Wow.

Paul Graham's essay Why nerds are unpopular. Amazing. I don't agree with all of his conclusions, but he does propose some interesting ideas.

I was a nerd in school. Junior high school, especially 7th grade, was pure Hell for me. (High school was better because my parents sent me to an "independent" academic high school - essentially prep school but with less of the stupid high-society trappings - and I found my tribe there.) Adulthood has been much better, because the really nasty people from junior high are all working in food service industries now and the geeks and nerds are in academia (where I am). So again, I have found my tribe.

It's been my experience that the people who are the nicest and kindest as adults were often the ones who were persecuted as "nerds" in secondary school. And the people with the cool "oddball" interests were also nerds...