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A common complaint about nerds is that they should “get a life.” For example, parents, teachers, etc. feel quite justifying in tsk-tsking hackers who spend most of their hours in front of a computer screen. Interestingly, we don’t feel much inclined to complain about athletes who are similarly focused. Alex quotes Wallace ’95:
It’s better for us not to know the kinds of sacrifices the professional-grade athlete has made to get so very good at one particular thing. … The actual facts of the sacrifices repel us when we see them. … Note the way “up close and personal” profiles of professional athletes strain so hard to find evidence of a rounded human life — outside interests and activities, values beyond the sport. We ignore what’s obvious, that most of this straining is farce.
This seems to me yet another example of people picking on nerds more because nerds are widely disliked.
Added 11a: Many suggest that “get a life” means “get popular, high status.” OK, I can buy that.
Who Should Get A Life?
LOL, A common sense person wouldn't take to the point where he/she would get paranoid. Obviously the person who is saying gaf has no sense, and shouldn't be worried about another person, and what's he or she is doing. Sex is Universal, A Strong-Minded Person shouldn't be worried about some pathetic loser telling them to get a life when that person has a life of their own. Try Again.
Didn't click the link, but I've been thinking a lot about the concept of trance states recently. I think nerds can fail to enter the trance state that builds social cohesion, and can fail to cover (Goffman term) that they aren't in that trance state. It's a failure to have either a brain that kluges in the direction of the central tendency, or a brain that can model that central tendency so as to avoid being socially unaesthetic towards it.