I just read something that felt like a spotlight shining directly into my soul. Rands in Repose just wrote “The Nerd Handbook”, and I didn’t know whether to wring his neck or send him a basket of gourmet cheeses. Along the same lines, I didn’t know whether I should immediately send my wife a link to the article or to block Rands in the Windows hosts file on our home computer. First go read the article. If you have time, read the comments on the article to see how many people agree just as strongly as I do.

Done? No you’re not. You can’t read that fast. It’s a long article. I’ll wait.

…

Now are you done? Really? Well, either you actually are done or you’ve lied to me twice already so it’s not going to do me any good to ask again.

Understand your nerd\’s relation to the computer. Guilty as charged, although I’d include math in this as well. Yes, I cringe at phone calls because I asynchronous communication (email) is much less demanding on my time. Yes, I have tried to create a general equation to figure out how to get a tie the right length (although my drive to church isn’t long enough for me to finish). Yes, I’d throw my TV away before I’d even go back to dialup.

Your nerd has control issues. Not as much of a problem with me, mainly because I’ve been married to a very non-nerdy woman for years now. She’s impossible to control and so I have to spend much more time cooperating than I would if I were single. On the other hand, I’ll do relentless research on anything before I actually undertake it, because I like to get it right the first time.

Your nerd has built himself a cave. I’d love to have done this, but my time/money has gone into my family instead. We have a computer room, but it’s in our loft so it’s open to the rest of the house and the family computer is in there too, so it’s not very cave-y. Maybe I’ll get some noise-cancelling headphones to make up for the openness. The other cave strategy I use is to work when everyone else is asleep. Since my wife is a night-owl, this usually involves getting up hours before I have to go to work. Also, I’m meticulous about picking up after myself because I don’t want my nerd things getting mixed in with my wife’s papers, baby toys or laundry.

Your nerd loves toys and puzzles. Oh boy, guilty, guilty, guilty. I loathe having to do things I know how to do, but I love figuring things out. The caveat to this is, since I’m so strapped for time (especially when I include my “would be nice” list), I tend to focus on things I know have an answer or solution. For example, I gave up on following politics because it’s something I can’t choose my answer to, I can only pick from available options (yes, I know about participatory democracy but it’s so much work). On the other hand, I have no doubts about the tractability of even very complicated computing problems.

Nerds are ****ing funny. (This is a family approved blog. Rands can say whatever he wants on his own page) Proudly guilty. The main point of humor is to get the person to expect one thing (whether from the setup of the joke or from their personal rules and expectations) and then give them something completely different. My favored method is to use a word/phrase that’s far more descriptive than most people would use, or to use a number that’s far too precise than realistic. For instance, instead of saying “I’m so mad, I just want to punch him in the face!” say “I’m so mad, I want to put him into a fingerlock and make him choose between apologizing or a broken finger.” For the numbers, instead of “Try the lamb vindaloo, it’s better than the curry.”, try “Try the lamb vindaloo, it’s preferred by 81% of local diners.” It’s a subtle distinction from exaggeration, but an important one. This tip alone is more than worth the time it took you to read this post (you’re welcome).

My sense of humor is the first thing most people say they like about me (including my wife). However, that combined with my, ahem, husky physique, means that the only celebrity people have said I remind them of is … Chris Farley.

Your nerd has an amazing appetite for information. Guilty. Even my nerd friends and co-workers are amazed at the number of books and articles I read. I largely gave up TV because I could entertain myself faster and more consistently with books and the internet. I do sometimes watch TV shows when they’re released on DVD because I can watch an entire season in a few days. I read a couple books a week and probably 50-200 articles a week on the internet. I listen to podcasts while working and driving, and my Amazon wish list is over 500 items. Like Rands says, I have multi-tasking issues and so I like to pick one thing and work on it until it’s done, because if I try to do more things at once, none of them will get done unless they’re very short and simple.

Your nerd has built an annoyingly efficient relevancy engine in his head. This was the point I didn’t want my wife to read. She likes to blow off steam when bad things happen, retell good events, give a rundown of what she has accomplished, and, you know, communicate. I, thinking like a computer (see first point), wonder why she wants me to know about things that were her responsibility and are taken care of. Is there a task for me? Am I supposed to provide feedback? Did I ask about it? Sometimes, but usually she just wants me to know about her life. Maybe the reason that seems foreign (even after years of marriage) is because after a lifetime of working on deeply nerdy things (including math and hard sciences in school), most people either can’t understand or aren’t interested in what you’re doing and what’s in your head. And since people can’t use information about your life, why would you want information about theirs?

Also, since it’s a lot of work to get hard problems in your head, and even harder to keep it there, everything coming in is ruthlessly triaged to try to protect that fragile little mental model of your problem that you’ve worked hard to put into mental RAM. Normal people don’t have that problem so they gab away.

Your nerd might come off as not liking people. I agree with the principle but not the premise. For me, it’s more of an information/effort triage like I mentioned above. There are so many people in the world and I have limited mental resources. If I know that person will be useful to me or I’ll be working with them frequently, I’m more than happy to invest in becoming their friend. I’m actually pretty good at it when I’m motivated. Unfortunately, there are so many people that will never become more than passing acquaintances, and I’ve seen so many of them fall into and out of my life that I no longer feel they’re worth the effort. Social triage, I guess. You can make a judgment about what kind of a person would do something like that, but my friends say I’m a really great guy.

Oh yeah, I also find it much easier to interact with people when I know more stuff about them (that’s the whole computer/mental model thing again). So people I know nothing about are just stereotypes to smile at, people I know a little about are no better, but once I start to fill in the holes (where they went to school, their favorite type of vacation, what books they’re reading, what they do on weekends, etc), they become alive and jump off the page for me. So if you want to be my friend, either write about this stuff on the internet so I can research it (see Scott Hanselman as a great example), or make sure we have a one-on-one “first date” type encounter where I can get to know you.

Advanced Nerd Tweakage

I had some trouble with section because the examples didn’t work well for me. YMMV.

Map the things he\’s bad at to the things he loves. I didn’t really get this because I love to travel. In our marriage, I’m the one saying we should go somewhere new and different like Montreal or Krakow or Sulawesi instead of Disneyworld. I do chores around the house because it removes distractions that could keep me from focusing on my projects. Maybe with better examples this would make more sense to me.

Make it a project. I’ll buy this, although it’s not really necessary because everything I do is a project. For instance, I’m exercising now and yes, I do have an Excel spreadsheet with my performance and daily weight. But I see it as a means to an end (live longer, have more energy everyday, make my back strong enough to endure the crappy chair I have at work, etc). I don’t see how this would work on me because I don’t do anything unless it’s a project.

People are the most interesting content out there. True, see above under “Your nerd might come off as not liking people.”

The Next High. My wife knows how boring I find predictability, and how good my computational mind is at predicting things. Surprises are good, because they’re fresh data points that can refine our mental model. But please, please try to make them pleasant surprises (“Honey, let’s go get Thai food tonight”), not unpleasant ones (“Honey, I went shopping and our debit card was declined.”).

So overall, I praise Rands for diagnosing Nerd behavior and characteristics, but I think that general troubleshooting tips are impossible to give. If you really need help managing your Nerd, find another Nerd and ask use him as a test environment. He’ll help you solve your problem – that’s what Nerds do!