The Daft Old Story About Being Yourself
The untold story of a talkative nerd
“I guess you never really told me that story, did you?”
“What story, specifically?”
“Your nickname in all social medias. I remember when you told me and I was like ‘ok, I assume why’ but still I wanted to know the reason. You never directly shared that with me, did you?”
“Not sure I had to, you’ve known me for six years”, I said.
“But I want to hear it from the core!”, she quickly replied.
“Fair enough, then”, I said cutting a carrot. “Do you know when you’re a kid, and your parents tell you that daft old story, ‘just be yourself and they’ll like you at school’?”
“Yeah, basic parent lines.”
“In some cases, this advice isn’t guarantee of success”, I laughed. “Few years before you knew me, when I was 13, I wasn’t really nice to be around. I guess I wasn’t nice to talk to.”
“Oh, come on…”
“No, listen”, I continued. “My school break times had group wheels. While my classmates said they would marry Justin Bieber or so at girls wheels, I said I would write better plots than Steven Moffat when I grew up.”
“No way.”
“Also used to mention J. K., but let’s forget about that.”
“Nooooo!”, she kept on laughing.
“See? You’re already judging me!”, I laughed too.
“Because that’s too awkward!”, she replied loudly.
“So is it a crime to mention Murray Gold, Neil Gaiman and Steven Moffat at school?”
“If you’re 13, yes?”, she laughed.
“Yeah, but I didn’t know that!”, I laughed. “Among the weirdest looks, I truly did not understand why I was so alone”, I said finally finishing chopping the carrot. “I used to speak alien to them and expect them to like me. I wasn’t nice.”
“But that was you”, she said.
“Yeah”, I said putting my knife aside. “That was me at 13. Nothing but a talkative nerd among them.”
“Everybody knows J. K.! She’s a queen.”
“Yeah but things are different when you’re a kid. The things are more intense but at times have way less meaning. What make you cool within a group and highlight you are often the things everyone else is talking about too, and on the same level of intensity and depth. Being a kid wanting to talk about things that differ to much from it makes you look like a freak.”
“Agreed”, she said chewing a bite of her sandwich. “And why the fuck this obsession over Doctor Who since childhood? You couldn’t have liked, I don’t know, High School Musical or so?”
“I did like those”, I said. “But mom with cancer, autistic brother, dad trying his best but still having to work all day, I needed something more. I needed something… better. Wide and deep enough to get through.”
“Oh shit”, she said. “I met you when things were… better.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Uhm, a little?”, she laughed.
“I wasn’t the nerdest nerd of all nerds, but still I was good at nerding”, we laughed.
“But how you became you?”, she said between her bites.
“What do you mean?”
“How you became a journalist and stuff? You talk to people you have never seen before as if it’s a normal thing, and you had those issues.”
“There’s a difference between going after unknown people to do your job and to go after those you don’t know to socialize in personal scale”, I said. “When you’re at an event or in a street, and you have a work to do that envolves talking to people you may never have talked to before, disregarding whether these people are personalities you have seen on internet or on TV and you admire their jobs by what you’ve known about them previously or if they’re just people you really have never had any contact with before, it’s your job. You just stand up, put a smile on your face and there’s no shame in your head by interacting to them because you have such good excuse for that. No one is gonna think you’re a freak, you’re just a professional doing your job.”
She nodded.
“But when it comes to the personal scale, when you’re a kid among other kids, there’s no excuse to save you. That’s just you taking a chance of getting to know somebody new and you don’t know how they will react.”
“But what’s the worst thing that can happen? Do you fear rejection?”
“Nah. That’s a basic thing, I guess.”
“So what’s wrong?”
“Rejection is normal, we hope to be accepted but the ‘fear’ of rejection is constant, is something that we are unconsciously ready for”, I said. “I guess it just sucks when after so long in your relationships you just stop to realize that most of the time the efforts come from your part, in most relationships you have, it doesn’t matter with who. When you’re always the source of interest you end up thinking that maybe might be something wrong with you, and then darker thoughts come up in your mind. So maybe it isn’t the fear of rejection itself, but the fear of finding out that maybe being yourself isn’t good enough.”
“Or maybe you haven’t found the people you’re compatible with yet… And don’t you dare excluding me from that!”
“Never!”, I laughed. “I think there are amazing people around me now. I’m just going easy on that and hey, you asked me about the little talkative child! Not the big one! That’s not fair!”
“You’re still so little, the big one doesn’t even exist!”
“Oh, don’t you dare…”, I frowned my forehead trying not to laugh.
“You kinda still a freak, Talkative Nerd. But it doesn’t make you any less worth.”
“Thank you”, I said.
She smiled.
Saturday, around 2pm, facetime.
