Upon arriving at college I promptly wasted my first two years there by simply going to class, and rushing home to pick my girlfriend up from school. I never intended to go away to school, but meeting her certainly strengthened that particular resolve. She, on the other hand, couldn’t wait to break the surly bonds and get the hell out of Dodge, leaving me promptly in the dust, directionless and on the cusp of my junior year.
Luckily, I still had two years to go, and a hell of a lot of free time to fill up. So, I figured it was about time to explore my major. That May, I enrolled in a summer class for television production (taking a class in my major for the first time). It’s notable not so much for what I learned but who I met. It certainly didn’t change my life’s path. I, unlike most people there, would never embark on a career in production, but it was a hell of a lot of fun (too much to remember though!)
That year, I met three future Geeks. I met another one the following year, and the last, two years after I left school. All of them had at least one overlapping interest with me, and we could spend endless hours dissecting, critiquing, arguing and pondering comics, films, television, pop culture, etc. We clicked despite our disparate personalities and in time, formed a strong bond.
Late in 1994, two years out of school, I realized I wasn’t experiencing enough of that dynamic anymore and I decided to do something about it. Enter Geek Fest.
I’ve written previously about the rules of Geek Fest: no women, a core roster, snacks that scream “coronary artery disease,” and a day that revolves around nothing but those interests that brought us together in the first place.
A Geek Fest is a time when we can indulge all the passions that connect us – we might pair off into subgroups. We might have roundtables. We watch bits of movies. We take things to an outrageous degree that we would not in mixed company, but our version of outrageous is actually rather tame.
Thanks to one passionate Geek we’ve now entered the podcasting/film commenting realm, and it’s connected us in a more concrete way than ever before. In doing so, he has connected us with our youth and reconnected us with each other.
Like most of our friends, a common interest brings us together, but the relationships transcend those interests. We do talk about real life too. A Geek Fest is a safe place to be who we are, to exploit the personas each of us is known for and never worry that we will offend. It’s a comforting place, a familiar place that is a microcosm of all the time we spent together in the past.
I will be the first person to tell you I took that dynamic for granted in college and I took it for granted in my middle age. Yesterday, all six of us were gathered together for the first time in a long time. To say I had a good time would be a gross understatement.
As I watched these friends (and good sports) wielding superhero gear for a group shot I had always dreamt of, all I could do was echo the sentiments of my good friend Ebeneezer Scrooge when he finally accepted his nephew’s invitation to Christmas dinner. “God forgive me for the time I’ve wasted.”
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