Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, I struggled to convey why I’ve recused myself from the tens of thousands of online symposia on the unsolved mystery of “What’s the difference between a geek and a nerd?” In defining my terms, I contrasted “geek” with “ordinary” in a brief, simplistic fashion:

From my own day-to-day standpoint, it’s as simple as this: if I talk about a given subject at either church, work, or family gatherings and receive nothing but blank stares or furrowed brows in return, those are the ordinary people. In those settings, I know that my version of “small talk” would wander too far past the geek boundary and I keep my mouth shut, except about the weather or whatever subjects they bring up first.

All of this sets aside the fact that I do embrace ordinary aspects about myself and my life as well, as longtime MCC readers should recognize by now, considering the number of past entries that were overtly not about geek-relevant topics, but were usually (hopefully?) informed in subtle ways by my interests and skill sets. (Tomorrow night’s entry will be one of those, in fact, 100% guaranteed.) Suffice it to say I’m not mocking anyone who’s 100% ordinary/0% geek — merely observing there are pronounced differences when those percentages fluctuate.

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