In my about page I mention that I’m a geek. In today’s culture that’s become somewhat of a badge of honor. We’ve come a long way from the days when spending time with computers was a quick way to ostracize yourself from the rest of society. Not to brag (and the irony of this sentence isn’t lost on me) but I was a geek long before it was sheik. This isn’t an admission that deserves its own blog post. We’re a dime-a-dozen these days so if that’s all I had to say I could find much better uses of my time. In case you haven’t caught on yet, I always have more to say.
Back in high-school I was a geek and a virgin. Geeks and sex are like a chicken and egg problem: was I a geek because I wasn’t having sex, or did not having sex make me a geek? I think the answer to that question depends on your perspective. To those around you, the people that don’t really know the first thing about you, the fact that you show obvious interest in non-sexual pursuits pretty much drops you right into the geek basket. If you’ve got the physical makings of a geek then it makes the label stick that much more easily. From the inside, things look a little different.
I was physically geeky. I had glasses, I was thin as a rail and was never really a “looker”. I wasn’t very athletic and didn’t show a lot of interest in dating when I was young. To put it mildly, I had some self-esteem issues. This is, in my opinion, the geek archetype. I could be describing any one of hundreds of thousands of people here, I know that now and I knew it then. What I didn’t realize at the time was how much my acceptance of that role affected my sexuality.
Now before I end up in a minefield here, when I say sexuality I don’t mean homo vs. hetero. I’m talking about my general sexual awareness. Being a geek in high-school actually left me with a few “scars” that are still healing.
Let’s start with the big one, Shame. I was ashamed of my own body. I was a skinny white-boy with nearly no muscle tone whatsoever. To make matters worse, I was a late bloomer in the pubic hair department. And if I was late growing hair, what else hadn’t grown as much as it should?? If you’re looking for the icing on the proverbial cake, I also had a decent amount of acne so I battled with that pretty much every day of my adolescence.
Barely settling for the number two spot, Fear. I feared ever having to be exposed in any way. I didn’t even like changing in the locker room and I was lucky that we weren’t forced to shower. I think it was this somewhat funny combination of the popular, athletic guys thinking “I’m not getting naked in front of these guys” and the geeks thinking “no way I’m letting those guys see me naked and/or throw me out in the hall with no clothes”. Whatever it was, the threat of it ever happening was enough to make me dread every last phys-ed class.
Last but certainly not least, Inadequacy. I never had the muscles. I never had the girls stopping in the hallway to talk to me. I’m sure I never had anyone who would have switched places with me. I had friends, sure, but it always felt like we were all just paddling along in the same boat. All of this stuff basically left me feeling like sex wasn’t even a possibility let alone a goal. The same awkwardness and shame that led me to fear the locker room also led me to fear relationships. What if a girl did come along that showed interest, only to discover my woeful inadequacy? Would people see me with a girl and think, “what was she thinking?” Was it even possible for someone to desire me sexually?
All of this stuff, it didn’t end with high-school. The truth is the problems never get any smaller, life just gets bigger.
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