Closet geekery

The new Star Trek movie debuted Friday, bringing various geeks and freaks from their parents basements to the movie theatres.

Also among the mix, usually at the late-night shows or perhaps standing to the side of the line, looking as if they’re actually intending on walking into another movie instead are the closet geeks.

Closet geeks are those members of geekdom who chose to hide their true allegiance behind fashionable clothes, feigned interest in sports and other parts of mainstream culture. Reasons for this subterfuge include:

A) Avoiding the mockery of mainstream culture.

B) Post-traumatic stress from getting wedgies in high school.

The life of a closet geek is a pressure cooker because of the constant work of keeping up a facade of social skills, while suppressing geeklike tendencies such as an enthusiasm for answering questions correctly or knowledge of geek trivia.

If you’re a closet geek, from time to time you will feel compelled to seek others of your kind to talk geek to, lest your mind explode from having no release to expound on your disappointments with the last season of “Battlestar Galactica” or your theories about Jon Snow’s parents in “A Song of Ice and Fire.”

Sounding out a fellow a geek is a delicate process fraught with peril. You start out by dropping subtle sci-fi lines into conversations, finding ways to work in lines from “Dune” (“Fear is the mind-killer. ...”) or “Highlander,” (“There can be only one.”) Eventually, if the other suspected closet geek responds favorably, he or she may be invited to your inner sanctum where you keep your Star Wars memorabilia and comic books. ... uh, graphic novels.

Of course, if the closet geek slips up and cruises a non-geek, he must quickly backpedal, denying any knowledge of geek culture, saying something such as, “Uh nothing man, it’s just something I heard at a party when I was soooo wasted.” 

I’ve always thought that geeks should take a page from other alternative lifestyle groups and make use of public restrooms for anonymous geekery.
We could drill “story”  holes in the stall walls and run tin can telephones through them so we could talk geek without fear of discovery.

If a closet geek is found out for what he or she is, there are only a few options available:

A) Suicide.

B) Acceptance of geekdom. Immediate ostracism.

C) Enrollment in “re-education” classes where they’re counseled to shop at Express, ditch the glasses for contacts and pretend to give a damn about racing, current music and sports.

Perhaps one day geeks will be more accepted and tolerated by mainstream culture. But until then. ... Hell no, I’m not in the line for “Star Trek,” I’m going to see “Fast and Furious,” what’s your problem?

Front-lawn geek Jim Cook can be reached at jcook@ dothaneagle.com