Company at the bottom of the pit

There's nothing sweeter that sharing your loves and obsessions. The internet makes this possible on a massive front. Participating in boardgaming communities, baking forums and World of Warcraft newsgroups makes me feel less alone. But the real challenge is dragging your real live friends into the darkness of your hobbies.

I have, as you may have understood, a severe gaming addiction. My friends play too, but they are all a lot more casual users than I am. They like to smoke weed on the weekend, while I sometimes want to spike my veins with high grade smack or inhale the sweet fumes of crack cocaine from a stainless steel pipe. Of course I could go the full mile and start hanging out with some real junkies, but there's also the respect from my loved ones to be considered. No one wants to live with a substance abuser.

On a couple occations, though, I have been able to drag my friends down with me.

I used to be heavily into World of Warcraft (then I quit, because it stopped giving me the thrill I needed, read more about this here). While I was just starting up I gave the ten day free pass to a friend. To my great joy he took the offer and before I knew it he had passed me in level. Now, we had some great times in that parallell universe, but sometimes I wonder if I really should have slipped him that ticket. I hardly see the guy anymore, and, though his girlfriend seems to be okay with it, he's only a part time resident of earth nowadays. All mixed up in guild business and skipping soccer games for raids in the dungeouns of Azeroth.

Last week I gave another friend a plastic container of active sourdough culture and bullied him into making his own bread. I was pleased to hear the bread turned out great and tasted fantastic. It seems like the hobby is catching on. Next on his list is Austrian whole grain rye. The question is, will it turn into an an addiction, and do I want that on my conscience? What if he drops out of the university and go start himself a bakery?

You have to look out for yourself, too. Perhaps you need a sane environment to stay in touch with the real world. Before you break out that nice little gateway boardgame or ten day free trial to kick off your win over campaign, think it through. You may need people around you to help you stay put. My girlfriend for instance, I would never want her to come over to the dark side. She is my lantern in the blackness. My north star to keep the ship straight. Without her I might have quit my job and started selling The Big Issue.

I bake therefore I am a nerd

Perhaps when you look at me you will suspect nothing. I don't have buck teeth and thick glasses. I wear clothes that are (arguably) up to date, I have a good job and a gorgeous girlfriend. But I am a nerd in the most literal sense of the world. Up until my early twenties I was an avid roleplayer, I still consider boardgames one of my major hobbies, I play World of Warcraft and whatever I do I always do it a little too much.

This summer I took up baking. It started with a little web browsing on sourdough and a few experiments at home. Then, as always, it just spun out of control. Before I knew it I was ordering baking bibles on the internet. Big fat volumes with very few images, dense with complex baking theory. I brought home proofing baskets, thermometers, spatulas and expensive flours. My jeans constantly smudged with white powder. The freezer filled to the top with halves of bread that are simply two many for us to eat.

And, to be honest, even though every loaf took about twenty-four hours to make the bread isn't that much better than the average stuff you bake over three hours from the back of the flour package.

So what's the point? people ask. Why go through that much trouble for such a measly result? Well, there is of course the hope that one day the bread will be just amazing and truly outshine everything I ever ate before. But to really answer the question I need you to understand the mind of the nerd. See, the question is really the other way around. The result is really just a biproduct of the hobby. The nerd needs a challenge for the mind, and hobbies that don't take up a lot of energy and time are just not worthwhile. Mediocre end results are frustrating, of course. But really it just means I get to spend a little more time trying to master my hobby. Dive back into the books, go over the procedure and try to zoom in on what I did wrong.

In the end I will make that fantastic loaf, which will surely give me a sweet thrill of success. But us nerds are restless souls. If there's nowhere to go from there, if there's nothing more to learn, then I will have to trash the apron and go find myself a new hobby.