Geek!

A high school friend of mine posed a question on Facebook earlier this week:

"to all my geek friends, can magneto lift thor's hammer? think about it."

The question made me smile, as did the responses from all involved, and I went ahead and commented that I approved of the question and the answers provided and that they had brightened up my day ever so slightly. Next thing, I was getting a message from this high school friend asking me since when was I a geek.

It was a question that I was quite surprised at as I have always considered myself to be, well... not a full blown geek, but certainly at least slightly geekish. I have always liked computers, have felt more comfortable talking over IM or mIRC than talking in person and a lot of the friends that I have made over the years, even the friends that I made at varsity, were made through chat and forums and just generally online.

Sure, I was never geeky in the super smart way, nor was I very into comics, Star Wars or Star Trek. But does that exclude me from being a geek? What is it that you define as being a geek then? How limited is your perception of what a geek is? 

I know that I identify myself as a geek, and here is why: I may not be into comic books, but I am into superheroes (and particularly superhero movies... I am not good with the backgrounds, but I am very into pretty much every superhero movie that has come out over the last decade or so.) I am into certain computer games - not very many of them, because

a) my computer sucks, and
b) I am not particularly good at them.

But I do have a deep love for World of Warcraft, a feeling that I will very much enjoy Portal when I eventually get around to playing it and a fondness for online games. I have a feeling that I would love dungeons and dragons if I were ever to play it, but for the moment I do enjoy Munchkin on occasion, which is geeky in itself. And, as of this week, I am addicted to Magic the Gathering. So much so, that in a half-comatose state on Sunday evening (I was so far gone and exhausted that I couldn't remember if I had the discussion or if it was a dream when I woke up the next morning) I decided to turn our cat into a Magic card, in such a well-thought-out way that Grant ended up making the card for us. And that is what you see on the right side of this  paragraph. And if playing Magic with the kind of obsessiveness does not make you a geek, well... then... good for  you. But it certainly makes me consider myself to be one.

Oh, and you know what makes a geek more than any of the things above - fondly referring to yourself as a geek. It is something that I am proud of, and it someone were to drive by and throw it at me as an insult, I think that it  would warm my heart more than cause any profound pain.