Speak Out With Your Geek Out: A Post Mortem

Last week, my husband turned to me as he was sorting through his WoW cards and said, "Can you imagine if I were the provincial WoW card game champion? That would be AWESOME!" I raised one eyebrow and simply stared at him.

"Hey!" he chided. "You're looking at me the way that girl looked at that Magic champion!"

He was absolutely right: despite the fact that I myself play the WoW card game - despite the fact that I blogged three times last week about my geeky interests - I thought his desire to be the provincial WoW card game champ was about the geekiest thing I had ever heard.

Turns out he took the provincial championship on Saturday.

And I was proud.

Hell, Ryan was proud. My mom thought it was cute. My dad thought the trophy was impressive - my dad, who has the highest commendation a Mountie can get in the course of his career. So I took to Facebook to share the news, to share that I was proud of my husband.

His response? "You didn't post that to Facebook, did you?"

He was embarrassed, not that he won something he is good at and enjoys but, rather, that I had shared the news with people who might judge him.

That's really what Speak Out With Your Geek Out is all about, isn't it? So many geeks have spend so much of their lives hiding the very things they love, the very things they're good at, simply so that others won't judge them. I myself was guilty of judging my own husband for what I deemed to be his uber-geekiness.

It's sad.

But this past week, learning about other people's interests, embracing my own, I think we geeks made progress as a community. I know I did as a person. I learned that...

1. Most of my geeky pursuits involve a good story, in one way or another. My favorite thing about WoW is the lore. I'm addicted to fantasy novels. I thought of dozens of fantasy and sci-fi TV shows and movies that I would have liked to blog about if I had had a bit more time during the week. I love compelling characters and unique plotlines and epic quests - and the best place to find that is in fantasy games, TV, movies, and books.
2. Blogging every day is hard work. I only got to it three times last week, and each of those days took a long time. Could be the fact that I'm trying to blog while getting caught up on Eureka...
3. My fellow geeks are supportive, amazing people, and I like the affirmation I get from being part of that type of community. Blogging last week made me feel like I belong in a way I don't often feel.
4. Everyone feels like there's parts of themselves they need to hide from others. Geeks aren't unique in that. Girls I used to work with wouldn't smoke at work because they felt like other people would judge them because of it. That's just one example out of countless I could give. Why be ashamed of who you are and what you do?
5. I don't cultivate many interests, geeky or not. And I want to change that. Next year, I'd like to have other things to blog about during Speak Geek Week: medieval swordfighting, horseback riding, sociology, maybe even D&D. I so admired the people who shared about these types of interests in their blogging last week, and I felt inspired to pursue things that I've been scared or shy to do.

Above all, I think Speak Geek Week taught me compassion, toward geeks, toward non-geeks, and toward myself. I judge others when I should be learning more about them; I judge myself when I should be embracing my quirks.

I hope I have this opportunity again next year. I hope that Speak Out With Your Geek Out continues and grows. Perhaps the world would be a nicer place, a better place, if we all waved our geek flag, even a little.