Is your H/SO a geek? Is your family?

[scribellesam]

I was thinking about this today. My H likes a lot of geeky stuff (anything Star Trek, also Star Wars and Harry Potter), but I would hesitate to call him a "geek" because he is so ignorant of geek culture and how the Internet works. Using words like "fan fiction" or "cosplay" around him would result in a blank stare, and he gets online only for email, our finances, and occasionally Facebook.

So I guess I have several questions. What makes a person a "geek"? Is your H/SO one? Were you raised by geeks? If not, when did you discover geeky things?

[pixelpassion]

FI and I are the epitome of geeks. Mostly video games, but we're into board games, and I was into anime at an earlier time in my life.

[midnightrae]

Spidey is a geek/nerd. Well, he would say he is more of a nerd than a geek. My sister is a genius, but not a geek.She is kind of a nerd though, but I think that comes with being a genius. The rest of my siblings aren't either. Well, my youngest brother is starting to become a nerd/geek.
I'm sure everyone might have slightly different opinions on what makes them a geek. I used to collect rocks and pens. When I was grounded, I'd be grounded from going to the library. I read comics on and off. I've always wanted to play D&D. When I snuck out of the house in HS, I went to the library for teen poetry night. There are a lot of things that make me "geeky" or "nerdy", but I can't really explain them all. They are what makes me ME.

[midnightrae]

Aug 21, 2013 11:07:14 GMT -5 pixelpassion said:

FI and I are the epitome of geeks. Mostly video games, but we're into board games, and I was into anime at an earlier time in my life.

I LOVE board games, but nobody ever wants to play with me. It's sad. 

[scribellesam]

My mom's definitely not a geek, she'd much rather see The Big Chill or Sleepless in Seattle than Star Wars or LOTR, although she does like Harry Potter. My dad is a huge geek, though, which explains why I don't remember a time before having seen Star Wars. I definitely owe my interest in and introduction to science fiction to him.

On the other hand, I'm the only one in the family with any real interest in the fantasy genre of geekdom, exceptions being LOTR and HP. So some of my geekery is unique to me. I've been interested in fantasy as early as I can remember also, starting with your basic princess stuff and branching out from there.

Okay, enough rambling by me. Interested to hear about the other geeks in your life!

[scribellesam]

Aug 21, 2013 11:13:43 GMT -5 midnightrae said:

Spidey is a geek/nerd. Well, he would say he is more of a nerd than a geek. My sister is a genius, but not a geek.She is kind of a nerd though, but I think that comes with being a genius. The rest of my siblings aren't either. Well, my youngest brother is starting to become a nerd/geek.
I'm sure everyone might have slightly different opinions on what makes them a geek. I used to collect rocks and pens. When I was grounded, I'd be grounded from going to the library. I read comics on and off. I've always wanted to play D&D. When I snuck out of the house in HS, I went to the library for teen poetry night. There are a lot of things that make me "geeky" or "nerdy", but I can't really explain them all. They are what makes me ME.

Haha, being grounded from the library is awesome.

I think I need to expand my definition of geek. I'm quite a geek about my writing and I used to collect everything under the sun, including at one point a 200+ collection of ceramic animals.

[midnightrae]

Aug 21, 2013 11:16:30 GMT -5 scribellesam said:

Aug 21, 2013 11:13:43 GMT -5 midnightrae said:

Spidey is a geek/nerd. Well, he would say he is more of a nerd than a geek. My sister is a genius, but not a geek.She is kind of a nerd though, but I think that comes with being a genius. The rest of my siblings aren't either. Well, my youngest brother is starting to become a nerd/geek.
I'm sure everyone might have slightly different opinions on what makes them a geek. I used to collect rocks and pens. When I was grounded, I'd be grounded from going to the library. I read comics on and off. I've always wanted to play D&D. When I snuck out of the house in HS, I went to the library for teen poetry night. There are a lot of things that make me "geeky" or "nerdy", but I can't really explain them all. They are what makes me ME.

Haha, being grounded from the library is awesome.

I think I need to expand my definition of geek. I'm quite a geek about my writing and I used to collect everything under the sun, including at one point a 200+ collection of ceramic animals.

I write all the time. Last time I counted my notebooks and journals a few years ago, I was at over 100. I need to count again to see where I am at. What do you like to write?
I had an awesome rock collection, which I brought with me to HS one day to show my Earth Science teacher. He thought it was pretty cool. LOL. My mom eventually tossed out my rock and pen collection. She would also throw away a lot of my writing as well. 

[scribellesam]

Aug 21, 2013 11:25:29 GMT -5 midnightrae said:

Aug 21, 2013 11:16:30 GMT -5 scribellesam said:

Haha, being grounded from the library is awesome.

I think I need to expand my definition of geek. I'm quite a geek about my writing and I used to collect everything under the sun, including at one point a 200+ collection of ceramic animals.

I write all the time. Last time I counted my notebooks and journals a few years ago, I was at over 100. I need to count again to see where I am at. What do you like to write?
I had an awesome rock collection, which I brought with me to HS one day to show my Earth Science teacher. He thought it was pretty cool. LOL. My mom eventually tossed out my rock and pen collection. She would also throw away a lot of my writing as well. 

I used to journal/diary every day for almost a decade. Now I'm down to a one-sentence a day journal since I had DS. I also have a silly mom-blog that occasionally I use to write about other things.

What I really love to write is fiction novels. Back when I was working as an attorney and hating my job, I wrote a 300ish page urban fantasy novel while pretending to work. I sent it to a few publishers but was roundly rejected (not surprising). I'd like to re-edit it as a YA novel someday, I don't think it's gritty enough for adult urban fantasy. I'm in the process of outlining a second novel that's more of a paranormal romance but as a SAHM to a toddler I'm not sure when I'll have the time to commit to writing a first draft.

[scribellesam]

Aug 21, 2013 11:25:29 GMT -5 midnightrae said:

Aug 21, 2013 11:16:30 GMT -5 scribellesam said:

Haha, being grounded from the library is awesome.

I think I need to expand my definition of geek. I'm quite a geek about my writing and I used to collect everything under the sun, including at one point a 200+ collection of ceramic animals.

I write all the time. Last time I counted my notebooks and journals a few years ago, I was at over 100. I need to count again to see where I am at. What do you like to write?
I had an awesome rock collection, which I brought with me to HS one day to show my Earth Science teacher. He thought it was pretty cool. LOL. My mom eventually tossed out my rock and pen collection. She would also throw away a lot of my writing as well. 

I'm so sad you lost your rock collection and especially your old writing! I recently went through all my old stuff and sent most of the ceramic animals off to the Goodwill donation box. The writing is still in a box somewhere, hundreds of pages of beat up spiral notebooks filled with masterpieces scrawled in pencil.

[jigsy]

DH is NOT a geek, at all. It's surprising that he is who I ended up because I've always had a thing for geek guys, but DH is into fixing machines and what not. (It's nice to have a handy guy)

My sister and her DH do steampunk cosplay...not my cup if tea, but whatevs

[BlackCanary]

Aug 21, 2013 11:14:23 GMT -5 midnightrae said:

Aug 21, 2013 11:07:14 GMT -5 pixelpassion said:

FI and I are the epitome of geeks. Mostly video games, but we're into board games, and I was into anime at an earlier time in my life.

I LOVE board games, but nobody ever wants to play with me. It's sad. 

I would play board games with you! If you lived closer, you would be invited to one of our game nights! 

[BlackCanary]

My BIL is, my family is not. DH is the one who brought me into being a geek. Introduced me to comics and Black Canary!  (heart)

[darkling_glory]

My husband plays Magic: the Gathering competitively. He's a geek!

We both play D&D and video games. We're both nerds!

[evans]

Yes, he is. Neither of our families are.

I really like this Simon Pegg quote about being a geek:
“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.”

And this Wil Wheaton "being a nerd is not about what you love; it’s about how you love it."

[scribellesam]

Aug 21, 2013 13:18:38 GMT -5 evans said:

Yes, he is. Neither of our families are.

I really like this Simon Pegg quote about being a geek:
“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.”

And this Wil Wheaton "being a nerd is not about what you love; it’s about how you love it."

Oh yes I think I've seen these on Pinterest before, that's a great definition!

[BlackCanary]

Aug 21, 2013 13:15:48 GMT -5 darkling_glory said:

My husband plays Magic: the Gathering competitively. He's a geek!

We both play D&D and video games. We're both nerds!

DH and I play D&D as well! What version are you playing? We're doing 3.5.

[IIOY]

My H used to be more of a gamer but once we had kids, he didn't have time. He gets excited about the occasional new game, but he's also a programmer/app writer and gets very frustrated with the games because he sees a lot of unrealized potential or glitches that drive him nuts.

He is a voracious reader and reads mostly programming/hacking books or fantasy. He also builds robots and plays with electronics in his spare time. He out-geeks me by a mile and I'm kind of jealous.

[jodinia]

He is definately a geek. In fact, his mom always told him he would never meet a girl when he was all into (as she called it) the beep beep beep weird star wars stuff. she was wrong (and says that we are perfectly suited for each other).

My mom wasn't a geek, but she and I bonded over Star Trek when I was little and she was sick. My sister was way into Star Wars.


(edited because I can't type today) 

[darkling_glory]

Aug 21, 2013 14:13:47 GMT -5 BlackCanary said:

Aug 21, 2013 13:15:48 GMT -5 darkling_glory said:

My husband plays Magic: the Gathering competitively. He's a geek!

We both play D&D and video games. We're both nerds!

DH and I play D&D as well! What version are you playing? We're doing 3.5.

3.5 or Pathfinder. 4th is just awful.

I did play test DnD Next at Gencon and it wasn't bad. But it's not much different from 3.5 so we'll see how that goes.

We're trying to start a new Pathfinder group soon. Fingers crossed!

[Pippin]

I'm pretty much the only geek in my immediate family and the only geeky thing about my husband is that I did get him to play Magic the Gathering with me in high school once. It makes me kinda sad sometimes but DH will watch some shows with me and he does listen when I start talking about space, science and other nerdy things:) He's more into sports and NASCAR. Although I totally think fantasy football is geeky.

[wowhead]

H is a bigger geek than me. He is responsible for feeding most of my geekdom. He started me playing D&D with him and it's been all downhill since. Neither of our families are nearly as geeky as we are.

Funny M:TG story: H played when he and I first met. His mother saw the cards and told him he needed to stop playing that game because the cards are evil. After that, he just basically stopped discussing his nerdy interests with her.

[gnorah]

My DH is geekier than me. He's the one who got me into Warcraft and the MMORPG games. Before that I was generally happy in my adventure game bubble. Apart from the fact the good adventure games are really, really hard to find. Now, we have an entire room dedicated to our computers and our son is involved as well. He's only 7, but he is obsessed with Minecraft. He has Asperger's so that doesn't help with the obsession, but he loves that game and if he's not playing it, he's watching YouTube videos about it. Or asking me to install mods. I hate mods!

I actually met my DH through magic, friends of mine in university played all the time and he joined that was it. We used to play Warcraft 2 on the networked computer labs (this was in something like 1998 so the Internet wasn't the thing it is today).

My mom's into computers, but more databases, organizing and that kind of stuff. She's not really into games, but she did Dewey decimalize my dad's book collection. My dad isn't really into computers except as a tool and he isn't into games, but he is into science, technology, philosophy, and history.

DH and his dad used to build computers eons ago - they would make the circuit boards and everything. These days DH just builds our personal computers, which I really like because we end up with kickass systems. Although I'm beginning to wonder if I need an upgrade since The Sims is really struggling to run.

Now we spend most weeknights chatting with our friends and playing games. 1-2 Saturdays a month we play D&D, but we would probably annoy any serious player. Our kids are all there so we play from 2pm - 10-10:30pm and only get about 3 encounters done because we have to referee, feed, and put kids to bed. I joke that my parents used to take us to friends' houses so the could play bridge and now we take our kid to our friends' house to kill monsters .

[starfish]

My Dh is more of a geek then I am. Both of our kids are well on there way to geeklife. My son gets so excited when he sees the star wars intro, and will start yelling "thank you thank you" My DD 3rd word was Wookie, and she loves original star trek, and any time Kurt starts his monologue she talks back to him, and tells him she loves him. 
  So, I am sitting here typing this out, and my DH starts talking about TMNT and swords, and how Leonard only really used his sword in the cartoons, not in the movies, and how the new age TMNT also have him using his sword since the krang now are robots....He always is sprouting stuff like that randomly. 

 

[panicked]

Yup, DH is a total nerd. He's a programmer, plays all sorts of video games, loves math, and researches physics for fun.

[Dusky]

H is a huge geek. We have a lot of overlap in our general interests, but we tend to differ in the specifics. Like, we both game but we tend to gravitate towards different genres. There are a few nerdy things he's in to that just aren't my cup of tea. He loves historical martial arts and can talk, at length, about historical inaccuracies in various forms of media.

Neither of my parents are at all geeky. I think I picked up most of it from my childhood best friend. Her dad and older siblings were all into nerd culture. My younger cousins, however, are all geeks. The rest of the family swears that's my fault.

[midnightrae]

Aug 21, 2013 13:18:38 GMT -5 evans said:

Yes, he is. Neither of our families are.

I really like this Simon Pegg quote about being a geek:
“Being a geek is all about being honest about what you enjoy and not being afraid to demonstrate that affection. It means never having to play it cool about how much you like something. It’s basically a license to proudly emote on a somewhat childish level rather than behave like a supposed adult. Being a geek is extremely liberating.”

And this Wil Wheaton "being a nerd is not about what you love; it’s about how you love it."

(heart)

[CurlyQ284]

My dad, brother and DH are all IT guys. That being said, I would classify bro as a geek but not DH. He really loves Oblivion and the sequel game (forgot what its called). He plays a few other games but for some reason it doesn't seem geeky to me. Maybe because I love HP, I have all the movies, I quote it, I have a wand etc. He just plays his game and that's it. It doesn't bleed into his life at all like it does in mine (if that makes sense).

[EllieArroway]

My H is a geek. He's really into television and console gaming whereas I'm more of a geek about computers and reading and math. My brother & one sister are geeks as well, but the rest of my family is decidedly not geeky. I'm not really sure how my parents managed to have three geeky kids since neither of them seem to be interested in anything remotely related to geek culture.

[dr.girlfriend]

When my friend was trying to set my husband and I up she said, "He's black, and he's a geek. Will either of those two things be a problem?" At the time I got an immediate picture of Urkel -- that's before black geeks really started to represent. At least now we have Baratunde and Wyatt Cenac. ;-) But my DH is definitely a geek.  He's the one who got me into Doctor Who.  I tend to love a few things intensely and obsessively, while he's more diverse in his geek interests.

We joke that I fell for him on our first date when he referred to X-Files episodes by title, and that he fell in love with me on our first date  when I quoted The Simpsons to him.

Our son is basically a geek-in-training...but I expect most 4-year-old boys are geeks about *something*. He's crazy into Transformers and robots, but he also loves our Doctor Who toys and DH's old Star Wars toys. We've let him see select clips from Star Wars (the battle on Hoth, the pod race). We're trying to keep him from finding out that Jar-Jar exists.

Here's our little geekling surrounded by daddy's Star Wars toys:

[scribellesam]

Aug 22, 2013 8:38:13 GMT -5 dr.girlfriend said:

When my friend was trying to set my husband and I up she said, "He's black, and he's a geek. Will either of those two things be a problem?" At the time I got an immediate picture of Urkel -- that's before black geeks really started to represent. At least now we have Baratunde and Wyatt Cenac. ;-) But my DH is definitely a geek.  He's the one who got me into Doctor Who.  I tend to love a few things intensely and obsessively, while he's more diverse in his geek interests.

We joke that I fell for him on our first date when he referred to X-Files episodes by title, and that he fell in love with me on our first date  when I quoted The Simpsons to him.

Our son is basically a geek-in-training...but I expect most 4-year-old boys are geeks about *something*. He's crazy into Transformers and robots, but he also loves our Doctor Who toys and DH's old Star Wars toys. We've let him see select clips from Star Wars (the battle on Hoth, the pod race). We're trying to keep him from finding out that Jar-Jar exists.

Here's our little geekling surrounded by daddy's Star Wars toys:

Omg that photo is awesome. Now I need to get my hands on all of @ameliapond 's old SW toys for my DS in a few years.