Accepting my nerdiness in all its glory

I recently came to a realization. I'm a nerd. I am!

If you'd ask any of my friends and acquaintances if I'm a nerd, I'm sure that all of them would say no and laugh at the thought. But it's not surprising. I doubt any of them knows me. To the world, I'm the girl who dresses sexy (my daughter's friends even sing something about it, but that's for another entry), loves tattoos, never goes anywhere without makeup and is not shy to talk to anyone. I come accross as extroverted (which a part of me is), confident (which I am soooooo not) and a little snobish (it must be my long neck and my European type nose, because snob I am not).

But the reality is that although on the surface, I seem to be extroverted, deep down, I'm introverted. I probably come accross as extroverted because of what I call my bordeline-bi-polar personality. I am not diagnosed as having bi-polar disorder. In fact, after being depressed all my life (which is something my friends don't know and would be very surprised to learn) I was finally diagnosed as suffering from dysthymia, which is a chronic form of depression. But I suspect that I'm bordeline bi-polar because I have extreme highs immediatly followed by extreme lows and I am a motormouth who talks to anyone without censuring myself. And I think that's why people think that I'm extroverted.

According to The American Heritage College Dictionary, a nerd is a person regarded as stupid, socially inept or unattractive. "Stupid!" How did they come up with that definition? When we talk about nerds, we usually talk about the brainiacs! I guess our use of the word "nerd" evolved since it was first defined. Anyway, let's look at how Wikipedia defines nerd: somebody who passionately pursues intellectual or esoteric interests - such as books and video games, rather than having a social life, participating in organized sports, or other mainstream activities.

That's me! I prefer books to people; answer the phone half the time only; hate phone messages and when I finally take them (which is once every two or three months), I erase most of them without listening more than the first 2 seconds; prefer staying home by myself than going out with friends; love to feed my intellect; have a hard time looking at people in the eyes when I talk to them; and I'm scared that people will invite me to do some activities, which is one of the main reasons why I hate taking my phone messages.

And, I think that the fact that I blab anything to anyone without any censure does not prove that I am extroverted, like people seem to think, but that I don't behave properly in society, which, if you're asking me, makes me socially inept.

Furthermore, I cream my panties when I think about the library in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, because that library was AWESOME! My dream house will definitely have a library where I will spend most of my time reading, lounging comfortably in a leather bean bag. And although it's damn near impossible for me to name favorites, no matter the category, if I absolutely had to choose a favorite movie, it would be the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Yep! I'm a nerd. And I loooooove it!