I get around in town, and out of town. I come in contact with a large diversity of people, but it seems that nerds are underrepresented every where I go. Sure, I may see a gang of nerds here or there, but I’ve never went anywhere that was nerd dominated. Except of course, fantasy shops, but I’m not considering that because they are stores.
Where do nerds like to shoot the shit? Another question, where do nerds like to live? City? Suburbs? Any specific cities? My mind is coming up blank here, too.
You don’t see many nerds because there aren’t many nerds. If you think the number you see is underrepresenting them, that’s probably because your expectations are miscalibrated by places like this. Nerds are hugely overrepresented here on this board.
Two other problems, here: First, a lot of nerds hang out online, instead of in any face-to-face location at all. Second, why are you ruling out stores? Most places that anyone hangs out are places that sell something or other. And while nerds do surely buy things at those stores, there’s a lot of social activity that goes on in them that isn’t just buying and selling: You’ll usually see a few tables set up where folks are role-playing or playing card games or whatever.
They stay inside their house/apartment/whatever. That’s one of the determining factors of how people become nerds, more interested in things that aren’t really that sociable and thus have an underdeveloped sociability about them.
Nerds can be found in droves at Major League Baseball games. The trick is to look for folks ‘keeping score’… i.e., logging every pitch, strike/ball, play on a score sheet. It’s an old-time practice that kept fans engaged long before mascots, scoreboards and instant access to data. Seems that the current generation of nerds is keeping the ritual alive.
With 25,000-45,000 fans, you will find many dozens of nerds at a baseball game doing this. If you combine this nerd base with the nerd base of adults who bring their fielding glove to a baseball game, you have a virtual nerd army.
Go ahead… find a 35 y/o man with a baseball glove on as a fan at ball game and tell me that ain’t a nerd. Same thing goes for the guy keeping score on a score sheet.
A nerd will come along soon to declare this a band name: “Virtual Nerd Army”.
There is a board game cafe called Snakes & Lattes in Toronto. Major nerd hang out. Your location isn’t listed but if you are in Southwestern Ontario, I can find you some nerds!
Silicon Valley. For every hot-shot sort of person who heads a tech company and doesn’t seem nerdy in the least, there are a host of programmers working for them who are, in fact, nerds.
When I went to visit my friends in Mountainview (home of Google) we had to decide WHICH computer/tech museum we had time to visit. Because there’s more than one, yasee.
Well you see… once we take off our taped up glasses and put on contacts we look like anyone else. :eek: We are everywhere and odds are there is a nerd in the next cubical over.
Seriously as a nerd I don’t actively seek out large groups of nerds. Nor do I nerd it up 24/7. When I want a drink I go to a bar. When I want to work out I go to a gym. When I want to go for a ride I hop on my Specialized, or my Honda depending on what kind of ride I want. I don’t have a nerd hangout, except at friends’ homes or the internet. And those are the traditional grounds of the nerd the dark corners of the home and online.
Some may say that makes me less of a nerd. I argue my knowledge of which levels the D&D Magic Missile spell gains additional missiles stands as a strong counterargument (1, 3, 5, 7, & 9 in case you are curious).
Mostly nailed it. My friends and I, since we are all huge nerds, actually do socialize. But everyone but me seems to get up after noon and go to bed just before sunrise, which means that by the time people actually want to go out, very little is open. So generally we just go over to someone’s place and watch movies and play games.
Edited to add: there’s also the cadre that drives out to ham (radio) fests in the buttcrack of West Virginia at 6 in the morning but I am not among them
