You Should Be a Nerd About Something
Sorry for the long absence, I started a new job.
When I was younger, I had a video game phase. In middle school, there was nothing my friends and I would enjoy doing more than logging in to our XBoxes and play Modern Warfare 3 together (from the 2010's, not the new one). When I played online, I wasn't very good, but I tried hard. A common insult thrown my way was that I was being a "try-hard".
I never understood that. So what I'm trying? If I'm going to do something I care about, I'm going to try to do it well. At that point in my life, I cared about being good at this game so I could play with my friends. They were better than me because they played the previous game (Black Ops) and I hadn't. I felt I had a lot to learn.
This is a bit of an awkward transition but I think it's actually a great thing to be a nerd about something. It's fun to care! Who cares why you like a thing, if you find enjoyment in it then that should be enough. Get really involved in learning about that thing, talk to people that like it and form relationships with those people.
There's no deeper thought here than that last paragraph. It just breaks my heart when people tell me about something that they like but have to preface it by saying, "oh, I know this is weird but..." or "I don't know why I like this but...". If people cared only about what people thought others expect them or thing they would care about, then the world would be a really boring place. I wish people would find enjoyment in the things they find enjoyment in and stop limiting expression of enjoyment.