I am a geek - an “eccentric” or an “enthusiast”, if you prefer a more endearing term. As a subscriber to geekdom, I want to first expunge the misconception that this club is reserved for near-sighted and socially inept boys. Sometimes, well-dressed women carry Nintendo 3DS’s in their purses.

I was always well aware that I possessed the ingredients that make a geek - an inclination towards certain healthy obsessions, an intellectually curious mind, and an off-beat creativity - but it wasn’t until I was tossed into the middle-school oven that I became a fresh little freak-muffin. There wasn’t any outright bullying or teasing, but I’m fairly certain that when I voluntarily stood before a sixth-grade computer class to lecture them in HTML, the gaping mouths and resounding silence of the room formed the letters G-E-E-K. I went on to explain that I learned this fancy computer-language throughout my 5-year occupation of Neopets.com, which was more than a website or a game to me; it was a lifestyle. Sure, when the other 7-year-olds dabbled in the game, it was perfectly normal - but when a 12-year-old could name every breed and color and kept a collection of 88 stuffed Neopets under her bed, it was weird.

I grew up with plenty of strange obsessions like this: wolves, dolphins, or rocks and minerals. It didn’t occur to me that this was something out-of-the-ordinary until I found myself repeatedly presenting my HTML geek-speak before a crowd of uninterested tweens. I’d glance at my crush to see him looking down, picking at a pencil-eraser - he was embarrassed for me. It was then that I learned conformity means giving up your eccentric interests and becoming one of those boring people that I saw sitting at desks before me. And of course, I would never succumb to their steam-pressing power, right? Wrong.

The very next year, my Pokemon cards were sold on eBay, my stuffed Neopets were donated to a thrift store, and my room was decorated with framed photographic evidence of short-lived friendships. I still craved those nights in which I played the entire Pokemon Fire Red on GameBoy in one sitting, or the days I spent writing stories about magical wolves. But at least the girls didn’t glare at my flaming nonconformity anymore, and the boys weren’t repelled to another corner of the room by my existence. Maybe those things never actually happened, but once I was diagnosed with geekiness, that’s exactly how I pictured my formative years - as a radioactive mass of undesirableness. Now that I was a cool kid, I could do cool kid things, like walk aimlessly around the mall or take pictures of my face and post them on the internet.

Yet, there was an obvious dearth in my new life of french fries and movie dates with a gaggle of 12 girls. There was no room for real hobbies or interests - I couldn’t even listen to certain bands in excess without threatening my allegiance to the Pop Top-50 charts. If I expressed anything more than a nonchalant head-nod at a TV show, I would fall off of the cool table and back into the bucket of geeky obsession again. At some point during my first year of high school, I decided that the bucket looked pretty nice from up there.

I can now shamelessly tell people that I know exactly what Pokemon they should use to battle the Elite Four in Pokemon Y, and I know how to animate a three-dimensional talking lime in Autodesk Maya. I’m writing a book about magical wolves, and illustrating it too. Yes, I get looks when I walk into GameStop, but I’d like to think people are just in awe of my glowing confidence - a confidence that has only come from defying normalcy to indulge in what I actually enjoy. Yes, I’m a geek, and I have catty middle-schoolers to thank for dubbing me with a title that I now wear like a badge of honor.