That's what I have. An uncanny knack, an ability, a gift (if you will), for meeting NERDS. Witness this column and who's reading it. Need I say more?
I suppose that there is something to this ability of mine. After all,
I am a nerdette (Genus: Information Processing System; Species: Human, Female) in the truest sense. And for a nerdette, meeting NERDS is not necessarily a negative experience. In fact, compared to most NERDS I am positively, unequivocally, the most extraverted person on the face of the earth. Except, I'm not. Only when compared to a male NERD.
I guess that this is why I seem to be attracted to NERDS. They make me feel like I am a bundle of social skills when, really, we know that I'm not. It's this lack of real world social skills that can make it difficult for me and my TRUE NERD to get together. I guess that it's kind of hard to believe that somewhere out there, there is a Mr. Right for me who is in reality:
MY TRUE NERD
As I said, getting together with my true NERD can be difficult because we're both so introverted that it's unlikely either of us will budge from our computers. However, friends occasionally force us out of our tiny little worlds and out into the party scene. And, recently, my friend, Sara, did just that. She said:
``Ashley, you absolutely have to go to this party. You've been staying home, playing with that thingamajig (ar note - she means my computer) and haven't gone outside for three years. Ashley, THREE YEARS! Please come to the party with me. We'll have a great time, I just know we will, and there will be all sorts of cute guys there. Even some computer people will be there.''Well, cute computer guys were the operative words in that paragraph so I decided to go.
I can't tell you how excited I was getting ready. Fantasies of meeting MY TRUE NERD were whizzing through my mind (my tiny, little mind). Meanwhile, somewhere else my NERD, my Mr. Right, is coming to the same party. Karma, kismet, destiny, fate, good fortune, luck, providence, they were all with me that night and I knew MAGIC was going to happen.
Mr. Nerd arrives at the party wearing:
I arrive looking fantastically normal since there are no known role models for a nerdette. In my case I am wearing:
PALO ALTO MUNICIPAL CODE:Section N34/N45 states:
``Upon entering a party all NERDS are required to sit, FACING a wall, for at least the first twenty minutes.''
Woody Allen once wrote:
``Of all the wonders of nature, a tree in summer is perhaps the most remarkable, with the possible exception of a moose singing `Embraceable You' in spats.''This is how I visualize NERD courting/mating behavior. Like two lovesick moose singing ``Embraceable You''. Without the spats of course. About twenty times during the party my friend Sara tries to get me to stop facing the wall. Presumably, my NERD's friends are doing the same with him. Eventually, we both stop facing the wall and:
OUR EYES LOCK.
THE ATTRACTION IS ELECTRIFYING.
Well, ok, we don't quite lock eyes since neither of us can look the other in the eye, but if we could, they would have locked and it would have been electrifying.
Now, I will admit that all dressed up for the party I am probably intimidating to a NERD. Hell, everyone is intimidating to a NERD except for other NERDS, of course. That's the problem we have here. I'm a nerdette, he's a NERD, only he doesn't know I am a nerdette because I look, well.., I look normal. This is one of the social advantages nerdettes have over NERDS. We have no official uniform so we can blend in with everybody else without arousing suspicion. That is, until we speak or are forced to interact in any way. Then our nerdetteishness comes though. (Yes, nerdetteishness. It's kind of like coquettishness only it's nerdetteishness).
Eventually, my friend Sara sees me checking my TRUE NERD out and asks if I would like to meet him. Sara says she knows a friend of his and can introduce us. I say,
``pleasecanwegohomenowbecauseIdontwanttomeetanybody''but somehow Sara hears that as,
``OK, sure I'd like to meet him.''She must be psychic, clairvoyant, intuitive, prescient, or she's a bitch who doesn't care what my feelings are. I'm not sure which.
So Sara leaves to bring me my TRUE NERD. I'm not sure who's more nervous, him or me. Our heartbeats are synchronizing from across the room.
NERD'O'MATIC HEARTBEATS!
I know this to be true. It is a well documented phenomenon. It fact, I recall reading a paper on this in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Let's see..... hmmmmm..... what was it called? Oh yes, it was,
Relative Intra-Muscular Synchronization in Disparate SubjectsSee? I told you. I know this stuff because it was happening to me. My tiny, delicate, little heart was going "boom, ca'boom, ca'boom, boom". My TRUE NERD'S heartbeat was going "BOOM, CA'BOOM, CA'BOOM, BOOM" because he has a BIG, HUGE, manly NERD heart.or
NERD'O'MATIC HEARTBEATS!
After what seemed like infinity (or not, I get confused) Sara arrives with my TRUE NERD. Sara introduces us:
Sara: ``Ashley, I'd like to introduce you to Rodney.''
Me: ``Hi, Rodney.''
Sara: ``Say hi Rodney.''
Rodney: ``Hi.''
Sara: ``Why don't I leave you two alone so you can get acquainted.''
(Because I'm so nervous I say)
Me: ``NopleasedontleavemeanlonebecauseIampositivethatIamgoingtodie.''
(and, as usual, Sara hears)
Me: ``Fine, Rodney and I will chat.''
So here we are, Rodney and Ashley. Nerd and nerdette. So what do we talk about? Something romantic? Something intriguing? Something mysterious? Nope, none of those things. I say,
Me: ``SO, Sara tells me you work with computers.''
Rodney: ``Yes, I'm a programmer. A SYSTEMS PROGRAMMER.''
Me: ''Oh, really? What are you working on now?''
(and true to NERD form Rodney says)
Rodney: ``I just finished hacking together a symbiotic, chained, interface between common kernel data structures and transient linked list structures that are being clobbered by the memory manager who loses free regions during the garbage collection process.''
Now, any girl would have cried, ``Rodney, tell me more. Please.'' But being a nerdette I moaned,
Me: ``Yes, I know the problem. I had a similar circumstance when the cache manager was losing region headers and swapping them with region trailers. Consequently, when walking through a memory map of in-use memory we would occasionally crash when we would encounter the header and trailers in reverse order. Boy, that was fun finding that problem.''
Now, this would ordinarily have been a love story. A story with a happy ending but, Alas, it was not to be. Later, I overheard Rodney, my TRUE NERD saying, ``Ashley is nice but she is awfully wrapped up in her work. I'd rather meet someone less into their work and who's more of a people person.''
PEOPLE PERSON?
My TRUE NERD said ``People Person?''
I felt like I was entering the twilight zone. All that I believed in was crumbling around me. I could not stand the reality, the sad reality, that was unfolding in front of my eyes. My TRUE NERD thought that I was more of a nerdette than he was a NERD. He thought that I was TOO introverted and wrapped up with meaningless minutia and pointless detail (or is that meaningless detail and pointless minutia?).
I left that party feeling cold, alone, and rejected. All dressed up and no where to go. I felt cheated, robbed. Tonight was going to be special. Tonight was going to be the moment my TRUE NERD and I clicked. When hearts beat as one. Hell, they did beat together for a while. Didn't they? I didn't imagine this. I didn't dream this.
I dragged myself home that night and instead of getting into my shorty nightgown (as I had anticipated I might be doing) I got into my jammies, the ones with the feet. Still, tucked away safe in my jammies (with the feet) I had difficulty sleeping. I tossed and turned thinking about all that I had lost. Thinking that I'd never see my TRUE NERD again.
A few weeks went by and then one night the telephone rang. It was Rodney. He wanted to know if I used segment registers to address memory or was I using indirection? That was when I knew that someday, somehow, Rodney, my TRUE NERD and I would be together. I just knew it, deep in my heart. So I said:
``Actually, I'm not using either. All addresses are XORed with their segment number so that we encode them on top of the memory offset. Pretty neat, huh?''
This was love.