A Benefit of Not Being Popular in High School

There is a new widget on the blog, a current reading one. For those who noticed I’ve already moved one current reading book to the finished pile, Stop Acting Rich by Dr. Thomas Stanley. Dr. Stanley is also the author of The Millionaire Next Door and its two sequels. Stop Acting Rich is the third sequel covers much of the same ground as the first but with numbers updated from a survey in 2005-2006 (a decade after the original).

One interesting point is his strong discussion on socialization throughout the book. Specifically, he likes to discuss people he calls the glittering rick and aspirationals, those who aspire to be like the glittering rich. Yet at one point he calls them the beautiful people and that crystallized something for me.

While I have always enjoyed, and learned from, Dr. Stanley’s work his discussions about premium and luxury consumer goods and those who buy them when not rich have confused me. They do no longer. I was a geek in high school and learned early I could never be one of the beautiful people. I think, in the long run, it immunized me against being an aspirational.

After learning to play D&D what benefit of being a geek ranks so high?