Nerds, Geeks, or Wonks?

In high school orchestra, we called each other orch-dorks. The boys who hung out in the physics lab during lunch time I would call geeks. Geek in my book seems to apply mainly to the male gender and requires a certain knowledge of both computers and fantasy. However, if the male's knowledge and interests go beyond these "fields", then the categorization seems to break down.

I always preferred the term "wonk" once Mr. Good introduced it to us in AP government. If I had to pick a slightly pejorative term for myself, I would want to be a wonk. This is partly because I think of wonks as bookish people who seem to know a lot about a particular field, but also have some semblance of social skills.

What is a nerd then? This is what a class discussion among a professor, PhD students, and a few token master's students was reduced to today -- a discussion of nerds. A certain student was convinced that in our discipline, we are all nerds. The professor was apparently fascinated by the student's discovery of his nerd-dom and wanted to know more of what we thought of ourselves as, what other people think of us, and what a nerd really is. One person thought we are nerds because we study instead of act. Another implied that by virtue of the "ethno" in front of her version of our discipline, she was not a nerd (reserved for those of us who are actually interested in history, apparently). I couldn't take it any longer and spoke up.

"I think," I said, "that a nerd is someone who, when at social functions with people of various backgrounds, can talk of nothing but their own field. For example," and of course this was the first thing to come to mind, "I spend a lot of time with some women in my community who spend most of their time with their children. Some of them all they can talk about is their kids. I don't have kids. They can come off as mom-nerds."

Yes, this was a graduate class, and we're talking about mom-nerds. We finally established that the difference between us and the people who apply what we study is that we're the people who tend to be observors more than performers, listeners and bystanders more than participants. It was a typical discussion in a class from this professor, believe it or not. And although it was my comment, I think my favorite part was the invention of mom-nerds.

I suppose the real question is, what am I? I don't think I'm a nerd by my definition, and I don't read enough fantasy or know enough about computers to be a geek. And I am no longer an orch-dork. But I don't feel like I limit my reading enough to be a wonk of my field either. Maybe I'm a book-worm?

Or maybe I shouldn't feel the need to categorize myself. Studious? Sometimes. Hard-working? When I believe in the cause. Knowledgeable? Too little about too much. Oh well.

But I did ask the clerk today at Trader Joe's whether he would think of someone in my discipline as a nerd. He said it would depend on whether that's all they could talk about. Ha!

What are you?