Now apparently I can't comment ANYwhere. WTF?*
This was supposed to go on Epbot, but it won't post, and since I put my heart into it, it's going up here with a link to what I'm blathering about.
My would-have-been reply:
It's the exclusionary stuff that makes me uncomfortable. There are far too many instances where I could be the "fake geek girl" poster child, because I don't specialize enough. I can't tell you what happened word-for-word in issue #87 on page 3 of whatever comic. I told my husband that I was just a general-purpose geek, because of my breadth - not depth - of knowledge. He was incredulous, and said I probably had one of the largest collections of female action figures anywhere (almost 360, with only a handful of male figures) -- BUT, I can't tell you the origin story of each character, so there ya go...
I like "geek" for a few reasons. I like it because it's become a little more accepted than it once was. I like it because you drop an R and suddenly I am a geek goddess. I like it because it's still not really ok to be a nerd, and that's what I have always been, whereas being a geek isn't quite so socially alienating. (8th grade nick: Wendy Webster, because I read the dictionary and can't stop using $5 words when 5¢ would suffice.)
How do I connect with friends? Online, because I have no nearby geeky OR nerdy friends. Or, when I'm incredibly lucky, driving the 560 miles to see them in Ontario - the only place I have ever felt completely comfortable with who I am, and completely at home... with people I met playing World of Warcraft.
I don't like labels, when they come so close to name-calling. The song Felicia recorded "I'm the One That's Cool" is something I love and hate simultaneously, because it just has not been long enough since those teen years (and I'm 42) to recover from that kind of ridicule. So just when I can call myself a geek and not feel shame for it, I'm justifying my existence to those who'd say I was fake, AND other geeks are trying to take that word away from me. THIS is why I never leave the house and don't socialize.
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* The commenting issue appears to be related to the embedded comment window. By switching the comments to Full Screen (from embedded), I am able to comment on my own blog again. Another blogger suggested this was an Apple issue.
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