How to Date a Nerd

Chapter 18 - How to Be a Nerd

In the kitchen. Staring at my cup of coffee. Too many sugars when I took a sip. Not making a move when Dad sat in front of me. He was saying something I didn’t get. I just nodded. Nathan didn’t show up for breakfast. Good. Or might just lose it and break his face in front of Dad.

Ricky came just as I was about to the basement to work out. I didn’t say anything and just gestured for him to follow me. I went straight for the treadmill.

“So what do I do?” I asked when I figured out that he was too busy looking at the place to speak. It wasn’t much. A couple of treadmills. A bench press. Sets of weights. A wide flat-screen with speakers and blue-ray in case I got bored.

“Man, what does your Dad do for a living?” he asked, still wide-eyed. “First, a music room and now this? What else do you have? A private jet?”

That actually made me laugh a bit. I almost forgot that he didn’t know about my true identity. So I just shrugged and muttered, “He manages… stuff. So how do we go about this nerd thing?”

Distractedly, he headed to the entertainment section and picked up a tablet PC I had lying about unused for some time. He wiped the dust off the screen with the sleeves of his green checkered button-up shirt and plugged in a USB. I kept running and waited for him to finish transferring his files.

“To be a nerd,” he began. “First, you have to dress like one. But let’s omit that one. Your glasses might be enough. It’s a look that says I’m cool but smart enough to do other people’s homework. Now, the harder part is how to teach you to actually think like a nerd. It takes years and years of mental and emotional development to get to that point. So having said that, we’re going to have to train you to bluff your way into Nerdom.”

“Nerdom?” I repeated unsurely.

“The kingdom of nerds,” he answered grinning crookedly. “It’s some term we used in chess club. I keep forgetting you’re not one of us. So as I was saying, you have to learn these things.”

Ricky handed me the tablet. I hopped off the treadmill and started to scan the entries. Ten Most Popular Shakespearean Lines. Most Popular Novels with Synopses. One Hundred and One Scientific Trivia for Everyday Living. Sarcastic Expressions for the Intellectually Advanced.

“I’m supposed to read all this?” I blurted out. It was actually more than all the books I had read for school altogether.

He raised an eyebrow and set the tablet on top of the treadmill controls. “If you’re done complaining, let’s start.”

I didn’t know what was more tiring. Running at eight point five miles per hour or trying to memorize old English passages from Romeo and Juliet. Yeah. I graduated from high school without reading the actual book. Sarah volunteered to tell me a shorter, much understandable version of the story. That was how I went about with the term papers and school projects. But I never let her do any of my homework. That’d be like, lame.

My brain was starting to give up when we reached the fifth ‘manly’ novel Ricky picked. Apparently, all I have to do was know the general plot of each story and set in mind what I like and don’t like about the main characters. Then I’d have to invent some view about the story in general. Its impact to the readers. What the author probably wanted to convey to them.

“It doesn’t matter what you think about the story. You just have to sound like you have an opinion and stick with it,” Ricky said smugly. “If another novel that’s not in this list is mentioned in the conversation, just nod and look like you’re listening intently. When asked if you’ve read it, say maybe you have but a long time ago. You don’t have to sound so sure of yourself. Most nerds don’t. But when proving a point, one rule—be sarcastic. Like Nathan. Maybe you can learn fro—“