[rudin]

The section "Your nerd has built an annoyingly efficient relevancy engine in his head." should be recast as "Expect social incompetence and rudeness from your nerd". This is not something people will accept or should accept. Nerds have to realize that when they do something like this they are performing a trade-off. As outcasts, they had to lower their need for social contact. The discrepancy between their lowered needs and the need of others is what causes these conflicts.

[RiderOfGiraffes]

The article is about understanding your nerd, and what it says is true. You will get social incompetence and rudeness from your nerd, whether or not you believe it to be acceptable.

This article is a step towards understanding not just by people of nerds, but by nerds of themselves. I was 17 when someone recognised these aspects f the nerd in me, and made me see them myself. Net result was that I made it a project to make myself socially capable.

In the main I succeeded, although there are still occasions when I slip and fall, but it was recognising and accepting the truth that made it possible to change.

The article is right as it stands, as indeed you actually acknowledge when you say "Nerds have to realize ... they are performing a trade-off."

[derefr]

Eh. There are social signals that are important, and then there are ones that we should really be able to strip away once we've mutually acknowledged that we're "switching protocol" to a version of socializing that doesn't require it. Many things can be included in this, from saying "god bless you" when someone sneezes, to buying one another birthday presents. As long as you realize that you've already communicated the knowledge that the social signaling mechanism was supposed to convey, you can drop the signal itself.

Of course, this is for the nerds who tend to over-analyze social situations for fear of screwing them up; there are also the kind who just have no idea what is considered "normal" behavior in the first place, so they don't have enough information to even choose to obey or disobey social mores. In the latter case, I'd advise "critical people-watching" to figure that kind of thing out; your nerd will then likely transition to the over-analyzing type once they have this large, novel corpus to pattern-recognize over.

[stcredzero]

As outcasts, they had to lower their need for social contact.

In the days of my youth, nerds often were trapped in a high-school society that had no need for them at all, other than as targets. Many nerds only recognize the grown-up version of society as a continuation of this. To many, it's all just a system of oppression. The "cave" that they construct around them at work is just a refuge in the storm.

Note the highly escapist nature of many nerd pastimes. For many, programming is itself of of these.

I think the nurturing of a nerd to sociability has to do with power relationships. I think the problem is releasing a nerd from his enclosed "cave" into a larger world of social interaction, without unleashing his/her potential for tyranny. It's like contacting a race of fierce equestrienne nomads.

Do: Open trade relations. Mutual exchange & benefit! Gradually.

Don't: Open a breach in the wall and have the barbarian hordes pour through. (The charge can happen in both directions!)