[Via Rands In Repose]Dear friends,

I'd like to fill you in on a bit of me. Please read the attached article in full for a better understanding of who I am. Believe it or not, almost the entire article applies to me. Its written for the frustrated end of a relationship-with-a-nerd in order to help alleviate the frustration through understanding. I'll highlight some of the funnier (because they are true) parts of the article entitled The Nerd handbook.

A nerd needs a project because a nerd builds stuff. All the time. Those lulls in the conversation over dinner? That’s the nerd working on his project in his head.

Have you herd of this robot that I am building? No further comment needed.

Now, combine this basic distrust of everything with your nerd’s other natural talents and you’ll realize that he sees humor is another game.[...] Humor is an intellectual puzzle, “How can this particular set of esoteric trivia be constructed to maximize hilarity as quickly as possible?” Your nerd listens hard to recognize humor potential and when he hears it, he furiously scours his mind to find relevant content from his experience so he can get the funny out as quickly as possible.

I...uh...yea.

Your nerd has built himself a cave. [...] The Cave is designed to allow your nerd to do his favorite thing, which is working on the project. If you want to understand your nerd, stare long and hard at his Cave. How does he have it arranged? When does he tend to go there? How long does he stay?

If you've seen my bed, or my garage, you know its true. If you haven't, accept what you suspect.

Small talk. Those first awkward five minutes when two people are forced to interact. Small talk is the bane of the nerd’s existence because small talk is a combination of aspects of the world that your nerd hates. When your nerd is staring at a stranger, all he’s thinking is, “I have no system for understanding this messy person in front of me”. [...] The skills to interact with other people are there. They just lack a well-defined system.

I'll comment here with increased verbosity only because I try very hard not to demonstrate the outlined behavior. Small talk is awkward...but I've learned that I like getting to know people. Therefore, personally, though awkward, I am beginning to like small talk. For me, the key is to hit as many topics as possible until I find some sort of parallel with my co-small-talker. Just thought I'd let you know.