When Pink Geeks Try Social

The difference I keep between a geek and a nerd to me is that a nerd tries to avoid social situations. Geeks go to cons, nerds watch blizzcon at home. Geeks play exploding kittens with friends, nerds play it trough tabletop simulator online. I count myself as a geek, but just because I get involved into social situations that doesn’t mean I am very capable in them. My inner geek completely overtakes my social self at times.. and this can be quite awkward. So how do I geek in social situations and how do I try to salvage it? In this post I will highlight how my mind can work different from those I call Normies. The muggles of geekism.  The fortnite players under the real gamers and the people who think the best game franchise is FIFA. There are even people out there who do not game at all, they like prefer to play actual soccer, or go dancing in discotheques. Strange creatures those normies.. Here is how to handle..or not handle them. 

Social Situation 1: Your Normie friends invite you to something you are NOT interested in.

“Hey Pinkie do you want to go to Amsterdam to visit the sex museum and then we go to the  zoo and visit the Heineken store. Do you want to come?” Sociable as I am I say yes of course, but in actuality I think, what the heck is sex, the zoo is very stinky and I do not like Heineken beer, I prefer Belgian Abbey Ales which I can drink a lot in my local pub. Okay I do not actually think “what is sex’ but it just doesn’t do anything for me, so  a museum about sex seems duller to me than staring at Kristen Stewart’s face for 24 hours. There is just nothing to see. In these situations I pretend to be normal and fake interest to entertain my friends. I giggle looking at ancient sex toys, I pretend to be impressed by a lion and when someone when an Amsterdam waiter asks me what I want to drink I say “I don’t care what it is.. just as long as it is much’ During our drinks we talk about the weather and tv shows I do not watch and I pretend that I might go watch them. My normie friends are into those reality type shows where someone has their own hair salon or where they like act like neanderthals on an island where you can only talk about sex and booze. My normie friends are sweet but sometimes I can feel like a real alien amongst them. I do not agree well with the casual television, everywhere there seems to be an obsession with sex in there. Like I get why sex is nice and all.. but what is the point in seeing others have sex.. what is funny about seeing the first dildo?  I mean I hope it helped the lady .. or guy who invented it I guess but I do not really find it more lewd than a back scratcher same need.. different spot. I am aware I think oif these subjects differently than the general populous so during events like these I am swimming in my head a lot  

One of the normie friends is someone I really care for, she is like a duckling I feel a need to protect. Yet she also is very close minded, I need to act normal and do the mundane with her, or she will feel sad and misunderstood. So I do my utmost and swim away. When swimming in my head I feel lost. She for example tells me that she hopes that Farmer Bob should really choose Hilda as his girl instead of Laura in the tv show.. Farmer looking for a Wife (Yes that’s an actually massively popular tv show here) . She then proceeds to gossip about women she hasn’t even met yet and tells something about how Hilda and Bob bonded over picking green beans, she knows I do not watch the show so she talks about all the emotions. When she asks me if she if I would pick that true green bean love Hilda.. or stupid good looking Laura… I know which I have to say.. but I have no idea why. I can not see why other people care about some farmer and some girl. I mean.. I hope farmer bob finds someone but I don’t know the bloke.. nor would I from watching tv.. so let him pick who he wants.  Small talk during these events can be a hassle. So what I do to solve this is one of either two things. Option 1 I keep engaged with other things… that’s a nice purse is it new.. shal lI get us another drink.. should we get a snack as well? Something to keep me busy.. oftenly resulting in me getting drunk or overeating. The other thing I do which seems to work is make things personal. Instead of farmer Bob’s romantic endeavours I bend the subject to not be smalltalk anymore. “What do YOU think over bonding at green beans, what would you like to see in your romantic partner’ I can talk about that kind of stuff as it concerns my friends. I like finding out what makes them tick.. but as a result of our differences I can’t really talk about “that new commercial or the new flavor of M&M’s .. let alone the sex/romance talk of people I never even heard and thus can not care for. Sometimes I feel like I am Frasier Crane…but poor.

Social Situation 2: Your Normie friends invite you to something you are VERY MUCH interested in. 

“Pinkie do you want to go eat Sushi and then visit a Karaoke Café?” Oh my Arceus.. YES! YES! Sushi has become mundane enough for everyone to enjoy but I am the kind of girl who orders Saké with it, yells Kampai and Itadakimasu! Regardless who I bring. I know about Saké flavors based on how they are numbered, I want to eat Fugu one day and know a fair bit more japanese words than my Normie friends. Sometimes that excitement can’t help but spill out. “Pinkie , you are doing it again’.. when I ramble on about my favorite words I know in Japanese. In once like rambled for like 15 minutes on end when a friend of mine asked why some Saké was cold and some was hot. If someone mentions the weird vending machines in Japan .. I ramble on night… yes this gets my passion flowing! Lemme talk! I love everything geeky and during food it can get a bit akward, I am a low key foodie, who knows my flavors so when we eat sushi I talk about the importance of Umami and stuff. Awkward and I bet to the disinterest of my Normie friends but this I think is fairly common. 

If we take it one step further and move on to the Karaoke things get very weird. You see , my karaoke is VERY different from their karaoke. I am used to Karaoke at conventions and that is my jam, but the theming is very different. To me Karaoke is sing the pokémon theme song with everyone together, or Let it Go. Well kids, that’s not the Karaoke you really get when out with normies, to a normie karaoke place. They expect Paradise by the Dashboard Light or No Woman No Cry. This happened once to me during a weekend in Antwerp we found a Karaoke bar and had to go in. Remember what I told earlier about abbey ales? Well there is a lot to try in this Belgian city so I was nice and loose and decided to go with the classic musings of Jason Paige. They DID have it for me to sing.. but I did not really check the audience in the bar very well. As I sang my heart out I was met with utter silence and confused stares why this followed Meatloaf. Even my friends did not sing along at least not the second verse. Even in my inherbiated state I kept watching to the stage left  to see if a guy with that weird hook staff thing would not come up to yank me by the neck off stage. While that did not happen I really wanted to leave the bar quite soon after I was done.
While I had fun while singing afterwards I felt so alien and unwelcome in the bar, watched as well. I felt like that pug dog from men in black. So then we went to a monastery café to drink some more abbey ales.  Yet I rather make a fool out of myself than not have a story at all. Just be aware that not everyone will like your thing and do not let it discourage you to be you. Just have your fun……… and then bail.

Social Situation 3: Clubbing

‘Hey Pinkie let’s go to the club’ the dreaded question. I do not like going to the club.. but to spend some time with my friends sometimes it is the only option available to me. I put on some make up, dress up my hair , play the little who is driving game (I can’t drive so  I just play judge) and travel to that big club, to let myself be deafened by the same tunes I can hear in my local bar (which I llove to go too with my geeky friends by the way) I overpay for my drinks and for even being there and wait till the rest gets tired of it and goes home. While I can’t say I have a bad time at the club each time it is a very neutral experience to me. I like talking to my friends, but in a club that isn’t very easy.  To me clubbing is the biggest mass dillusion the common folk does together. Why do we go to the clubs? Honest answer , I think people go to clubs to find a mate. And while you could go and argue “me and my friends just want to dance on some sweet sweet music’ let me add that if you go out just to dance, there is no need to wear a fancy dress all that jewelry and more make up than a harley quinn cosplayer. To some level you want attention from those  who do not know you. Clubbing isnt about spending time with your friends, it’s either about making new friends , showing oif your moves or finding someone to help you ruin your sheets with you. Now all that I am saying is assuming random clubbing.. say your David Guetta is playing in a club , I can see it maybe being different but I am talking about your standard saturday evening clubbing. That is all about peacocking to what you hope to achieve. For some reason we delude ourselves into it being a fun group activity.. but clubbing really is about yourself. I mean sure as a girl you can flirt with a guy .. by dancing with a friend and wingmanning is a thing for guys.. but clubbing is about you. It’s about you getting what you want from that place… and there isnt really anything I want from there.

I am not a huge music fan , I like listening to it fine, but it doesnt have that magic appeal that it seems to have for everything else. Music for me is not something I enjoy as a stand alone thing. It’s the seasoning that can make my blogging more pleasant or my roleplays more epic. I have fond memories of the ducktales moon theme because it came with an experience not because it is just composed well. I like video game concerts because it reminds me of video games. Rihanna, Justin Bieber, Kanye West all those icons mean nothing to me nor their music.  I do not care about their world or that lover that got away , the new love and eventually another heartbreak. I don’t know them so I don’t really care about those songs about matters of the heart. I am not that into it. My favorite normal songs, if I even have any they are about random stuff. So I do not go to a club for courting , nor for the music and there usually are better way to talk to my friend so in a club I tend to feel lost. To entertain myself I study people. What do “normal” people do to pick someone else in the club. What are actual opening lines that work. Why do they work. Being and Identifying as a female .. (marginally) interested in other females in a less than average sexual way isn’t really people pick up upon. Girls flirting with me .. and sometimes even boys is mostly completely lost on me.I’ll socialise with them like any other person I meet and attempt small talk but I all seem them as just being nice. Like they see me standing there being awkward and want to help me like I am a deer staring into the headlights. Sometimes this is true .. but other times they actually take romantic interest in me. I can pick up on any social cue just fine, In fact I can usually read people very well to a point where I can tell really small social cues, like friends not feeling well, or keeping a secret from me. Yet flirting is the one thing I do not get.  I can determine it well enough to see that I might be flirted with and I can ask myself.. Are they flirting with me, but I never seem to be fully able to grasp it. Which makes clubbing a very odd experience. 

Over time I have given up on being normal. I now mostly act like myself. I still sing Disney songs on Karaoke nights, I still geek out during Sushi and when Farmer looking for a Wife is on tv I make sure people know I am steering clear of it. Even that normie friend who is so frail , as well as myself is going to accept I am who I am. I can still socialise I just can’t do it when I am pretending to be the person you want me to be. I might look like an alien at the social venues I visit, but at least I now visit them as me. Despite looking awkward , I have my own fun at these kind of social things and while it might not be reaction your average person react. Why everyone has to have the same feelings about these tv shows, about sexuality, music and how to act around friends is beyond me.. Man being normal sure is weird!