andrewducker | (no subject)

"If there is any generalisation that you can draw about how men think versus how women think, I believe it is that men can narrow themselves down to this incredible narrow laser-beam focus on one tiny little subject and think about nothing else."
"Whereas women can't?"
"I suppose women can. They rarely seem to want to. What I'm characterising here, as the female approach, is essentially saner and healther."
"Hmmmmmm."
"See, you are being a little paraoid here and focusing on the negative too much. It's not about how women are deficient. It's more about how men are deficient. Our social deficiencies, lack of perspective, or whatever you want to call it, is what enables us to study one species of dragonfly for twenty years, or sit in front of a computer for a hundred hours a week writing code. This is not the behavour of a well-balanced and healthy person, but it can obvioyusly lead to great advances in synthetic fibres. Or whatever."
"But you said that you yourself were not very focused."
"Compared to other men in my family, that's true. So, I know a little about astronomy, a lot about computers, a little about business, and i have, if I may say so, a slightly higer level of social functioning than the others. Or maybe it's not even functioning, just an acute awareness of when i'm not functioning, so at least i know when to feel embarassed."
Amy laughs "You're definitely good at that. it seems like you sort of lurch from one moment of feeling embarassed to the next."
Randy gets embarassed.
"It's fun to watch." Amy says encouragingly. "It speaks well of you."
"What I'm saying is that this does set me apart. One of the most frightening things about your true nerd, for many people, is not that he;s socially inept - because everybody's been there - but rather his complete lack of embarassment about it."
"Which is still kind of pathetic."
"It was pathetic when they were in high school," Randy says. "Now it's something else. Something very different from pathetic."
"What, then?"
"I don't know. There is no word for it. You'll see."

Says Neal Stephenson, in the frankly fantastic Cryptonomicon.

I can totally empathise with this. I actually feel like I'm not focussed enough. There are many things i want to do, and all of them require me to bury myself away with computers for long periods of time. But I miss people, which pulls me back out. I'm too easily distracted, I have in some ways become too well socialised. I miss the focus I had where I could spend my time neck deep inside code, occasionally surfacing for air.

Personally, I blame the roleplaying.