Why Nerds are Unpopular

When we were in junior high school, my friend Richsmarter. John Nash so admired Norbert Wiener that
and I made a map of the school lunch tableshe adopted his habit of touching the wall as he
according to popularity. This was easy to do,walked down a corridor.
because kids only ate lunch with others of about theAs a thirteen-year-old kid, I didn\'t have much more
same popularity. We graded them from A to E. Aexperience of the world than what I saw
tables were full of football players and cheerleadersimmediately around me. The warped little world we
and so on. E tables contained the kids with mild caseslived in was, I thought, the world. The world seemed
of Down\'s Syndrome, what in the language of thecruel and boring, and I\'m not sure which was worse.
time we called \"retards.\"Because I didn\'t fit into this world, I thought that
We sat at a D table, as low as you could get withoutsomething must be wrong with me. I didn\'t realize
looking physically different. We were not beingthat the reason we nerds didn\'t fit in was that in
especially candid to grade ourselves as D. It wouldsome ways we were a step ahead. We were
have taken a deliberate lie to say otherwise.already thinking about the kind of things that matter
Everyone in the school knew exactly how popularin the real world, instead of spending all our time
everyone else was, including us.playing an exacting but mostly pointless game like the
My stock gradually rose during high school. Pubertyothers.
finally arrived; I became a decent soccer player; IWe were a bit like an adult would be if he were
started a scandalous underground newspaper. Sothrust back into middle school. He wouldn\'t know the
I\'ve seen a good part of the popularity landscape.right clothes to wear, the right music to like, the right
I know a lot of people who were nerds in school,slang to use. He\'d seem to the kids a complete alien.
and they all tell the same story: there is a strongThe thing is, he\'d know enough not to care what
correlation between being smart and being a nerd,they thought. We had no such confidence.
and an even stronger inverse correlation betweenA lot of people seem to think it\'s good for smart
being a nerd and being popular. Being smart seems tokids to be thrown together with \"normal\" kids at
make you unpopular.this stage of their lives. Perhaps. But in at least some
Why? To someone in school now, that may seem ancases the reason the nerds don\'t fit in really is that
odd question to ask. The mere fact is soeveryone else is crazy. I remember sitting in the
overwhelming that it may seem strange to imagineaudience at a \"pep rally\" at my high school,
that it could be any other way. But it could. Beingwatching as the cheerleaders threw an effigy of an
smart doesn\'t make you an outcast in elementaryopposing player into the audience to be torn to
school. Nor does it harm you in the real world. Nor, aspieces. I felt like an explorer witnessing some bizarre
far as I can tell, is the problem so bad in most othertribal ritual.
countries. But in a typical American secondary school,If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self
being smart is likely to make your life difficult. Why?some advice, the main thing I\'d tell him would be to
The key to this mystery is to rephrase the questionstick his head up and look around. I didn\'t really
slightly. Why don\'t smart kids make themselvesgrasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in
popular? If they\'re so smart, why don\'t they figurewas as fake as a Twinkie. Not just school, but the
out how popularity works and beat the system, justentire town. Why do people move to suburbia? To
as they do for standardized tests?have kids! So no wonder it seemed boring and sterile.
One argument says that this would be impossible,The whole place was a giant nursery, an artificial
that the smart kids are unpopular because the othertown created explicitly for the purpose of breeding
kids envy them for being smart, and nothing theychildren.
could do could make them popular. I wish. If theWhere I grew up, it felt as if there was nowhere to
other kids in junior high school envied me, they did ago, and nothing to do. This was no accident. Suburbs
great job of concealing it. And in any case, if beingare deliberately designed to exclude the outside
smart were really an enviable quality, the girls wouldworld, because it contains things that could endanger
have broken ranks. The guys that guys envy, girlschildren.
like.And as for the schools, they were just holding pens
In the schools I went to, being smart just didn\'twithin this fake world. Officially the purpose of
matter much. Kids didn\'t admire it or despise it. Allschools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose
other things being equal, they would have preferredis to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk
to be on the smart side of average rather than theof the day so adults can get things done. And I have
dumb side, but intelligence counted far less than, say,no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society,
physical appearance, charisma, or athletic ability.it would be a disaster to have kids running around
So if intelligence in itself is not a factor in popularity,loose.
why are smart kids so consistently unpopular? TheWhat bothers me is not that the kids are kept in
answer, I think, is that they don\'t really want to beprisons, but that (a) they aren\'t told about it, and (b)
popular.the prisons are run mostly by the inmates. Kids are
If someone had told me that at the time, I wouldsent off to spend six years memorizing meaningless
have laughed at him. Being unpopular in school makesfacts in a world ruled by a caste of giants who run
kids miserable, some of them so miserable that theyafter an oblong brown ball, as if this were the most
commit suicide. Telling me that I didn\'t want to benatural thing in the world. And if they balk at this
popular would have seemed like telling someone dyingsurreal cocktail, they\'re called misfits.
of thirst in a desert that he didn\'t want a glass ofLife in this twisted world is stressful for the kids. And
water. Of course I wanted to be popular.not just for the nerds. Like any war, it\'s damaging
But in fact I didn\'t, not enough. There waseven to the winners.
something else I wanted more: to be smart. NotAdults can\'t avoid seeing that teenage kids are
simply to do well in school, though that counted fortormented. So why don\'t they do something about
something, but to design beautiful rockets, or toit? Because they blame it on puberty. The reason
write well, or to understand how to programkids are so unhappy, adults tell themselves, is that
computers. In general, to make great things.monstrous new chemicals, hormones, are now
At the time I never tried to separate my wants andcoursing through their bloodstream and messing up
weigh them against one another. If I had, I wouldeverything. There\'s nothing wrong with the system;
have seen that being smart was more important. Ifit\'s just inevitable that kids will be miserable at that
someone had offered me the chance to be the mostage.
popular kid in school, but only at the price of being ofThis idea is so pervasive that even the kids believe it,
average intelligence (humor me here), I wouldn\'twhich probably doesn\'t help. Someone who thinks his
have taken it.feet naturally hurt is not going to stop to consider
Much as they suffer from their unpopularity, I don\'tthe possibility that he is wearing the wrong size
think many nerds would. To them the thought ofshoes.
average intelligence is unbearable. But most kidsI\'m suspicious of this theory that thirteen-year-old
would take that deal. For half of them, it would be akids are intrinsically messed up. If it\'s physiological, it
step up. Even for someone in the eightieth percentileshould be universal. Are Mongol nomads all nihilists at
(assuming, as everyone seemed to then, thatthirteen? I\'ve read a lot of history, and I have not
intelligence is a scalar), who wouldn\'t drop thirtyseen a single reference to this supposedly universal
points in exchange for being loved and admired byfact before the twentieth century. Teenage
everyone?apprentices in the Renaissance seem to have been
And that, I think, is the root of the problem. Nerdscheerful and eager. They got in fights and played
serve two masters. They want to be popular,tricks on one another of course (Michelangelo had his
certainly, but they want even more to be smart. Andnose broken by a bully), but they weren\'t crazy.
popularity is not something you can do in your spareAs far as I can tell, the concept of the
time, not in the fiercely competitive environment ofhormone-crazed teenager is coeval with suburbia. I
an American secondary school.don\'t think this is a coincidence. I think teenagers are
Alberti, arguably the archetype of the Renaissancedriven crazy by the life they\'re made to lead.
Man, writes that \"no art, however minor, demandsTeenage apprentices in the Renaissance were
less than total dedication if you want to excel in it.\" Iworking dogs. Teenagers now are neurotic lapdogs.
wonder if anyone in the world works harder atTheir craziness is the craziness of the idle
anything than American school kids work ateverywhere.
popularity. Navy SEALs and neurosurgery residentsWhen I was in school, suicide was a constant topic
seem slackers by comparison. They occasionally takeamong the smarter kids. No one I knew did it, but
vacations; some even have hobbies. An Americanseveral planned to, and some may have tried. Mostly
teenager may work at being popular every wakingthis was just a pose. Like other teenagers, we loved
hour, 365 days a year.the dramatic, and suicide seemed very dramatic. But
I don\'t mean to suggest they do this consciously.partly it was because our lives were at times
Some of them truly are little Machiavellis, but what Igenuinely miserable.
really mean here is that teenagers are always onBullying was only part of the problem. Another
duty as conformists.problem, and possibly an even worse one, was that
For example, teenage kids pay a great deal ofwe never had anything real to work on. Humans like
attention to clothes. They don\'t consciously dress toto work; in most of the world, your work is your
be popular. They dress to look good. But to who? Toidentity. And all the work we did was pointless, or
the other kids. Other kids\' opinions become theirseemed so at the time.
definition of right, not just for clothes, but for almostAt best it was practice for real work we might do
everything they do, right down to the way theyfar in the future, so far that we didn\'t even know
walk. And so every effort they make to do thingsat the time what we were practicing for. More often
\"right\" is also, consciously or not, an effort to beit was just an arbitrary series of hoops to jump
more popular.through, words without content designed mainly for
Nerds don\'t realize this. They don\'t realize that ittestability. (The three main causes of the Civil War
takes work to be popular. In general, people outsidewere.... Test: List the three main causes of the Civil
some very demanding field don\'t realize the extentWar.)
to which success depends on constant (though oftenAnd there was no way to opt out. The adults had
unconscious) effort. For example, most people seemagreed among themselves that this was to be the
to consider the ability to draw as some kind of innateroute to college. The only way to escape this empty
quality, like being tall. In fact, most people who \"canlife was to submit to it.
draw\" like drawing, and have spent many hoursTeenage kids used to have a more active role in
doing it; that\'s why they\'re good at it. Likewise,society. In pre-industrial times, they were all
popular isn\'t just something you are or you aren\'t,apprentices of one sort or another, whether in shops
but something you make yourself.or on farms or even on warships. They weren\'t left
The main reason nerds are unpopular is that theyto create their own societies. They were junior
have other things to think about. Their attention ismembers of adult societies.
drawn to books or the natural world, not fashionsTeenagers seem to have respected adults more
and parties. They\'re like someone trying to playthen, because the adults were the visible experts in
soccer while balancing a glass of water on his head.the skills they were trying to learn. Now most kids
Other players who can focus their whole attention onhave little idea what their parents do in their distant
the game beat them effortlessly, and wonder whyoffices, and see no connection (indeed, there is
they seem so incapable.precious little) between schoolwork and the work
Even if nerds cared as much as other kids aboutthey\'ll do as adults.
popularity, being popular would be more work forAnd if teenagers respected adults more, adults also
them. The popular kids learned to be popular, and tohad more use for teenagers. After a couple years\'
want to be popular, the same way the nerds learnedtraining, an apprentice could be a real help. Even the
to be smart, and to want to be smart: from theirnewest apprentice could be made to carry messages
parents. While the nerds were being trained to getor sweep the workshop.
the right answers, the popular kids were beingNow adults have no immediate use for teenagers.
trained to please.They would be in the way in an office. So they drop
So far I\'ve been finessing the relationship betweenthem off at school on their way to work, much as
smart and nerd, using them as if they werethey might drop the dog off at a kennel if they
interchangeable. In fact it\'s only the context thatwere going away for the weekend.
makes them so. A nerd is someone who isn\'t sociallyWhat happened? We\'re up against a hard one here.
adept enough. But \"enough\" depends on where youThe cause of this problem is the same as the cause
are. In a typical American school, standards forof so many present ills: specialization. As jobs become
coolness are so high (or at least, so specific) thatmore specialized, we have to train longer for them.
you don\'t have to be especially awkward to lookKids in pre-industrial times started working at about
awkward by comparison.14 at the latest; kids on farms, where most people
Few smart kids can spare the attention thatlived, began far earlier. Now kids who go to college
popularity requires. Unless they also happen to bedon\'t start working full-time till 21 or 22. With some
good-looking, natural athletes, or siblings of populardegrees, like MDs and PhDs, you may not finish your
kids, they\'ll tend to become nerds. And that\'s whytraining till 30.
smart people\'s lives are worst between, say, theTeenagers now are useless, except as cheap labor in
ages of eleven and seventeen. Life at that ageindustries like fast food, which evolved to exploit
revolves far more around popularity than before orprecisely this fact. In almost any other kind of work,
after.they\'d be a net loss. But they\'re also too young to
Before that, kids\' lives are dominated by theirbe left unsupervised. Someone has to watch over
parents, not by other kids. Kids do care what theirthem, and the most efficient way to do this is to
peers think in elementary school, but this isn\'t theircollect them together in one place. Then a few adults
whole life, as it later becomes.can watch all of them.
Around the age of eleven, though, kids seem toIf you stop there, what you\'re describing is literally a
start treating their family as a day job. They create aprison, albeit a part-time one. The problem is, many
new world among themselves, and standing in thisschools practically do stop there. The stated purpose
world is what matters, not standing in their family.of schools is to educate the kids. But there is no
Indeed, being in trouble in their family can win themexternal pressure to do this well. And so most
points in the world they care about.schools do such a bad job of teaching that the kids
The problem is, the world these kids create fordon\'t really take it seriously-- not even the smart
themselves is at first a very crude one. If you leavekids. Much of the time we were all, students and
a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices,teachers both, just going through the motions.
what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot ofIn my high school French class we were supposed to
American kids, I read this book in school. Presumablyread Hugo\'s Les Miserables. I don\'t think any of us
it was not a coincidence. Presumably someoneknew French well enough to make our way through
wanted to point out to us that we were savages,this enormous book. Like the rest of the class, I just
and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupidskimmed the Cliff\'s Notes. When we were given a
world. This was too subtle for me. While the booktest on the book, I noticed that the questions
seemed entirely believable, I didn\'t get the additionalsounded odd. They were full of long words that our
message. I wish they had just told us outright thatteacher wouldn\'t have used. Where had these
we were savages and our world was stupid.questions come from? From the Cliff\'s Notes, it
Nerds would find their unpopularity more bearable if itturned out. The teacher was using them too. We
merely caused them to be ignored. Unfortunately, towere all just pretending.
be unpopular in school is to be actively persecuted.There are certainly great public school teachers. The
Why? Once again, anyone currently in school mightenergy and imagination of my fourth grade teacher,
think this a strange question to ask. How could thingsMr. Mihalko, made that year something his students
be any other way? But they could be. Adults don\'tstill talk about, thirty years later. But teachers like him
normally persecute nerds. Why do teenage kids dowere individuals swimming upstream. They couldn\'t
it?fix the system.
Partly because teenagers are still half children, andIn almost any group of people you\'ll find hierarchy.
many children are just intrinsically cruel. Some tortureWhen groups of adults form in the real world, it\'s
nerds for the same reason they pull the legs offgenerally for some common purpose, and the leaders
spiders. Before you develop a conscience, torture isend up being those who are best at it. The problem
amusing.with most schools is, they have no purpose. But
Another reason kids persecute nerds is to makehierarchy there must be. And so the kids make one
themselves feel better. When you tread water, youout of nothing.
lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, inWe have a phrase to describe what happens when
any social hierarchy, people unsure of their ownrankings have to be created without any meaningful
position will try to emphasize it by maltreating thosecriteria. We say that the situation degenerates into a
they think rank below. I\'ve read that this is whypopularity contest. And that\'s exactly what happens
poor whites in the United States are the group mostin most American schools. Instead of depending on
hostile to blacks.some real test, one\'s rank depends mostly on one\'s
But I think the main reason other kids persecuteability to increase one\'s rank. It\'s like the court of
nerds is that it\'s part of the mechanism ofLouis XIV. There is no external opponent, so the kids
popularity. Popularity is only partially about individualbecome one another\'s opponents.
attractiveness. It\'s much more about alliances. ToWhen there is some real external test of skill, it isn\'t
become more popular, you need to be constantlypainful to be at the bottom of the hierarchy. A
doing things that bring you close to other popularrookie on a football team doesn\'t resent the skill of
people, and nothing brings people closer than athe veteran; he hopes to be like him one day and is
common enemy.happy to have the chance to learn from him. The
Like a politician who wants to distract voters fromveteran may in turn feel a sense of noblesse oblige.
bad times at home, you can create an enemy ifAnd most importantly, their status depends on how
there isn\'t a real one. By singling out and persecutingwell they do against opponents, not on whether they
a nerd, a group of kids from higher in the hierarchycan push the other down.
create bonds between themselves. Attacking anCourt hierarchies are another thing entirely. This type
outsider makes them all insiders. This is why theof society debases anyone who enters it. There is
worst cases of bullying happen with groups. Ask anyneither admiration at the bottom, nor noblesse oblige
nerd: you get much worse treatment from a groupat the top. It\'s kill or be killed.
of kids than from any individual bully, howeverThis is the sort of society that gets created in
sadistic.American secondary schools. And it happens because
If it\'s any consolation to the nerds, it\'s nothingthese schools have no real purpose beyond keeping
personal. The group of kids who band together tothe kids all in one place for a certain number of hours
pick on you are doing the same thing, and for theeach day. What I didn\'t realize at the time, and in
same reason, as a bunch of guys who get togetherfact didn\'t realize till very recently, is that the twin
to go hunting. They don\'t actually hate you. Theyhorrors of school life, the cruelty and the boredom,
just need something to chase.both have the same cause.
Because they\'re at the bottom of the scale, nerdsThe mediocrity of American public schools has worse
are a safe target for the entire school. If Iconsequences than just making kids unhappy for six
remember correctly, the most popular kids don\'tyears. It breeds a rebelliousness that actively drives
persecute nerds; they don\'t need to stoop to suchkids away from the things they\'re supposed to be
things. Most of the persecution comes from kidslearning.
lower down, the nervous middle classes.Like many nerds, probably, it was years after high
The trouble is, there are a lot of them. Theschool before I could bring myself to read anything
distribution of popularity is not a pyramid, but taperswe\'d been assigned then. And I lost more than
at the bottom like a pear. The least popular group isbooks. I mistrusted words like \"character\" and
quite small. (I believe we were the only D table in our\"integrity\" because they had been so debased by
cafeteria map.) So there are more people who wantadults. As they were used then, these words all
to pick on nerds than there are nerds.seemed to mean the same thing: obedience. The kids
As well as gaining points by distancing oneself fromwho got praised for these qualities tended to be at
unpopular kids, one loses points by being close tobest dull-witted prize bulls, and at worst facile
them. A woman I know says that in high school sheschmoozers. If that was what character and integrity
liked nerds, but was afraid to be seen talking towere, I wanted no part of them.
them because the other girls would make fun of her.The word I most misunderstood was \"tact.\" As
Unpopularity is a communicable disease; kids too niceused by adults, it seemed to mean keeping your
to pick on nerds will still ostracize them inmouth shut. I assumed it was derived from the same
self-defense.root as \"tacit\" and \"taciturn,\" and that it literally
It\'s no wonder, then, that smart kids tend to bemeant being quiet. I vowed that I would never be
unhappy in middle school and high school. Their othertactful; they were never going to shut me up. In
interests leave them little attention to spare forfact, it\'s derived from the same root as \"tactile,\"
popularity, and since popularity resembles a zero-sumand what it means is to have a deft touch. Tactful is
game, this in turn makes them targets for the wholethe opposite of clumsy. I don\'t think I learned this
school. And the strange thing is, this nightmareuntil college.
scenario happens without any conscious malice,Nerds aren\'t the only losers in the popularity rat race.
merely because of the shape of the situation.Nerds are unpopular because they\'re distracted.
For me the worst stretch was junior high, when kidThere are other kids who deliberately opt out
culture was new and harsh, and the specialization thatbecause they\'re so disgusted with the whole
would later gradually separate the smarter kids hadprocess.
barely begun. Nearly everyone I\'ve talked to agrees:Teenage kids, even rebels, don\'t like to be alone, so
the nadir is somewhere between eleven andwhen kids opt out of the system, they tend to do it
fourteen.as a group. At the schools I went to, the focus of
In our school it was eighth grade, which was agesrebellion was drug use, specifically marijuana. The kids
twelve and thirteen for me. There was a briefin this tribe wore black concert t-shirts and were
sensation that year when one of our teacherscalled \"freaks.\"
overheard a group of girls waiting for the school bus,Freaks and nerds were allies, and there was a good
and was so shocked that the next day she devoteddeal of overlap between them. Freaks were on the
the whole class to an eloquent plea not to be sowhole smarter than other kids, though never
cruel to one another.studying (or at least never appearing to) was an
It didn\'t have any noticeable effect. What struck meimportant tribal value. I was more in the nerd camp,
at the time was that she was surprised. You meanbut I was friends with a lot of freaks.
she doesn\'t know the kind of things they say toThey used drugs, at least at first, for the social
one another? You mean this isn\'t normal?bonds they created. It was something to do
It\'s important to realize that, no, the adults don\'ttogether, and because the drugs were illegal, it was a
know what the kids are doing to one another. Theyshared badge of rebellion.
know, in the abstract, that kids are monstrously cruelI\'m not claiming that bad schools are the whole
to one another, just as we know in the abstract thatreason kids get into trouble with drugs. After a while,
people get tortured in poorer countries. But, like us,drugs have their own momentum. No doubt some of
they don\'t like to dwell on this depressing fact, andthe freaks ultimately used drugs to escape from
they don\'t see evidence of specific abuses unlessother problems-- trouble at home, for example. But,
they go looking for it.in my school at least, the reason most kids started
Public school teachers are in much the same positionusing drugs was rebellion. Fourteen-year-olds didn\'t
as prison wardens. Wardens\' main concern is tostart smoking pot because they\'d heard it would
keep the prisoners on the premises. They also needhelp them forget their problems. They started
to keep them fed, and as far as possible preventbecause they wanted to join a different tribe.
them from killing one another. Beyond that, theyMisrule breeds rebellion; this is not a new idea. And
want to have as little to do with the prisoners asyet the authorities still for the most part act as if
possible, so they leave them to create whateverdrugs were themselves the cause of the problem.
social organization they want. From what I\'ve read,The real problem is the emptiness of school life. We
the society that the prisoners create is warped,won\'t see solutions till adults realize that. The adults
savage, and pervasive, and it is no fun to be at thewho may realize it first are the ones who were
bottom of it.themselves nerds in school. Do you want your kids
In outline, it was the same at the schools I went to.to be as unhappy in eighth grade as you were? I
The most important thing was to stay on thewouldn\'t. Well, then, is there anything we can do to
premises. While there, the authorities fed you,fix things? Almost certainly. There is nothing inevitable
prevented overt violence, and made some effort toabout the current system. It has come about mostly
teach you something. But beyond that they didn\'tby default.
want to have too much to do with the kids. LikeAdults, though, are busy. Showing up for school plays
prison wardens, the teachers mostly left us tois one thing. Taking on the educational bureaucracy is
ourselves. And, like prisoners, the culture we createdanother. Perhaps a few will have the energy to try
was barbaric.to change things. I suspect the hardest part is
Why is the real world more hospitable to nerds? Itrealizing that you can.
might seem that the answer is simply that it\'sNerds still in school should not hold their breath.
populated by adults, who are too mature to pick onMaybe one day a heavily armed force of adults will
one another. But I don\'t think this is true. Adults inshow up in helicopters to rescue you, but they
prison certainly pick on one another. And so,probably won\'t be coming this month. Any
apparently, do society wives; in some parts ofimmediate improvement in nerds\' lives is probably
Manhattan, life for women sounds like a continuationgoing to have to come from the nerds themselves.
of high school, with all the same petty intrigues.Merely understanding the situation they\'re in should
I think the important thing about the real world is notmake it less painful. Nerds aren\'t losers. They\'re just
that it\'s populated by adults, but that it\'s very large,playing a different game, and a game much closer to
and the things you do have real effects. That\'sthe one played in the real world. Adults know this.
what school, prison, and ladies-who-lunch all lack. TheIt\'s hard to find successful adults now who don\'t
inhabitants of all those worlds are trapped in littleclaim to have been nerds in high school.
bubbles where nothing they do can have more thanIt\'s important for nerds to realize, too, that school is
a local effect. Naturally these societies degeneratenot life. School is a strange, artificial thing, half sterile
into savagery. They have no function for their formand half feral. It\'s all-encompassing, like life, but it
to follow.isn\'t the real thing. It\'s only temporary, and if you
When the things you do have real effects, it\'s nolook, you can see beyond it even while you\'re still in
longer enough just to be pleasing. It starts to beit.
important to get the right answers, and that\'sIf life seems awful to kids, it\'s neither because
where nerds show to advantage. Bill Gates will ofhormones are turning you all into monsters (as your
course come to mind. Though notoriously lacking inparents believe), nor because life actually is awful (as
social skills, he gets the right answers, at least asyou believe). It\'s because the adults, who no longer
measured in revenue.have any economic use for you, have abandoned
The other thing that\'s different about the real worldyou to spend years cooped up together with nothing
is that it\'s much larger. In a large enough pool, evenreal to do. Any society of that type is awful to live
the smallest minorities can achieve a critical mass ifin. You don\'t have to look any further to explain
they clump together. Out in the real world, nerdswhy teenage kids are unhappy.
collect in certain places and form their own societiesI\'ve said some harsh things in this essay, but really
where intelligence is the most important thing.the thesis is an optimistic one-- that several problems
Sometimes the current even starts to flow in thewe take for granted are in fact not insoluble after all.
other direction: sometimes, particularly in universityTeenage kids are not inherently unhappy monsters.
math and science departments, nerds deliberatelyThat should be encouraging news to kids and adults
exaggerate their awkwardness in order to seemboth.