I was not a geek in high school. I know this because I never had a slushee tossed in my face (which, according to no less an authority than Glee, is the leading indicator of geek status in high school), and I never suffered the distinct indignity of a “wedgie,” and I never went to high school. As a top-ranked gymnast, I worked through our high school’s “independent study” program, which meant that every person in every class I took thought I was perfectly wonderful.
Neither was I particularly uncool at college. I was a varsity athlete, a relatively sociable person, and a leader in student Christian fellowships. There were times when my counter-cultural Christianness was painfully clear. I did not go to drinking parties, had no interest in joining a fraternity, and made no effort to bed the young ladies at Stanford University. But, honestly, I never felt like an outsider. Stanford had many thousands of students from hundreds of different cultures and faiths and value systems. I was just a part of the mosaic.
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