One battered old-faithful dictionary on my shelves, published circa 1975, defines a geek as “a carnival performer who performs sensationally morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken. ” You may be deeply relieved to know that I’ve upgraded to a squeaky-new Canadian Oxford, although I can’t claim it’s a whole lot more flattering:
geek noun esp. N. Amer. informal 1. An uninteresting, ineffectual, socially inept person; a nerd. 2. A person thoroughly devoted to one usu. technical interest, study, etc., often at the expense of social interaction (computer geek).
Whatever.
Point is, the 1970s chicken-beheading freak is not at all what I have in mind here (try wikipedia, maybe) when I say that 80% of the most fabulous men I’ve ever known were geeks.
Other top contenders leaned towards the arts or construction trades, but that’s a shaggy-dog story for another place and time.
Geeks? You may well ask, O-mouthed with shock and doubt — geeks are sexy?
Absolutely.
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