I was always a very introspective, nerdy, shy kid. I kept to myself, and preferred books to people. My father, a working-class, single dad without a college education, didn’t really know what to do with me. So he got me a computer for my eleventh birthday, and tended to leave well enough alone.
An eleven year-old with a computer. And Internet access. In the early 1990’s – when the common man still knew very little about its dangers or its opportunities. Unsupervised.
I could’ve gotten into all manner of trouble.
But what I got into, was actually a highly technical, text-based game. Copy, complex formulas, variables, dice rolls. Lines of text, hundreds of thousands of lines of text, scrolling by in mere seconds. I was hooked: here was a living, breathing book. I played it at all hours of the day and night; learned to read and type at lightning speeds; learned to code scripts and variables.
The game gave its players characters, alternative identities. You could do anything: a pirate, or a barbarian, mass-slaying peccaries. Or a mage, fireballing people. Mine was evil. She liked to fireball “newbs.”
A few thousand people played. Many were young kids, misfits like myself. One was Martin Shkreli.
Yes, that Martin Shkreli.
Unsurprisingly, this propensity for being a technology-obsessed shut-in made my local peers consider me “strange." But so it went: in the wealthy Connecticut suburbs, if you weren’t a jock or a preppy, you were pretty much outcast. It's not my fault I'd read Watership Down, Atlas Shrugged, and pretty much all of Stephen King by the seventh grade. And the banality of school just seemed so minute, with whole other worlds out there.
In lieu of a slew of high school friends, most of us had each other: we'd get together in-person for (under-age) drinks in New York City, or visit the Jersey Shore. When we met, we discovered we came from a mishmash of appearances and backgrounds: some of us were gorgeous, tall and blonde; others were acne-riddled, portly. Pretty or not, we were a breadth of race and creed; but it was a common interest drew us together. We called ourselves, in true nerd fashion (I cringe in writing this, by the way), by our character names.
Today, we're all grown up. Despite the prevailing influence of a video game during our formative years, the lion’s share are now become productive members of society. Most of us have developed into hedge fund managers, analysts, programmers, database developers – or freakishly-young pharmaceutical executives. I myself went into social media: a place where my ability to rapidly process text and occurrences comes in pretty valuable.
Many of us still remain in contact.
And I’ve since learned to embrace my quirkiness. Perhaps I’ve always suffered from a pleasant cocktail of natural shyness, Agoraphobia, Aspberger’s, or whatever have you, but I’m still markedly uncomfortable in large social settings. But I try to face it head on: most definitely, I think we grow our most when we do the things that are outside of our comfort zone.
Not long ago, while working for a non-profit, part of my job was hosting monthly networking events, for hundreds of people. I did it because these people deserved the opportunities these particular events afforded, and the drive to help others was pretty motivating. But all the while, I still felt greatly uncomfortable with the proximity of so many other human beings.
I did the exact opposite of what my nature dictated, with some success. And in doing so, learned I could become the social, friendly, wonderful person that people generally like. But it wasn’t truly me, and I am relieved on some level I don’t need to do that anymore.
These days, I’ve embraced my oddity.
There's nowhere better than my apartment, and nothing better than my books, my cats, my computers. I have a loving boyfriend who understands my strangeness, and a small group of local friends who are also introverts (most also work for tech companies – SAS, Lenovo, etc).
I work from home, for a company replete with others like me; I get my groceries delivered by HelloFresh or Prime Now whenever possible. Sometimes I accept engagements at conferences (the teeth gritting, back rigidity – it’s still there). I go out once or twice a week, usually to small or low-key “alternative” events where I can be faceless.
The human element is still and will forever be a challenge for me to understand: in life, in work, in play. Computers, blogs, social media: they’re text. They’re easy. Black and white.
People. Now that’s an element that’s far more complicated.
Writer’s Note: I jotted this blog out on my lunchbreak — mainly because I recently heard the story of Christine Chubbuck. It can be very difficult for some people to relate to others. I just wanted to share a bit of my own journey, in the hopes it would help others feel they’re not alone. That’s all.