Nerds' Social Skills

Partially responsible for the situation is the fact that many (if not most) of us (nerdy geeks) are to some extend autistic, or rather "aspergerish". Go read about Asperger Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger_syndrome) and tell me that you don't recognize your own traits. Not only we enjoy being abrupt and critical, but we are also better fit for being around people who are like us and so we don't mind it as

The section "Your nerd has built an annoyingly efficient relevancy engine in his head." should be recast as "Expect social incompetence and rudeness from your nerd". This is not something people will accept or should accept. Nerds have to realize that when they do something like this they are performing a trade-off. As outcasts, they had to lower their need for social contact. The discrepancy between their lowered needs and the need of others is what causes these conflicts.

This is a pretty awful comparison to draw. Outside of select few conditions, pretty much everyone has the ability to hone their social skills if they want to.It's like anything else, it requires practice and some people require more 'active' practice and mindfulness for success, while others will find it comes more naturally to them.The author of this blog post sounds like someone with a superiority complex fueled by bad social skills that make him resent people for his inab

The article is about understanding your nerd, and what it says is true. You will get social incompetence and rudeness from your nerd, whether or not you believe it to be acceptable.This article is a step towards understanding not just by people of nerds, but by nerds of themselves. I was 17 when someone recognised these aspects f the nerd in me, and made me see them myself. Net result was that I made it a project to make myself socially capable.In the main I succeeded, although there ar

It's also really dangerous. Maybe I am just really autistic, but I have a real difficulty comparing myself to others, mostly because there isn't enough reliable data available.The funny thing is: If I don't compare myself at all to other people and just try to "be", I quickly run into problems: People find me condescending because I use words they've never heard.So, I have to actually think about how smart I am, and how less smart other people are. If I factor

If someone say "we only use 10% of our brains", do you really view it as "dumbing yourself down" if you hold back a long lecture about the actual structure of the human brain? If so, I would say you simply lack social skills. This is not a bad judgement on you in itself, not everybody was born with equal endowment in social skills, and they can be learned. However, the way in which you ascribe your lack of ability to get along with your fellow human beings to your much vaster intelligence is a l

Few ideas:- for some reason after teenagehood, nobody wants to talk about things explicitely. Whatever you really feel, gets under the rug and you fake your way through the day- ironically, it seems that we are very much exactly the same (need for recognition, acceptance, fear, desire for a space to express your self, low judgement, need to feel valueable.. which is probably a mirror of a fear to be lonely.. having a role secures your position in the social tissue)- people aren't b

It's a social reality most nerds ignore at their own peril. The way you're treated is very loosely correlated with being smart, having unusual tastes, or asking questions but tightly with how you present yourself.

Absolutely, it's rarely one way.But I've been a young nerd with nerd friends, then working with nerds.By some twisted fate, life forced me to improve my people skill a lot. It was painful, I didn't ask for it, but now I'm glad it happened.Now I still have a big nerd entourage, because I like to be surrounded by people smarter than me. But I can't help but notice all the things they do that drive others away. Things I used to do.And this things are linked to t

Ah, you know what, I had been thinking about this for a while and I think your comment nails it. Most of my programmer friends seem to have some degree of social awkwardness (including myself, although I did recognize it as a liability and chose to change it) and just like you said, its usually just harmless nerdy behavior. But when these same people come across power in any form, that same social awkwardness can cause serious problems.