Question Does the stereotypical nerd or geek really exists?

[CurseNight102]

Do the stereotypical nerds and geeks really exist? I am talking about socially awkward timid loners who are also highly intelligent in Science, Mathematics, Technology, and Engineering.

What happens to them later in real life? Do they really end up as unemployed or menial workers because of their lack of social skills?

 

[Snorrie]

The "highly intelligent" qualification seems too discriminatory. Using the concept of curiously motivated instead, there are vast numbers of folks who would "qualify" as nerds and geeks to a greater or lesser extent in sundry scientific based fields . Actually, they hold jobs, talk with people, actually find spouses, have children, buy consumer goods, pay bills, and use the internet in a sunlit rooms rather than their or their Mom's basement.
N.B.: Individuals with Type A, B and C personality defects are not included here.

 

[CurseNight102]

The "highly intelligent" qualification seems too discriminatory. Using the concept of curiously motivated instead, there are vast numbers of folks who would "qualify" as nerds and geeks to a greater or lesser extent in sundry scientific based fields . Actually, they hold jobs, talk with people, actually find spouses, have children, buy consumer goods, pay bills, and use the internet in a sunlit rooms rather than their or their Mom's basement.
N.B.: Individuals with Type A, B and C personality defects are not included here.

Are you saying these guys are formerly socially awkward intelligent loners?

 

[Snorrie]

To answer your question, I can only speak for myself and acquaintances ,...... YES! The much appreciated adjective "intelligent" while not applicable to all of us socially awkward loners is nevertheless readily accepted. Likewise, the term "formerly" would certainly be disputed to varying degrees by spouses some of whom harbor secret wishes that their "nerds and geeks" actually go to the basement with their computers and/or stay off web sites like this. Sorry for the drawn out answer, but that's what we do.

 

[kab]

Top nerds-- Nobel Prize Winners- are much more likely than lesser scientists and the general public to be well rounded, participating in the arts, etc. Nerd is a stereotype, which is both good and bad, but stereotypes tend toward false negative interpretations. Nevertheless, if you have ever stood in line at a German ski resort, you know that Krauts are pushy.

The issue is further confused by “intelligence” which does not exist except as a imaginary construct created by IQ tests.

 

[Snorrie]

OK! "den Deutschen eine Pause gonnen". Have you ever been to New York City or ridden in the NYC subway system or ridden in a NYC Taxi or traveled on a Japanese subway/train or for that matter, risked your life by riding in a Taxi in downtown Tokyo? Now that's a pushy experience to the extreme. And stereotypical. Noted that any measure of "intelligence" does not consider the psychological framework that enables folks to hurtle into space via potentially explosive devices built by low bid contractors or holler a Native American name when jumping out of perfectly good aircraft or speed down snow covered slopes at a death defying rate on two flimsy boards. We nerds/geeks do all of those things the "nons" do; we are just not to keen on people.

 

[Opsit]

I've had the extraordinary privilege of working with all kinds of people; PhD's and high school dropouts, theoreticians and mechanics. I had a friend who "felt" advanced math the way the rest of us feel music. I knew a Boatswain's Mate who quit school in the 10th grade, but could take some wood and rope and hoist you and the horse you rode in on up to the highest rooftop, pretty as you please. They were both geniuses.
Nonetheless, neither was socially awkward. I have met people of every stripe that fit that description. I think we construct the stereotype of the geniuses who can't dress themselves properly and the blue-collar worker who deep down is thick as a brick so that we may better deal with the uncomfortable fact that some people, no matter their education or social status, are simply exceptional.
Maybe we're just trying to compensate for our evolutionary aversion to the Gaussian distribution. Some few people are really smart; some few people are really good-looking, or talented or athletic or preternaturally charming or ..., you name it. Some very very few are all of these things.
Ay, there's the rub. These very very few can be seen as more alien and threatening than any extraterrestrial. How do we humanize them? Flaws! If we cannot find a flaw we'll invent one. We can do it for a whole class. Nerds! Geeks! Ha-Ha, you're smart but you can't get laid!
But I'm preaching to the choir! You're posting on this site. You're probably one of the very few (if not one of the very very few). You've no doubt been told that you don't look (sound; dress; dance; whatever) like a engineer (scientist; physicist; chemist; Boatswain's Mate; whatever).
So; No! Stereotypical nerds and geeks do not exist. They don't exist anymore than Prince Charming or Sleeping Beauty. Or for that matter Sleeping Prince or Charming Beauty. [redacted]