Do Nerds have Gaydar?

I had been at university for two months, and while visiting home the questions were pouring in:

“Do you have a girlfriend?"

“Not right now.”

“Is there anyone you’re interested in?”

“No.”

“So, are you interested in girls?”

“Mom, leave me alone!" My head began to spin.

“Are you, gay?” my mother asked. “If you are, that’s ok.” She looked extremely anxious to hear my answer.

I was 18 years old, the age at which parents suddenly feel free to ask their children all the questions and discuss all the topics they have been holding back on until now.

My mom's curiosity perhaps stemmed from the fact that I was interested in literature, in cooking, in all things intellectual, and had never had a girlfriend. Following recipes, and learning about computers, just felt safer.

Feeling safe was important. Anxiety runs in my family. My mother had spent most of her time with her nose buried in crossword puzzles and watching daytime TV. Looking back, I can see she was avoiding the realities of the outside world. A generation later, I play Wordle every morning and fill the slow parts of my day playing mobile games and with other distractions.

“I’m not gay,” I told my mother. Lately, so many people had been asking me the same question, I began to wonder if I had it wrong. That they knew something I didn’t.

I pushed the issue to the back of my mind. I was in university and the world was my oyster. I could do anything (though I lacked money to do almost a single thing.) Books were free. I explored the classics of literature.

With no one looking over my shoulder, I could forget about anxiety, and immersed myself in delusions of greatness.

Reading Ayn Rand’s The Fountain Head, showed me that one can change the world with the power of intellect. That’s what I always wanted to hear!

At that time, the media was full of worries that Japan was taking over the world economy, that they were better at everything than Americans. So, being Machiavellian minded, I decided to learn about the country, starting with their literature. The most prestigious Japanese author of the post-war period was Yukio Mishima, and his books were available in English. I read them all. He dreamed of reviving the Japanese empire and leading his nation on a return to greatness. While consuming $0.75 cans of tuna for dinner in Milwaukee, I too dreamed of leading a country to greatness.

Men doing manly stuff, striving toward excellence and perfection, that seemed attractive. Yukio Mishima was homosexual. Was that something necessary to became truly influential? Alexander the Great was the first in a very long line of world leaders who were attracted to the same gender.

I read a passage in Temple of the Golden Pavilion, in which the protagonist gazes upon the male figure of St Sebastian painted by Mantegna and has a homosexual awakening.

I would test myself. In the painting, St. Sebastian has a strong youthful figure, with an idealized well-toned physique. The position of his body, bound and pierced by arrows, evokes a sense of both pain and sensuality. It does capture the eye. Did I want to see him take the rest of his clothes off? No.

When I had a look at the other Greek sculptures Mishima described, did I appreciate their proportions? Sure. Did it ignite a primal lust? Not really.

Yet, in class, a tiny glimpse of the curve of a woman’s thigh, in tight denim, evoked overwhelming feelings of attraction.

So why wasn’t I dating? My anxiety was speaking for me again. My mind raced from me asking her on a date, to suddenly being trapped on an inescapable route toward marriage and white picket fences at the age of 19.

My first recollection of just how anxious I was, was when I was in middle school. If a family member walked into the room while I was listening to music, I would jump off the bed to turn off the stereo. I would claim I hadn’t been listening to that song that was just on, and say I only listened to the other, more popular bands of the time.

Yet, I was quite social in high school and university, I did enjoy talking to the other boys, and to the girls I wasn’t attracted to (those who didn’t leave me speechless). Not the best plan to find a date, I know.

After we graduated, in my group of eight high school friends, Gary came out of the closet. That made me anxious.

My best friend Mark had gone to watch Reservoir Dogs at the theater with him.

“You still do things with Gary?” I asked.

“Haha. Yeah, he’s interesting. He's got a lot of new stories from architecture school.”

“Oh. That must be true.”

“You haven’t talked to him? Why don't you hang out with Gary?"

“He might try to convert me, you know?”

“That’s not really possible.”

“What if I’m drunk?”

“Have you ever been drinking with Gary?”

“Well, no…”

Looking back, I dreamed of ruling the world, but lacked the agency to make the smallest of fundamental personal decisions. Like answering a question, stating which music I liked, or knowing my own identity.

Eventually, after graduating and joining a tech company, I found a wider group of friends from around the world. Meeting new people and partying helped turn down my overthinking. I worked alongside, and became friends with, people in the LGBT community, who are often some of the most empathic and fascinating people around.

After a few haphazard choices of girlfriends, I began to develop a sense of agency. I could choose and be in control of things, too. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Our partners are often unknowable, inscrutable. It's a truism of the human condition. The fundamental attraction to people who are different from us is built into our biology, an urge to balance out that bit that we are missing.

That we can’t always intuitively understand or predict everything a romantic partner will do is an element of life we just need to live with. If we knew everything, going through life would be automatic, and we wouldn’t need such a large brain. We would have remained as monkeys, and literature and the arts wouldn’t exist (or maybe monkeys tell each other great stories, and we just don’t get to hear them.)

After a recent birthday, I told my wife, “One of the benefits of turning 50, is that people have finally stopped asking me if I’m gay.”

“Before I knew you, I thought you were gay too.”

“Really?!” I asked, flabbergasted.

“Because you are skinny, a bit shy, and not pushy like other men are.”

“Aren’t all I.T. guys like that?”

Her gaze went into the distance. Her mind appeared to be observing a procession of nerdy computer programmers.

“You’re right about that,” she replied.

“Thank you,” I said, before realizing a salient point. “You know, not once in my life has a gay person asked if I’m gay. They just know I’m straight.”

“I see it now,” she said. “Gay people have nerddar!”

It's taken me a long time to finally stopped worrying about my identity. So, I think it’s great that the young people of today are so confident about stating their own so clearly. And it's also nice that the status of nerds has risen since the early 1990s, the word shifting from being an insult, to being a declaration about possessing specific technical skills. One can be a writing nerd, or a music nerd, or a food nerd. Yes, I am a proud nerd of all of those things.