21 Signs You’re The Nerd Friend
By Anne Jamison
Be proud; we love you. Who else would graphically explain our impending unemployment to us or show us where the library is halfway through sophomore winter?
1. Multiple people asked you (specifically) what or where Chechnya was on April 19th. You provided a brief military history (with dates, of course) in your answer.
2. You subsequently wrote a snarky (albeit clever) tweet about people who think that Chechens are from the Czech Republic.
3. Your friends once made a drinking game out of your room — one shot for every post-it that says “Failing to Prepare is Preparing to Fail” or something equally shot-worthy.
4. You receive daily briefs from at least two think tanks and you actually read them.
5. You receive the LSAT Question of the Day and you actually do it. And then correct it. And then polish your halo.
6. Ditto GRE Question of the Day. (Is that a thing? I might have just made that up.)
7. You were (somewhat lovingly) referred to as “Harvard” in high school, and you’re sort of sad that it didn’t stick. Though that would probably be kind of weird seeing as you didn’t actually get into Harvard in the end, you think. But still.
8. People ask you for paper topics so often that you could probably pay off your student loans if you charged them $5 per topic.
9. Ditto article topics.
10. When you go to group dinners someone automatically hands you the check, expecting that you will do the mental math (including tax and tip, obviously) and come up with what each person owes in approximately 47 seconds or less.
11. You consider pre-registering for classes on par with the 12 days of Christmas.
12. Twenty percent of the people you follow on Twitter are your real-life friends. The other eighty percent consists of news sources, NGOs, and journalists.
13. If you follow journalists that are underground enough that their accounts aren’t even verified, there’s no getting out of this one. You’re definitely a nerd.
14. And perhaps even a rare breed of hipster.
15. Once for your birthday some of your friends chipped in to pay for this year’s subscription to The Economist, Bloomberg or Popular Science. The other guests thought it was a gag gift, but you were quite touched. Your friends know you so well.
16. You debated in high school, and still follow the occasional tournament.
17. Okay, most of them, but only because you thought that one kid was so impressive with his 435 WPM rebuttals.
18. When your friends decide to order “authentic” Chinese takeout they ask you to call and order because you speak the language. You don’t, but you can’t really blame them for losing track. You volunteer to call the Lebanese place instead.
19. You clarify during pillow talk that your future spouse doesn’t just have to be intelligent, they have to be your kind of intelligent. Biochemical engineers need not apply.
20. You know pi to 30 decimal places or all of the lyrics to that Animaniacs “Yakko’s World” song. You tend to show off said skills when drunk.
21. You put your SAT scores on your Linked In profile. No really, it’s okay. You did well. Shame you missed one, but we’re still proud of you.
Note: If you are both the Nerd Friend and the Party Friend you may be subject to psychological study.