tiredThe first challenge is met with confusion. The second with contention. The third, and all others, with exasperation and desperation: see me, let me be, leave me alone, allow me to exist.
Every cred check, or even shadow of a cred check, is starting to lead to this defensiveness: we're not looking for common ground anymore, we're just looking for the right to keep the ground we already have. And there's the concern that this is going to start driving new female fans away, because all the women who are already there have these laundry lists of "I am a fan because I ________," and some of them are just like "uh, I watch some TV shows?" That's not good. We don't want to lose the next generation of female fans, both because they have a right to this ground, too, and because it would show the cred checkers that they can win: push us hard enough and we go away, or at least stop coming, which can look like the same thing.
I don't think the laundry lists are going to go away. They're bruises, left from being hit too many times, and bruises don't heal instantly. But we should be aware of why the bruises are there, and promise each other not to cred check.
You are safe here. No matter what kind of geek you are, or whether or not I understand your passions.
This ground is yours.
August 1 2013, 22:20:05 UTC 3 years ago
I said: "I really feel like these days to be taken at all serious as a geek, I have to be ALL KNOWING! ABOUT ALL THINGS GEEK! EVEN THINGS I LOOK AT SIDEWAYS AND GO WHATEVER FLOATS YOUR BOAT MAN BUT I DON'T GET IT! Whereas a guy can be deep in one thing, or shallow in a bunch of things, and still be taken seriously and not looked at like he's a pretender who's degrading the entire medium by daring to exist."
He said: "That's because cred checking is impossible. The minute someone tries to cred check you they've already decided you don't belong and will adjust the bar however high it takes to keep you out, even and especially if they couldn't clear it themselves.* It's not intended to set a bar. It's intended to bar everyone that doesn't have a penis and doesn't conform and it's stupid ass bullshit, and I think those men should go home and think very hard about who they expect to date if they exclude all the girls, because I'm willing to bet they're not all being happily gay together, particularly since most of them also seem to be homophobic."
Me: "Apparently they don't want to date geek girls. They want to date NON geek girls, which would probably work as well as me trying to date an investment banker." (note: after I said this I thought of several geeky investment bankers I know and felt bad.)
Him: "Apparently they want to date sitcom wives who will spend the rest of their lives rolling their eyes about what a loser their immature lout of a husband with his 'games' and his 'comic books' is. I hope they get it. They deserve that hell."
This is why I married this one. :)
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*Note: I have been cred checked by people who were wrong. As in, the cred check question answer they had in mind was incorrect. Fortunately or unfortunately, my memory for things I've played or read is frighteningly good (can't remember my own phone number or how to find my way home off the Garden State, but I can quote passages from books I read fifteen years ago verbatim--I would be deadly at Geek Jeopardy). I don't find this as satisfying as other people seem to, particularly since it either gets countered with a "NU UH!!" style refusal to believe me, or a "WELL I BET YOU DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THIS EVEN MORE OBSCURE QUESTION THEN!!!!" bar raising, and that just further reinforces that there's no way I'll ever be accepted by this person, or at least viewed as something other than a hostile interloper who wants to destroy his precious precious with my evil vagina power.
August 5 2013, 01:17:51 UTC 3 years ago