Dorks of the world, unite! Or at least play some video games.

At many, many points during my life, I have felt that I was an outsider among outsiders. I never really fit into any group of people during those troubled, becliqued middle and high school years (except for maybe drama club). It was not until my senior year of college, when I spent a semester in Berlin, that I finally felt like I belonged to a group of people. I really couldn't say that there was a unifying factor for the group, except that most of them were Minnesotans, but now I think I may have hit upon something. My best friend in the group, Golo, was very liberal politically, and also very much a dork. By dork I mean that he was (is) somewhat of a nerd, albeit a very sociable, likable, and confident-in-and-proud-of-his-dorkiness nerd. It's hard not to have fun with this guy or laugh at the jokes he's always telling (or just at him, it's easy to do). Speaking of, if you're reading this, Golo, I found a word I think comes closest to the American idea of "nerd" in German: Fachidiot. I seem to remember one of the questions that kept coming up the semester I was there was how to say "nerd".

The thing is, I found another one of those types of people at the college where I work. I supervise a number of students in my position at the Berry College library, and lately a girl named Mary and I have been realizing just how much of a dork the other person is. We aren't dorks in the same area, per se, but, as they say, it takes one to know one, and we can recognize it fairly easily in each other. Well, the other night when we were closing up the library, Mary was talking about going to Dave and Buster's this weekend, which, in case you've never heard of it, is a combination bar/restaurant/video game arcade. In other words, an arcade a little bit more geared toward post-puberty-type people--the people who grew up on arcades. I had been hearing about the place since I was a kid, and it always sounded like a neat place to go. In a rare moment of social forwardness, I commented "You should invite me to come with you", which is about as close to imposing as I'll ever feel safe being. So after closing up the library today, Mary and I hopped in her car and took off towards Marietta.

I swear, this past evening was the most fun I've had in a long, long time. I had taken a few German classes with Mary during my college career, but she and I had never really gotten to know each other at all. Sure, Dave and Buster's is, by nature, a fun and awesome place to go to, but Mary is a pretty cool person to hang out with. And, please, all my other friends who have not yet been named or praised or called a dork here on my blog, don't feel left out. I'm not here to talk about how cool Mary is. Here's where I'm getting back to the original point I started making in this post. I think part of the reason I had so much fun hanging out with Mary is that she's both very liberal politically, and a total dork.

Could this be? Are there more people out there like me than I ever could have imagined? Have I finally found my niche in the world? Have I found my social group? Could I be the local representative of cool dorks worldwide?

The answer to all these questions is "Yes", as in "Yes, I am a total dork."

And just remember, you can't spell "liberal dork" without "ribald elk". You heard it here first, folks.