My Life as a Closeted Geek

I grew up in a very conservative, narrow-minded town. In high school there were about 800 kids in all four grades. Social cliques ran rampant and it was easy to be persecuted for having un-popular beliefs. I played many different sports, but I wouldn’t consider myself the cliché jock character that inhabits so many films these days. I didn’t consider myself that because deep down I was harboring a secret. A secret that if found out would most likely make me lose whatever credibility I had managed to build up all those years. This is a secret that I am finally ready to come out and talk about because in all four years of high school I was…  a closeted geek.

Now, before I really start getting under way, I want to get something out in the open. Being “in the closet” was truly miserable. I felt like I wasn’t really being an honest person. And even though I’m not gay I consider this to be very similar to someone who is in the closet for real. I by no means wish to offend anyone in this article. I don’t think that being a closeted geek and a closeted gay person is exactly the same thing. I only wish to try and draw a few parallels between the two. I mean look at this kid: I was in pain.

You’re maybe wondering right now what did I really have to hide? Well, I played any type of video game from an RPG to an FPS. I collected large quantities of toys and other pieces of geekdom. I also waited in lines for Harry Potter books, console releases, and a myriad of nerdy theatrical releases. The brutal populace of my school deemed all of this behavior un-cool.

This school was small and conformity was king. It’s also private and very Catholic ,so right there I felt the odds were already stacked up against me. I say this because the school was comprised primarily of white, Catholic kids and being a brown not-Catholic was bad enough. So if everyone was to find out just how big of a geek I was (being a geek wasn’t so socially acceptable at the time, you see) I might as well just have just had several STDs growing on my face.

This ridicule for the most part is pretty stupid, right? I watched a few kids go the way of being a proud nerd/geek and they were forever shunned. Now I applaud those guys. They weren’t afraid to accept who they really were and let everybody know it! But I liked the decent amount of girlfriends I had acquired and the people that I called “friends”. But looking back, I don’t talk to any of those people anymore.  In fact, I hate the town I came from and rarely return. So if I was able to go back and do it all over again I think now I wouldn’t have a problem playing Magic: The Gathering in the quad with my fellow nerds or even discussing whether or not Cloud could kick Squall’s ass in a brawl right after class, as soon as all the kids went out and the teacher let us stay in the safety of his/her room during recess. I honestly regret not embracing my true nature like the other nerds did. My reputation would have been different, but at least I would have been comfortable.

Friends were one thing, but girls were a completely different batch of ridiculousness. I remember one time in particular when my new girlfriend was coming over to my parents’ house for the first time and I frantically combed my room of all things geek. So ,needless to say, large fully made LEGO sets got piled into my closet, new comics were hidden under my bed, and I even told her I used my PS2 solely as a DVD player. The question is, what’s more pathetic, the fact that I made that excuse or the fact that she actually bought it? Even worse, though, was the thought of upsetting my father.

My dad was very supportive of me playing sports, but wasn’t that interested in my love for sci-fi and other geek things. On top of that he’s a very well known man in the town I’m from and seems to know  absolutely everyone. So that in itself was even more reason for me to think that I had to hide being such a lover of things like Star Wars and Doctor Who. So imagine if he was to find out from a friend that his jock son was considered to be an outcast at school. It was something I just couldn’t let happen.

It’s actually kind of sad that someone has to hide how he or she really feels or acts due to fear of resentment. I now feel like I have gotten to a level where I am actually comfortable with myself and no longer feel like I need to hide anything. Yet I don’t think it had to do with just solely how I was mentally. I think it had a lot to do with my environment. After high school I started going to film school in Ventura and met a lot of great like-minded people, people who to this day I still consider my good friends. They could care less what I liked or didn’t like. They just accept me for who I am.

Writing this article isn’t just me shedding light on what I went through, yet I do hope this will start an open forum here on Geekscape. I want to hear if any of you have similar stories about being a closeted geek or maybe if you were just in the closet in general. Because no one should have to hide how they really feel in this day and age. So if anyone has ever had a problem with what you believe in or what you love… who gives a shit? Take it from me, be proud of who you are. It took me a long time to embrace what I truly am. Hopefully this can be a good example of why you should never be ashamed to be who you are.