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Human beings are social animals, and geeks are not excluded. Sure, they spend hours upon hours in front of monitors all night; they all have to sit at the most inferior of tables in high school; parents walking with their children cross over to the other side of the street when a geek passes on by. However, this doesn't stop the fact that even geeks get together and shun the outside world. Well, most people don't get into groups to completely shun out the world, but being recluses is a very popular nerd trait. It's one of the unique things about a nerd group: They're the most clingy recluses in the world.
Behold, a small group of nerds at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Some people aim for a technology degree at RIT only for the big bucks, but some folks are just plain nerds. This particular group were all nerds, all the time. They could even smell a traitor.
Ken Bradshaw and Paul Fewell were sitting at one of the round tables in the Grace Watson Dining Hall for a fall supper. Ken was a freshman computer science major in his academic life. In his personal life, he was an opinionated, quirky, troll. His parents say he's stocky, but most people would just call him "fat." He wears extra large t-shirts that cover his tummy. He has greasy, black hair that goes down past his ears. He needs a haircut, but can't be bothered. If you can get by these deficiencies, you'll find a clingy, nice guy. Actually, you wouldn't, and he also always smells like melted butter.
Paul would give a better first impression. He's well-groomed, and he has some muscle mass. Paul and Ken are both 5'11", but Paul is roughly 2/3's Ken's weight. Paul is actually kind of hot, but is oblivious to his circumstances. He's gone a full year at RIT without any luck anywhere, but that's because he just doesn't have a clue. Paul can empathize with anybody, just because he doesn't want to hurt anybody's feelings. He also doesn't want to hurt his own feelings. He manages to achieve this by doing little of anything. Paul and Ken are a good combination; Paul is the only guy that can tolerate Ken enough to understand him. He tolerated him enough to go to Gracies with him that night, even though Paul's a 2nd-year, and doesn't have to eat that crap anymore. He hadn't tried the food in awhile, and thought it would be "fun" to see it all again.
"The food here kind of sucks today." Paul commented.
"The food here thucks every day." Ken responded. He speaks with a geek lisp. I hear some people find that attractive, but I hear a lot of horrifying things.
"Now come on, the sweet and sour chicken they have at lunch sometimes is really good." Paul fired back, and that was true.
"I don't eat lunch here."
"Well you should, and screw the dinner."
"I never had a big lunch before, why thould I start now? Lunch is thtupid, really."
This discussion was going nowhere, like most discussions with a troll. Fortunately, they were interrupted by one of Ken's classmates. "Watch it, he wants to thit down." Ken whispered to Paul. He approached the table with a gleaming smile. "Hey guys, what's going on?" He said. He enthusiastically nodded his food tray in synchronization with his head. "Hey Ken, who's your friend?" the guy said as he put down his tray across from them. He pulled one of the seats from the other tables over, one of the seats Paul and Ken had spent the time moving away so nobody would try to sit with them.
"Well, aren't you going to introduce me?" The guy asked again, once he finished sitting down.
"Umm, this is 'Paul'" Ken said to him. Paul put up a quick smile, so nobody would have hurt feelings.
"Paul, thith ith . . ."
". . . ith . . . " Ken continued.
"He'th in my calculus class." Ken finished.
"Hey, I'm Troy." Paul nodded and they all went to eating. There was an uncomfortable silence for three minutes.
"So, what's your major?" Paul asked Troy. The disqualification process had begun. What Troy didn't know is he was in front of a virtual parole board, where parole meant conditional access to Paul and Ken's little social group. Imagine a scoreboard descending from the ceiling.
"Computer science, what about you?"
"Thoftware engineering, thecond year." Ken responded for Paul.
"Oh wow, you must be crazy to have made it through the first year." Troy said.
Troy: +1 point, knows how to kiss a nerd's ass. Total = 1.
"Nah it wasn't so bad. I made it through with a 3.3" Paul told him.
"That's cool. I did the math for my grades this quarter so far. I could bomb my finals and still get A's. It kind of sucks, really, since they're all afraid I'm gonna be unmotivated through the rest of the quarter." Uh oh, this is bad.
Troy: -1 point, Mr. I-get-good-grades-and-try-to-be-modest-about-it-but-end-up-subliminally-bragging. Total = 0.
"Cool." Paul said, nodding again. Ken was hoping Troy would just keep talking his way into a big hole, but he got quiet again. Looks like Ken would have to get the words out of him.
"Yeah well, I'm thure you've been thtudying hard."
(translated: Ass-kissing academic with no life or true concept of the material, save for the final grade.)
"Kind of, but I've been spending most of my free time managing my ISP." This was greeted with a collective "what?"
"Well, when the BBS scene got run over by the Internet, I switched my little hobby system over to a service provider. It's paying for my education right now."
Troy: +10 for awareness of BBS scene. +25 for running a possibly-affluent BBS back in the day. +400 for managing an ISP. -150 Going to RIT even though he already has a high-paying job. Total = 285.
This kind of put him out of Ken and Paul's league. They managed to cough some facts out of him just to prove he really did manage an ISP. He seemed to be one in the know. They all finished eating with the score stuck uncomfortably at 285. They might have to let Troy be their friend. After all, he was following them back to Ken's dorm. The scoreboard followed overhead. On the way, they passed a CAB poster for some concert coming up in a month.
"Hey, Crazy Diamond is coming to RIT!" Troy declared, pointing at the poster. Crazy Diamond was some alternative-rebirth band craftfully engineered by music industry executives. As a result: -10 for being enthusiastic about popular music. Down to 275.
"I think I'll go to that." Troy added. -10 for thinking of going. Down to 265. Keep going, my little divebomber!
"Heh" Paul said, trying not to be rude, yet acknowledge a band he knew nothing about. Paul listened to techno, like any self-respecting nerd. Well, technically he listened to drum and bass, even the shitty stuff (self-nullifying expression). Anyhow, Troy's score was too high. They didn't really like the guy. They didn't like him because he was new. A new stimulus threatens the nerd, and needs to be managed by blotting it out. It's something like . . . autism.
Ken only had a few more minutes to get rid of this guy, or else they might actually have to hang out with him again. He wasn't Canadian, so they couldn't take points off for that. Ken knew what to do: start talking about his and Paul's collective idea for a spamless email protocol. Hopefully they'd leave Troy in the dust.
"Hey Paul, I'm thtill unthure if you could thend anonymous methages without a risk of thpamming." Ken told Paul.
"It would be useless then, if you ask me, anonymous email is important for a free society."
"Yeah, but what if they just thend an anonymous email to one guy?"
"That wouldn't be good enough." Paul said, not enjoying the act of disagreeing, "What if a person is being suppressed and needs to get his message across? He should be able to send it bulk."
"If you take away the thuppression part, you have thpam."
"Excuse me, guys, but why don't you just test this stuff out?" Troy interrupted. Oh, him again. Go back to studying and smiling in the mirror, you twit!
"Well, we don't have the specifics flushed out yet." Paul told Troy. Paul is the kind of guy that thinks if he responds to something with a true expression, that will automatically satisfy any argument.
"You don't need everything flushed out. I mean, you could have a home-brew email app and just hook up the protocol as you see fit." Ken let Troy continue, so that he could incriminate himself.
"I mean, I could get you an email app in less than half an hour with quick Visual Basic hack."
Ken and Paul collectively gasped. "Visual Basic?" Paul asked, and Troy nodded.
"Microsoft makes that, you know. Microsoft, man!"
"So what? It's a tool. It'll get the job done."
"Perl'th a tool altho, and it doethn't devour companies like bacon!" Ken stated.
"Well, you can use Perl too, but what it seems like you need a simple testbench for a protocol. Perl kind of stinks for GUIs, so I hear."
"Well, Mister." Ken said, getting fed up with Troy, "We only use open thource around here, tho that won't work. Thecond, I won't have anything to do with Micro-thoft."
Troy: -1000 for pro-MS rhetoric. Total = -735, sucka!
It is now time to dismiss our contestant.
"Hey Ken, I gotta get back to my apartment." Paul told him. "It was nice meeting you, Troy." He said, without bothering to wave or handshake or otherwise acknowledge the man. Troy, now stuck with Ken alone, decided he didn't want to hang around much longer. Ken's sudden burst of silent farts might have had something to do with it. "Well, see you in class tomorrow, Ken." Troy said. He waved on his way out, but Ken didn't even bother to turn his head to acknowledge it. A few minutes later, Paul resurfaced.
"Damn, that was close." Paul said, and they snickered to themselves. The group would not grow this day.
Troy would recover from this incident, graduate, and become a billionaire for his fast turnaround in the demand-driven software market. His ISP served as a cash cow for all his endeavors. He retires at 35, and raises a family of progressive politicians. He didn't, however, make too many nerd friends along the way.
"Oh shit! My ass is on fire from that Gracies!" Paul screamed. Ken pointed in the direction of the bathroom, from which Paul went the total opposite in his frenzy. "That's what you get for trying Gracies after thlacking off for thix months!" Ken shouted to him as Paul ran into the ladies room. The group would not grow that day.
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