Before hiding your geekiness forever, consider the Altered Reality Club

By Leah Bjornson
Photos by Flikr

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve stumbled home on a Friday night, only to find my brother and his friends in their nigh on eighth or ninth hour of Dungeon Mastering. I can, however, say that not only have I had to tag in for an exhausted adventurer and assume the role of Orgrim Flamecrash or Dank the Well-Hung, I’ve actually enjoyed it.

Now, I don’t consider myself a geek. I wrestled all through high school, was captain of the soccer team, and played sports five days a week. However, this doesn’t mean I don’t like video games, Game of Thrones or even the occasional MMORPG. Heck, I even played World of Warcraft for a good while. There are many people who also enjoy these activities, many of whom don’t identify as geeks.

The truth is geek clubs aren’t just for geeks anymore. You don’t need to be lurking around
campus shouting, “Leeroooy Jenkiiins!” (I might be kind of a geek) while wearing your gold Triforce medallion to feel like you fit in. Nor should you feel ashamed if that is exactly what you’d like to be doing at this moment. What you should realize is that even though you might be hesitant about admitting you occasionally want to storm castles and defeat dragons, chances are there are many people who like the exact same things.

To find out just how common these interests are, try checking out the Altered Reality Club (ARC). Like many clubs at SFU, the ARC provides opportunities for students (and even some TAs) to meet new friends with similar interests. Such interests can range from tabletop gaming, to weekly screenings of Firefly, to playing werewolf at ARC’s various icebreakers and sleepovers. Even if there’s just one thing that you enjoy sharing with others, be it Simulators or Bleach or just a creative mind, that’s reason enough to be a part of the club.

In fact, the ARC could be bringing “geeks” and “non-geeks” together by making geeks emerge from their dark, brooding basements to socialize in the light of day, while giving non-geeks a less stigmatized venue in which to interact. I know when I was WoW’ing around, me and my Gnome Warlock, Rutabaga, (you heard me), were stuck on my family’s computer to interact with pixelated warriors; if I had been able to hang out with other normal kids who liked the same game, I think I would have felt a bit better about playing it.

That’s one thing I like about these social “geek” clubs: games like Dungeons&Dragons, unlike some video games, force you to flex your creative muscles and play with other people in person. It doesn’t hurt that, unlike when you get stuck in a video game at an impass or an impossible puzzle, you have the choice here to SMASH THAT PUZZLE AND BURN IT AND “SAY FUCK NO I AIN’T DOING THAT ,COME UP WITH A BETTER PLAN, DUNGEON MASTAH!”

By fading the line between geeks and non-geeks, clubs like the ARC are helping not just nerds, but everyone, to feel more comfortable in their own skin. Maybe it just takes a couple late-night D&D sessions to realise that these “geeky” games are things we could all potentially enjoy.