I want to be a geek. I mean right now, most everywhere, geeks are looked at as outcasts, the undesired rejects of society. But in a few years, every brat littering their high school today, who spends their four major school years traumatizing the less popular breed of people cluttering the halls, will wish they’d been defined as a “geek.”

At this time, being called a geek is an insult, but as time wanders on, the term becomes less and less insulting. In the long run, geeks will be raking in the big bucks, while the same narrow-minded jerks that laughed at them in school will be mastering the phrase, “Would you like fries with that?”

The very things that seem to make these people “cool” are their partying ways and blasé attitude to any and all things involving school work; so wouldn’t mediocre jobs and a medium wage salary be the most expected outcome? How can drinking underage and harassing innocent kids broaden your scholastic horizons?

The majority of the bullies are jocks who assume they will go places with football and/or basketball. But the cold, hard truth is only a very slim percentage of the people who aspire to go pro actually make it. And when you fail to have a backup plan, where does that land you? Working at a fast-food restaurant for the rest of your life, the only goal you have left achieving a manger position? Though this wouldn’t stop some from having a fulfilling life, it will definitely fall short when your previous objective was to play a sport that you loved professionally.

Webster’s Dictionary defines a geek as a “person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.” Well, those who work with computers and such are in high demand, especially in this rapidly transforming day and age. It would be incomparably blissful to not care about being accepted and care only about being yourself! Kids can be cruel and spiteful, and not just in school, but life in general would be so much easier if we we’re capable of simply not caring.

Four years of being perceived as an outsider to the “normal” slacking student body seems well worth the trade-off. Having fun and blowing off your studies might be what makes you intriguing to others in high school, but later in life being capable of carrying on an intellectual conversation and holding down a job is of way more importance.

So yes, I want to be a geek, and I want to be able to genuinely not care about the nasty things people might say about me. Maybe one day, hopefully sooner rather than later, I will hear someone whisper the word “geek” with my name laced into the sentence.

Teen View columnist Hailey Hendrix is a sophomore at High Point Central High School.