The secret life of nerds

I spent a good portion of last weekend being a nerd, and I’m OK with that. 

For two and a half days, I played the part of the German minister of agriculture at the Midwest Model European Union. I drove to Indianapolis on Thursday not to hang out downtown, but to make it to the first meeting of the Agricultural Council of Ministers. Friday night I was so tired from a day of discussing organic farming subsidies that I crawled into bed at 9 p.m., and, to top it all off, I woke up at 8 a.m. Saturday just to argue about water conservation practices.

It sounds silly, and it was. To be fair, in this case I was an academically mandated nerd. The Model EU was part of a class, and spending three days in Indy was a
significant portion of our grade.

But much of my life I’ve volunteered to be a nerd. In high school I was on the debate team and did both Academic Decathlon and Academic Superbowl (which are not the same thing, contrary to what a recent “Glee” episode might have indicated).   

Here’s the shameful secret: I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.

It may not make me a better person, but I have gotten to learn an astonishing number of completely disparate, completely useless factoids. I’ve become a fountain of random knowledge on the American Civil War, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, German farms, Old Norse sagas and traditional music of the Aztecs (there are a lot of conch shells involved, believe me).

Yet as much as I love learning random realms of information, the best part of embracing the nerdy is the other people you meet along the way, brazenly doing the same ridiculous stuff you are.

At Model EU, we began identifying ourselves by the countries we represented. By the end of the three days, it’s how we thought of each other. I chatted amicably with Austria, Cyprus and Estonia about their nights out and hometowns, but I have no idea what their actual names might have been.

It didn’t matter. Part of the fun was the anonymity; I’ll likely never see those people again, but for a few days we got to argue good-naturedly about legalizing marijuana in Europe.

True nerdiness facilitates that sort of unity that comes only from deepest pride or deepest shame. Knowing everyone else is also spending their Saturday essentially LARPing allows a pleasant camaraderie to form, and against all odds, being nerdy can become kind of fun.

Some are born to nerdom, others have nerdom thrust upon them. Either way, I find it works out best if you embrace it.

­— mebinder@indiana.edu