Hello together. It has been a while since my last visit and I also did not have much time to write at all. Therefore my English might be a bit rusty. Still there is an incident I would like to share with you. Actually I am not yet quite sure what to make of or how to “cope” with it.

Due to the great pleasure of studying mathematics my circle of acquaintances and friends incorporates a significant amount of individuals whom many might “categorize” as nerds.

Among them there was a guy who throughout his life up to the age of 22 did nothing else but sitting in front of his PC programming or playing games. Two years ago he told me that he had decided to “reprogram” his life and has already developed a strategy to do that. He called it (haphazard translation from German) “The Transformation of Lies into Reality”. The concept can be best described by recreating the dialog we had on that subject (the guys name is Joshua or Josh):

Josh: Juri, what do you think is the most salient difference between me and a socially successful alpha-male?

Me: Well you are what most would label a nerd.

Josh: Well yes – but what makes nerds nerds?

Me: Apart from their outer appearance - I would say their conversations. Topics like role playing, shooters or programming.  

Josh: You are on the right track. Now try thinking or remembering what the conversations of the “cool” young people are like.

Me: Hmm … I have not idea. Mostly boring I would assume. Sometimes they just discuss who was the most wasted individual last night or who nailed whom …

Josh: Precisely – the main difference are the stories they tell each other. Our geek talk mostly revolves around imaginary stuff like games or dead things like technology. Their conversations on the other hand deal with events pertaining to people and their lives. They tell each other stories of what happened to them or to their friends. The one with the best story is usually also the most “socially successful” one. Do you see it?

Me: You have decided to become a professional story teller??

Josh: You are closer to the truth then you might think. Stories are what makes us who we are. Knowledge gives us the tools necessary to live and prosper but the things we experience the stories which protagonist is nobody else but oneself – they turn the cluster of cells which is our body into what we call a person or individual. Thus if you alter/swap/change the stories which make you you, you can become a different you altogether.

Me: I can somewhat subscribe to that. Still, Josh – there is no way you could alter your past.

Josh: You are right I cannot alter the past I actually experienced but I can create or imagine a past which would be a suitable basis for the new me.

Me: So it basically comes down to lying to people about who you are.

He: No I will lie to people about who I was and thus become who I want to be.

Me: But that’s completely false and dishonest!!! You would be selling a fraud.

He: If people chose to believe me it is their own doing. In the end it does not matter. Step by step I will have to “lie” less and less for I would actually experience the stories which I tell.

End of reproduced dialog :)

As far as I understand it he meant that by telling lies and entertaining people he would lose his social awkwardness. Then gradually he would evolve into somebody who would have no need to fabricate stories for he would acquire enough real friends and romances he could tell about.

Unfortunately for his plan to work he had to move away. A person’s opinion of you is like a canvas which people fill gradually as they get to know you and he needed those canvases to be empty for his plan to work.

We tried keeping in touch first but gradually our correspondence ebbed eventually dying silently and peacefully.

Yesterday we had an unforeseen reunion which is the actual cause of this post. Joshua was transformed. In front of me stood not the nerd from two years ago but what one normally would call a really cool and interesting guy. He talked with ease, not dominating the conversation but pushing and probing it subtly to serve his purpose. The girl by his side was real as were the stories he told (for the girl actually acted as witness – I do not think she was an “accomplice”)

I am still a bit shocked perhaps. What are your thoughts/opinions?

I will admit that his definition “of socially successful” is not really congruent with mine. Also, I cannot tell you what price he actually paid to achieve what I have witnessed – did he lose his depth of character which made him so appealing a friend, did he become superficial and how is he feeling in his knew skin. What must it feel like to be living a reality which is hanging in the air for its basis has been created out of nothing? How many lies must be told and how much of one’s conscience subdued … I find the entire incident both alarming and fascinating.