over-nerdy

Recently in a conservation in small group, we were talking about how nerdy the conversations are within our Waterloo friends. As a graduate of Electrical Engineering, these conversations can be quite enjoyable, sometimes a bit too funny (4 dimension pie, hyper-cube, black holes, white holds, rail-gun harpoon). It's always cool to pull a nerdy analogy to explain a concept.

But then one member of my small group mentioned that sometimes he thinks that our conversations can be "over-nerdy". At that moment, everyone's eyes fixed on this member and we asked him if he could explain what is this threshold for "over-nerdiness" and if he could give some real life examples. Like, is this some sort of a subjective thing? Of course, my friend was a bit reserved and probably did not want offend anymore so he tried to change the topic of the conversation. 

In many group conversations in my small group or during church, often there will be some individuals that are left out... either they are not interested in the topic or have little to no knowledge about it. So the conversation will carry one with a sub-group of people very engaged and attentive, while other individuals start swiping (either seriously or just feinting) their smart phones. It a way it creates some sort of a fissure in the act of socializing. 

We can attribute part of this "issue" that some people have a narrow variety of topics that they are interested in. So when they hear people engaging on other topic, they will just evaporate from the socializing act. I think each of us can make more effort in increasing our interest in other topics and in being curious about it. Perhaps it is not about the topic itself that matter, but about getting to know people more and enjoy a good conversation.

At the same time, for those who are very engaged in conversation, it is good that there are topics that we have a fast heartbeat toward them. But it is also important to be mindful and sensitive to the people around us, and if I get to carried on and lose half of the group's interest when I talk about the art of futbol, I should consider changing topic or steering the conversation to get others engaged.

I feel this is important because nowadays there is a lot of socializing that occurs online, and it is easy to forget how to talk and deal with people in a real way. And that is not easy of course because we will have different interest, different opinions, and there could be arguments, but that's ok. Loving is a hard thing :), but it is the debt that we owe to one another. 

So let's not be over-nerdy all the time.