To geek or not to geek?

Growing up a geek, as many of you will know, is a pain in the ass. As a kid you just don't fit in right, there are no other groups you're a natural for other than, well, those made up of other geeks. Such circles' common trait is that its members usually don't want to be there, they'd upgrade to just about anywhere else for the price of being offered the opportunity, and some do as the years pass - puberty makes jocks of bespectacled boys, bestows cleavage to shy little girls, which are easy ways out of the geek way of life.

Not everyone does make the jump. I've had friends who've spent, quite literally, decades breaking out of their own mold, trying and struggling to be something other than what it seemed they were cursed with. Some have tried music with varying degrees of success, others chased the opposite sex with single minded determination or made attempts to distill elements of art into their geekdome.

The vast majority try to somehow keep it under wraps - I still remember laughing at Nick (of The Mazablog fame) when we ate in public after visiting the local comic book store, when I'd read mine on the table and he'd keep his in those brown paper bags they gave us like they were contraband. Sure, sure, it was to 'protect the magazines' from being ruined by spilled coke or something. Uh huh!

A few select people just embraced it. It doesn't really matter of course, since being a geek isn't a choice - it's just who you are. Peel enough layers of civilization, culture and pretense and what you get is the same inner nerd you came kicking and screaming into the world with.

You know what? As time passes it's becoming increasingly evident that it's quite the blessing.  Let me count the ways.

• Professionally speaking you're far more inclined to be technologically savvy. That's a serious advantage that forever sets geeks apart from the burger-flipping crowds and, on average, offers a higher salary than the same people we often envied in our teenage years. 
• There's a very small chance you'll be outpaced by times. Even when it comes to what you're not explicitly interested in, you still get it. I'm not a photography geek but the digitalization of cameras didn't catch me by surprise. I understand hybrid cars and could debate the ways it will affect our lifestyle although I know nothing next to nothing about automobiles themselves.
• In terms of living your life, the very trappings of being geek, our tropes and ways of having fun have prepared us to excel.
  
  When I was exposed to fitness (well in my thirties) I had an epiphany at how many nerds have posted on the mindset required to improve yourself. Belonging to a group of like-minded individuals who're pulling their resources together by writing them down in organized, comprehesive ways? That's pretty familiar.
  
  Needing to understand nutrition, exercise? That sounds like a need to use search engines and wade through forum posts efficiently - but I've been doing that for years.
  
  'My body is a machine' claimed one fellow nerd, 'and I get to hack it'. Wait, hacking something I've taken the time to understand first? Oh yeah, been there.
  
  The big one: To make yourself physically better you need to grind. You need to watch what you eat on a daily basis. You need to follow repeative patterns and gain slow incremental rewards from them when you exercise. Your only confirmation is gradual change over time as you get stronger and faster one step at a time. That sounds like leveling to me. I've certainly done that!
• We are flexible in our geekiness; everything is a puzzle needing to figure out. Where I work - a research institute - I'm surrounded by system administrators who do their own plumbing, programmers who routinely fix their own water heaters. They hook up web cameras to monitor the sea waves hundreds of kilometers away to know when they should surf. Our crappy basketball team uses advanced collaboration tools to mix our schedules and figure out when we can go to practice.
  
  When we shop we don't merely walk in a store and buy whatever crap is handed to us - we do research first, we read reviews, we get opinions from like-minded nerds living continents away.
  
  When it comes to it we're the go-to people. For all that we complain about having to do computer support for our families and friends, we're needed; we don't need because we know how to do stuff, or to find out what we don't already know. We often have a holistic understanding of the world in politics, in science, even in sports.
• Finally, and this is perhaps the most important part, geeks are an international community unlike any other, recognized through their trappings. I see a guy walking across the street with a xkcd t-shirt and I know - I don't merely suspect, I'm absolutely sure - I can walk up to him and start a conversation. I've made friends just because I met them at a Magic: the Gathering store gawking at cards. I can walk into the local fantasy shop and get in a heated debate about D&D within a few minutes with people I've never met before. Or arrange to play with a group of them on Saturday night, and every Saturday night, for months to come.
  
  Sure, some of those things are duplicated in say, a sports bar during a game, but it can be argued that ultimately an obsessed around-the-clock football fan is nothing more or less than one of us, in a different field. Welcome home, brother.

I don't know what makes a geek. I wouldn't change it for anything though, and I believe I knew that ever since I was a teenager and watched with some amusement the attempts my fellows made trying to escape the destiny of forever being one.

Why would they want to?