But honestly, all of this pointing at other people is kind of annoying. We are just as culpable in our social ostracism as everyone else.

Nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have categorized it as pointless - at least seemed to have convinced themselves of that point. I disagree that they've learned to ignore the relevant emotions, it's more like they've convinced themselves that fitting in and being part of society is unimportant, and that the world is simply out to get them with their dumb social expectations.

Of course, many nerds never truly believe this deep inside, which causes all kinds of angst for them, but that's another topic entirely.

IMHO nerds on the whole have developed this giant victim complex. It's not us refusing to fit in with the group that causes our ostracism - it's clearly because we're smart and they fear our intelligence. Yeah, that's it.

People don't like us because a large portion of our community are quite simply arrogant jackasses. They pride themselves in being nerds, see themselves as smarter than the rest, and generally just lord their intelligence over everyone else. No wonder people hit us at our weak point: our lack of social skills.

This isn't meant to be a complete diatribe against nerds - I love being one, but honestly, a lot of the responsibility for the anti-nerd thing is our fault.

(Disclaimer: I'm actually quite the sports nut, as well as a huge nerd.)

Because, surprise, that's what people do. Do you really think all those "normals" really like Brangelina, Eminem, and Kobe Bryant? Hell no. In the "real" world everyone learns about things, and talks about things that do not interest them for the sake of socialization. Nerds seem to think they're the only ones who find these things dull and pointless - but here's the trick: so does everyone else! The difference is that normal people are willing to suck it up for the sake of staying in the social graph, while nerds don't. "Normals" acknowledge that in order to participate in this society, there will be a mix of shit that interests them vs. shit that doesn't.

The extension of that...

> "just to get the attention of a bunch of kids who like boring stuff?"

... which proves my point. Nerds lord their intelligence over other people, while being generally clueless as to how "normals" operate. They're not people, they're kids who like boring stuff. I'm such a unique snowflake, only I can see how boring all this celeb gossip is - clearly those dim-witted normal people actually like this shit. If you actually took the time and participated in society at large you'll know as well as everyone else that socialization is a great deal of give and take, and that what people object to isn't your boring interests, it's your complete unwillingness to participate in their boring interests.

I've had the opportunity to talk about things other people are interested in - the general rule is, if you show interest in what they're doing, they will reciprocate. A lot of the hostility that nerds get from the world at large is simply a direct reflection of the hostility they show the rest of the world.

> "Why not do stuff we find interesting, like math or reading,"

Surprise: the rest of the world does these things too. Especially reading. Like I've said above: their acceptance of your weird/boring interests is positively correlated with your acceptance of their weird/boring interests.

If nerds in general would just stop behaving as if they're kings of the universe, better than everyone else, they would ostracized a lot less. In fact, there are a large number of nerds who have figured this out - I know more than a few hackers who fit into society just peachy.

I think much of the problem for nerd kids in particular is that they're both unwilling to learn truly boring stuff (like celeb gossip), and not socially adept enough to steer conversation to interesting common ground with others (that's hard work for introverts.) This leads to the social ostracism you noted previously.

Given the tradeoff between "pretend to care about truly boring stuff" and "have a small social graph", I'd take the small social graph ten times out of ten. I would not recommend "suck it up and learn boring stuff" as a solution. A better solution is learning to find true common interests, maintaining a large social graph because everyone has some interests that are worth learning about.

As a moderately extroverted nerd, I didn't have that hard a time growing up, nor do I have a hard time now. I've always participated in people's interests, it's just that I've known how to participate in their cool, real interests instead of their boring, fake ones. But for those few people who I couldn't find common ground with (for whatever reason), I made the choice not to invent boring common ground. Yeah, that means "not fitting in" with them is my fault -- but that doesn't make it a bad thing.

I disagree. I never learned to ignore specific emotions - I was simply unaware of them. It took me a long time to learn to understand emotions.

Just because a person in denial wouldn't know it doesn't prove that I was in denial, it just means that you have a theory that's unprovable because you've set yourself up so that any evidence at all, both positive and negative, makes you believe that you're right.

However, I have argued for it, and I believe if offers the best explanation for the nerd-bully phenomenon. Bullies can't really pick on people who are simply mistaken, they can only pick on people who are (at some level) ashamed of themselves. [See my reply to zackattack for more.]

I'd like to stress that all this doesn't make bullying any less wrong or less damaging for all concerned.

Bullies can pick on anyone they choose. In my school they picked on everyone - including each other. The ones they continues to pick on were the ones that didn't fight back.

Whereas there are people who aren't picked on by bullies, despite having never fought back. And I don't think they are necessarily the most popular individuals (although such people do fit into that category).

"nerds lack emotional intelligence because they have learnt to ignore the relevant emotions." --> Maybe.

"That is why bullies are able to bait nerds; they both feel that the nerds' denial of group emotions makes them culpable." --> I would love to hear you expand on this, and I loved that you invoked a concept of "group emotions", which I had never before heard formulated as such.

So, although nerds are consciously unaware of their denial, it lurks beneath the surface and effects their emotional response in ways that other people can detect.

Not at all true. Especially with children. Shouting rude words at kids, threats of physical violence, and implication of things they don't understand make kids feel awful very easily.