Birds of a feather

Do you ever wonder how differently you would have turned out if your social circles were different than the ones you float among today?

This thought (certainly not the first time it has occurred to me), was the singular thought that traipsed my mind throughout the course of a dinner I attended as a partner for my close friend last week. ‘Partner’ as in back-up, conversation mate, effective tool for the avoidance of lengthy conversation with the other dinner attendees.

See, me and T are nerds/geeks/dorks who go way back to a time when nerds/geeks/dorks were still pretty uncool. Back in school, us and third partner in crime, G, while never being picked on, were never really included in any of the cool people’s activities. Not that it bothered us, it was just the unspoken rule: the jock set (don’t get me wrong, a lot of them were really intelligent people too, but they also had the good athlete and prom queen attributes that are necessary criteria for membership) didn’t mix with the nerd set.

I think those were the formative years (forgive me, I’ve always wanted to use that pretentious snotty phrase, now I found a context for it) during which we became the cynical, rude, elitist bastards that we are today. We didn’t shake those traits when we upped our social profiles at varsity, where you start with a clean slate and no-one can fairly judge you until you seal your fate through action. Then, somehow nerd-dom/geekdom/dorkdom became a vastly lesser offense, and our little trio expanded significantly to include some of the jock set (and yes, of course, other people labelled as we were in high school). One thing we all had in common – some to a lesser extent than others – is that we all recognized the cynical, rude bastards in each other, and began to feed off each other’s black comedic side.

The reason I tell this tale is threefold: one, I damn enjoy our style. I like that we’re ironic, callous, horrible and annoyingly intelligent (again, some more than others. I have friends of unbelievable genius who, rather than finding intimidating because of my lesser intelligence, I thrive in being around. They have challenged me to think about things I might not have thought about, in ways I’d never even consider thinking about). Two, I’ve realised I’ve grown to enjoy the company of people of other inclinations (although admittedly far fewer in number) who have challenged me to step out of my ironic/callous/horrible habits from time to time – they help you to stay just optimistic/sensitive/friendly/sincere enough to thrive and to smile at nice things from time to time. And thirdly, there are people that are worlds apart from me and anything I could ever be.

Oh yes – that was the thought that struck me the other night – these people were what my doctor friends used to refer to as the “pillars of society” – the ones that always did their homework assignments, studied longer than necessary for exams, and were somehow possessed of personalities that failed to evoke any lasting impression in our minds. (No doubt, they felt similarly indifferent about us).

That’s what makes this blog thing so fascinating – I have no idea what type of people you really are, and yet we manage to engage – albeit very superficially – on a broad number of topics. We’re less judgemental ‘up here’ for some reason. I guess that’s why blogger meets work for some people and not for others – some people like the anonymity that goes with their thoughts.