Hahah, sorry--I'm staying with themikado and he's rubbing off on me.
First and foremost, I get really irritated at the attempted divide between geeks and non-geeks as "geeks" and "neurotypicals". I am a geek--not only do I fulfill the functions, I wear the uniform--but I don't think I'm particularly neurologically atypical, nor are a lot of the smartest, geekiest people I know. If you are neurologically atypical that's great, but we don't all have to be neurologically atypical to be geeks. (And in fact themikado questions the "neurologically typical/atypical" divide--but he literally is a brain scientist, so he has more rigourous standards for the use of such terms.)
I get along perfectly well with a variety of kinds of people. I learnt to be socialised by observing the behaviour of others, analysing it, and then applying the things I figured out about how to socialise when they seemed appropriate, but despite its "pastede on yay" status, it serves me quite well.
I also dislike the attempt to insert divides between geeks and non-geeks by implying that a geek can't have a close friendship with a non-geek because, apparently, they can't engage in dominance play together. A given geek and a given non-geek may not want to be friends because they have nothing in common, but that's not the same as not being able to be friends.
TL;DR: I think this may be accurate as an approach or attitude for some people, probably for the sorts on both sides of the geek/non-geek divide who feel that it's a huge gap reflected in, of all things, neurological or physiological structure, and really want there to be some sort of innate or inherent reason why they can't/don't have to try to interact with people who don't share their particular frame of reference. But it's not a universal truth, it's just a metaphor, and metaphors that work well for some people work poorly for others. I (possibly alone among your readers, but that's fine) find it inaccurate to my experience.
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zvi and
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Date: 2010-05-18 02:53 pm (UTC)First and foremost, I get really irritated at the attempted divide between geeks and non-geeks as "geeks" and "neurotypicals". I am a geek--not only do I fulfill the functions, I wear the uniform--but I don't think I'm particularly neurologically atypical, nor are a lot of the smartest, geekiest people I know. If you are neurologically atypical that's great, but we don't all have to be neurologically atypical to be geeks. (And in fact
I get along perfectly well with a variety of kinds of people. I learnt to be socialised by observing the behaviour of others, analysing it, and then applying the things I figured out about how to socialise when they seemed appropriate, but despite its "pastede on yay" status, it serves me quite well.
I also dislike the attempt to insert divides between geeks and non-geeks by implying that a geek can't have a close friendship with a non-geek because, apparently, they can't engage in dominance play together. A given geek and a given non-geek may not want to be friends because they have nothing in common, but that's not the same as not being able to be friends.
TL;DR: I think this may be accurate as an approach or attitude for some people, probably for the sorts on both sides of the geek/non-geek divide who feel that it's a huge gap reflected in, of all things, neurological or physiological structure, and really want there to be some sort of innate or inherent reason why they can't/don't have to try to interact with people who don't share their particular frame of reference. But it's not a universal truth, it's just a metaphor, and metaphors that work well for some people work poorly for others. I (possibly alone among your readers, but that's fine) find it inaccurate to my experience.