one of those people I was surprised. I had indulged the stereotype for too long that I couldn't imagine someone attractive and social actually participating in a role-playing game.
Then began my decent into the world of D&D. It first started with Tony asking me if I would be interested in playing, then me being a little curious and saying maybe, and then actually following through with it, getting into a group, making a character, and proceeding to have the most awesome campaign of D&D that I could possibly imagine! Tony is a complete genius when it comes to story telling and I have to admit that I loved every second of that game. Even when I had my arm bit off by a dire wolf, or when we were tricked into killing the royal family, or when I found out that I had been unknowingly helping the bad guy throughout the entire campaign. And even though I went on a horrific emotional roller coaster from being banished, to falling in love, to watching that love murdered, to being falsely accused, having my family be sentenced to death for those false accusations, to losing my only friend, eventually gaining him back, finding the survivors of my family, miraculously bringing my love back to life, and in the end finally realizing that the one bad guy that I had been chasing and planning revenge towards for all he had done to me was in fact not bad at all and instead just completely misunderstood and emotionally irrational just as I was, I can't imagine playing a better game!
So yes, I have become one of those people and I have to admit that it is absolutely wonderful! D&D is a perfect game for theatre people because it's all about creating and embodying a character. In fact I loved it so much and our group is so tight that we've already started working on getting our characters for the next campaign.
In conclusion: I have in fact hit a new level of nerd.
