5 Signs You Have Become a Nerdy Adult

Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash

Recently I started dating again. I’m looking for a nice religious, nerdy Jewish girl. And as I started updating my profiles on the various dating apps, or sending my details to friends and family, it dawned on me that I wasn’t advertising myself correctly nor was I saying what I was actually looking for.

This article is the result of that “research” within myself.

Let’s see which one resonates with you the most.

1. Your partner is also nerdy, or you encourage your kids to be nerdy

It’s very important to me that my future wife enjoys video games, board games, or any other nerdy hobbies I might have. As a nerdy single adult, I have come to the realization that it’s important to me to keep those interests alive and not bury them and become a whole different person when I enter a relationship with a woman who isn’t interested in any of those things.

When I was younger I was more willing to do that. But as I age I simply don’t care. Either we enjoy something together or we don’t match. I’m not gonna cancel my whole personality for you.

And for those of you who have kids, you might find yourself letting them enjoy Pokémon cards, or maybe even play with them in D&D sessions that fit their age. When they grow up they might lose interest, but at least you opened the door instead of waiting for them to discover these interests on their own.

2. You buy more books than you actually read

My TBR list is huge. Sometimes it’s overwhelming, but I totally keep buying books. I dream that someday in a house I’ll own I’ll have my own library with all the books I accumulated over the years.

Some of those books are signed, too.

The same goes for video games, by the way. If your Steam library is filled with games you bought and haven’t actually played, that’s the same rationale as those books.

3. You actually learn from video games as an adult

One of the games I love to play is the Anno series. It’s a city-building game and you have to keep a budget of all the income and expenses that your city generates. These games work on the principle that spending more than you earn is bad. We all know this.

Anno gives you an entire economy where that basic rule can be disrupted in multiple ways. Your income might look healthy, but suddenly one production chain collapses, your population stops getting what it needs, and everything starts spiraling.

It was the same with SimCity back in the day. I love a game that allows you to manage an economy.

4. Your inner compass has been influenced by video games

Have you ever found yourself deciding whether to do something or not and thinking in moral terms from your favorite video games? Paragon / Renegade from Mass Effect. Alignment charts from D&D. The list goes on.

Sometimes I’ll find myself in a situation and ask: What would Commander Shepard do here? Is this a Paragon or Renegade action? We don’t have a save file on life that we can load when we don’t get what we want, but at least I know what kind of player I want to be.

Being a nerdy adult is about embracing the lessons behind the gameplay.

5. When you find people like you, you make them your best friends

It is very hard to find people who like video games or fantasy books the same way we do. Not to mention a partner to date.

And when I finally find someone who knows what Mass Effect or Dragon Age are, or they love The Witcher or some other series I know, I instantly click with them. It’s like being the only nerd in a room full of gym bros and then finding another nerd among them. We gravitate towards each other.

BTW, not that a gym bro can’t also be a nerd. I am essentially turning into one after spending the last couple of years in the gym lifting weights.

Thanks for reading!

I hope this fun little listicle has brightened your day. Growing older made me choose what kind of nerd I want to become. I don’t have unlimited time anymore, so the things I keep coming back to, video games, fantasy books, worlds like Mass Effect and Stargate, feel much more deliberate than they did when I was younger.

Thank you for spending time with me and I’ll see you in the next one.

Take care,
Oren

P.S. Remember that we’re still fighting for Mass Effect and Stargate: #SaveMassEffect #SaveStargate