Hereditary Nerdity

In the past couple days, my uncle Tim has started playing World of Warcraft with Mike and I. That is to say, he has been playing for several years, but he is starting to play on the same server as we do, and created a character to join our guild with. Last night, he set up his Ventrilo (a voiceover chat program that we use) and joined in the real life conversation.

As we signed off for the night, and took our headsets off (can you see the level of nerdiness that this post is going to contain?!), Mike said to me "your uncle sounds just like your dad, and they both sound so nerdy"

Now you have to understand one very important fact here. For Mike to call someone nerdy is a compliment of the highest order. It isn't an insult by any means. It means "this person understands our gaming obsessions" or "this person understands the inner workings of computers on my level" or even "this person can sit down and talk about the finer variances of comic book heroes and villians". It means, in short, that this person is one of us. They are someone that Mike and I would CHOOSE to start a conversation with.

My response to Mike's comment about my uncle sounding nerdy was to say "see! I told you before that I come from a long line of nerds".

I come by my nerdiness honestly. My father has been a war gamer my whole life. I was raised in a strict religious household, and yet, was taught that Dungeons and Dragons was a good thing. It was the people that took it too far sometimes, not the game itself being evil. I was raised to appreciate a healthy imagination, the ability to put yourself in the role of a character. I was taught to understand the intricacies of which stats would affect your toon in which ways. My father is one of 5 brothers (one of which is Tim), and all of them share this same love of not only gaming, but knowledge in general.

So you see my friends, I am afraid I had no choice but to accept the nerdiness in life. This is something I cherish, something I am proud of. It is a foundation of my relationship with Mike, as well. We can sit down at a quiet restaurant, he will reach across the table and hold my hand, and we will proceed to discuss the ins and outs of the previous weekend's raids.

So where was I going with this post again?

Ah yeah, hereditary nerdity. I am proud of my heritage of geekiness. I am proud of the fact that I am a nerd. And I am proud of the fact that my husband finds my nerdiness sexy.

"Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one."

~Bill Gates