<p>I hesitate to give advice to my d about anything, unless she makes it pretty clear that that is what she wants. She has me well trained. She did chew me out pretty good for not telling her not to drink (although I’m pretty sure I did).</p>
<p>^So basically you’re saying you’d rather hang out with a drug user than someone who owns some pokemon cards? I think your son has it the right way.</p>
<p>No, you didn’t read carefully enough. I didn’t mention drug users in relation to anyone he knows. I did say or meant to say that he was previously saying that anyone who smokes cigarettes (outside) like his roommate, or anyone who drinks a beer ever (this school is known for not being a party school but there have been the occasional beers) should be off his list immediately for getting to know.</p>
<p>Thankfully he’s loosened up a lot and is having a better time now that he has not isolated himself from some pretty decent people who live in his immediate vicinity.</p>
<p>I’m guessing you actually understood what I meant perfectly well (as long as you read and didn’t skim, and as long as your reading comprehension skills are reasonable) but felt some satisfaction in taking my words out of context to make me look like an ass. I must have hit a nerve.</p>
<p>Stockmarket, I actually think you’re giving great advice. You can’t do anything but nudge him, but he’ll be better served and more well rounded if he follows your advice and keeps open to the people he doesn’t think he’s interested in associating with.</p>
<p>If your son is happy and doing what he wants to do and not hurting anybody else, I really don’t think it’s any of your business. Your involvement in your child’s social life should have ended years ago.</p>
<p>I’m glad you have enlightened me, Emaheevul07. I am not sure what I would have ever done had not not stepped in to steer me to the correct path. All these years raising four children: (combined years of experience between them: 52 years. You must have more experience that this or did some book-lurnin’ about what people “should” do - shame on me for missing out on that) and I have been doing the wrong thing all along. Oh, if only I could turn back the clock. Then my son would be much better off without a screw-up like me interfering in such a bothersome manner. I’ve even made suggestions to him on matters like going to the dentist and flossing his teeth recently… but really I should have just let his teeth fall out… live and learn.</p>
<p>Of course, I knew all along that parents should really not even take an interest in anything their kids are involved in, or at least stop that by the time they pay adult price at a restaurant or whenever they start using deodorant. Really, when they can choose their own clothes, they really need nothing but for parents to “butt out.” Or there must be some other more specific schedule that you know of, but I didn’t get the bulletin.</p>
<p>… ahem… (lolz)</p>
<p>Thanks, all… I think everything is way under control. Those first few days can be sketchy but I am glad I was there for him, like when he called to talk for 1/2 hour just a while ago to tell me how things are much improved - and I was glad to hear him happy. (or was that a mistake, too, to take his call? Again… lol)</p>
<p>Why on earth did you post in the college life forum if you wanted the opinions of experienced parents and not college students? </p>
<p>Talk about touching a nerve, lady. Sheesh.</p>
<p>Your son kinda reminds me of how I am. I’m kinda a geek but I still like watching jersey shore and sports. But when it comes down to things I like tech, graphics, and other “geeky” stuff. I highly doubt your son is playing with Pokemon cards (they where over printed and are worth nothing today). I will never do drugs or smoke for obvious reasons. When it comes to alcohol I won’t drink until I’m 21 (the legal age!) and even then I wont drink more then 1 serving size at a party. Only thing is that I did go to public schools my hole life so I can personally get along with anyone. Anyway you can be “geek” and have connections with all types of people. There’s a load of different types of geeks (google types of geeks) and I’m guessing your sons not the type that you should be worried about.</p>
<p>wiki definition:</p>
<hr>
<p>geek is a slang term, noting individuals as “One who is perceived to be overly obsessed with one or more things including those of intellectuality, electronics, etc.”</p>
<p>From Urban Dictionary:</p>
<hr>
<p>One of four titles used to classify someone based on their technical and social skills. The other three titles are nerd, dork, and normie. The difference between the four titles can be easily shown in table form:</p>
<p>… Technical … Social
Title … Skills … Skills</p>
<hr>
<p>Normie … No … Yes
Geek … Yes … Yes
Nerd … Yes … No
Dork … No … No</p>
<p>Geek: An outwardly normal person who has taken the time to learn technical skills. Geeks have as normal a social life as anyone, and usually the only way to tell if someone is a geek is if they inform you of their skills.</p>
<p>Nerd: A socially awkward person who has learned technical skills due to the spare time they enjoy from being generally neglected. Their technical knowledge then leads normies to neglect them even further, leading to more development of their technical skills, more neglection, etc. This vicious cycle drives them even more into social oblivion.</p>
<p>Dork: A person who, although also socially awkward, doesn’t have the intelligence to fill the void with technical pursuits, like a nerd, and is forced to do mindless activities. Almost always alone. Usually with an XBox. Like playing Halo. All day. Every day. Not even understanding how the Xbox is making the pretty pictures on the screen. Very sad.</p>
<p>Hey, thanks, collegeguz. You do sound a lot like him, and pretty well-rounded. That’s all I was hoping he would aim for.</p>
<p>I don’t want to get caught up in labels because I might use the wrong one (and I don’t think labeling people is all that useful, anyway.) What worried me is that he told me he had picked two friends and didn’t want to get to know anyone else. I think he was highly stressed about moving in and confronting hundreds of new people and after we talked about it repeatedly, he reluctantly took my advice and now tells me it was the right thing to do, so it all worked out.</p>
<p>But as for those labels… (might hit someone’s nerve here but I doubt it) has anyone seen those people who cut their hair a la “Dumb and Dumber” and then put “Why be normal?” or “normal people scare me” stickers on their car or little inside jokes no one gets about science fiction shows - you know the types… the insufferable ones who think that they’re proving that they’re very intelligent simply by confusing everyone? For the sake of confusing everyone so they can elbow each other and smirk about how smart [they think] they are? And then they won’t give anyone else the time of day and don’t even have basic social skills like “hi” and eye contact? I guess I’m really not a fan of those types. Because they typically only have about 1-2 friends each, they revel in the superiority that they believe their “weirdness” (er, I mean “originality”) confers, and they prey upon anyone who will put up with them and join their tiny society. It looked like he was heading for that “easy way out.”</p>
<p>Not anymore, though… I think it is not that bad and he’s keeping a foot in various camps just to have people he can ask favors from if he needs it. If you become so socially isolated that no one is even on “hi, howsit going” terms with you, then you can’t even really tell someone you lost your room key and ask them to let you in. You see people you know in the dining hall but think they don’t like you (and they might not, because you never put any effort into being decent to them) so you go sit at a table by yourself. It can get very bad and I didn’t want that happening. Looks like crisis has been averted or is on the way to being averted, hopefully.</p>
<p>Note on the Pokemon: Cards, no… but the kids who all just use a character as their FB picture (as in “Let’s all put up our favorite Pokemon character today as our profile pictures!”) and then have long threads on “what character would you want to be?” and discuss Snorlax fondly - That’s what I was talking about.</p>
<p>p.s. Collegeguz: Thanks for the Urban Dictionary reprints. I love that site. Of course it’s filled with crudeness (which is oftentimes funny) but I learn a lot from it, basically because I find out what other people think… I’m a sociologist at heart.</p>
<p>Those were very interesting distinctions. Yes, dorks… I think that’s what I was getting at in my definition of the “Normal people scare me”-bumper-sticker people. Pretty sad and I didn’t want him to get sucked into that vortex because he has a lot more going for him than that and I didn’t want him to sell himself short due to a temporary crisis of confidence. Move-in week must be hell on a lot of people. If they could measure the collective stress level at that time, it must be off the charts.</p>
<p>I’m not a parent but I’m not sure how much influence a parent can have in regard to the son’s social life or who he associates with. Perhaps he will listen to a little advice here and there.</p>
<p>But I can see why you might have concerns. Unlike some people, I don’t see this as a case of being ‘intolerant’ of nerds. I am a bit of a nerd myself. However, I know the D-n-D (dungeons and dragons) crowd (freshman year roommate) and some of them are craaazy.</p>
<p>Look, its one thing to accept people’s unusual quirks and interests. But some things are more telling than others. For instance, I’ve played with pokemon cards before. IN THE 6TH GRADE. If I see people playing them in college, the message I get is that they are still, in terms of maturity, in the 6th grade.</p>
<p>But hey, if you play DnD, that is fine in itself. If you play that game, but still enjoy, oh, the company of others, making friends, seeing sunlight once in a while, personal hygiene, not being sarcastically and people-hatingly anti-social, then you are FINE! However, most people I’ve found that play that game do not fill that bill! Some do! Most don’t!.</p>
<p>Usually, pokemon cards and DnD are typically ways to hide from life, as well as people, because you are scared of both, and maybe have a social anxiety disorder/ low self-esteem. Hey, if you have those problems I feel for you, and I would like to help you/ hope that you get help. But, much like staging an intervention or getting help for a spiraling-out-of-control alcoholic, which is the self-destruction I see in many of these compulsive hide-and-play-games obsessions, I am not simply going to ‘jump in’ on the alcohol binging spiral myself.</p>
<p>Like I said, there is nothing wrong with nerdy games or typical ‘geeky’ things in general or even having nerdy tendencies - I have lots myself. But some anti-social behaviors and patterns are worse. And hanging out with ‘only nerds’ seems like someone is trying to create a surrogate of their high school friends, or has wild prejudices and intolerance to a lot of groups of people.</p>
<p>I doubt a mother has too much influence on her college son’s social life, but eh. I can see her concern.</p>
<p>Just like some of you would want to avoid cocaine-users, there are other people you might want to avoid. After all, you become like the people you most hang out with - they have even more influence than your parents. At least, that’s what psychology and sociology typically find.</p>
<p>Then again, your son’s friends might be fine and not like a few toxic individuals I’m thinking of.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I know I’m not adding anything useful to this discussion, but I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but laugh at how true this is. I know two nerds on my friend’s list who have some sort of anime character or Pokemon as their profile picture at the moment. Hahahaha.</p>
<p>Um, not to fuel an argument OP, but have you considered the possibility that maybe your son might be a “nerd” as well or identifies himself as one?</p>
<p>Well, sure, mushaboom blue… he falls into that crowd easily, but I know him pretty well (I should!) and it’s not really his very favorite stuff, although he likes it OK. He puts up with it, more or less, because that crowd of people (who are mainly now 10th-12th graders at the high school he just graduated from) are into it; he has a wide variety of interests, though, and frankly, some of these kids appear to have what I would consider an unhealthy narrowness of interests. What they do is not my business and I don’t know a lot about all of them (actually I know that some of them are dysfunctional, one in particular to the point of being physically self-destructive and telling everyone about it and he WISELY got quickly away from exactly that person … who was his GF at the time and I have him BIG, BIG credit for that.)</p>
<p>Life, at this stage, is somewhat about growing up, moving on (I think everyone agrees that few people keep up with the 16-yr-olds you were never great friends with but used to hang out with), getting away from unhealthy relationships like the girl described above who needs serious psychiatric help on an ongoing basis (and her parents know it, and she is just way more complex than I could type about here, plus it’s a tangent)… my point is that there’s a lot that goes into moving on and developing into the person you’re meant to be and most people leave the Pokemon behind at some point and branch out by meeting new people that represent the growing person that you are at this age.</p>
<p>To any detractors who give glib “just butt out, your social life hasn’t been his business for a long time” advice - He came to me and his dad, in a rare instance of flat-out asking our advice, about the mentally ill (and I mean that literally) GF, because he wanted to break up with her but wanted our impression of whether he was doing the right thing, and wanted our input on how to do it. Eventually he made up his own mind on how to do it.</p>
<p>I don’t care what any “butt out” people say - we were there for him when he needed us, and that’s what family - and good parenting - is all about, in my book. It would have sucked if we were standoffish *******s he could not approach. I’m glad I was able to help, that time with the breakup, and now. Ironically, at that juncture with the GF, my stance was more wishy-washy and “let her down slowly” in nature, but he made up his mind to just rip off the band aid and get the deed done. I’m proud of him, obviously - he has his own mind even if he wants input from others sometimes - and I think that’s a pretty good kind of person to be.</p>
<p>Wow, Peter Parker, you just said it all for me. You should be my personal typist because I can’t often word things that succinctly but you just nailed it all, to the last letter.</p>
<p>That’s exactly it - I didn’t want him falling into the “we hide from everyone, physically and socially” crowd because he has better potential than that; he just has to step up to the plate, not be lazy, and do the uncomfortable thing (meeting new people) and then reap the rewards. I think of it like investing (can you guess from my name that it’s one of my interests?) I’m an aggressive investor. I want rewards. (many times I feel the pain, though, also.) I see the benefits of “safe” investing that is almost like just putting your money under your pillow. But it’s pretty dull and will never get you anywhere.</p>
<p>The OP is clearly open-minded about the whole thing.</p>
<p>I wish my parents would have tried to control my life at the age of eighteen.</p>
<p>I think you have two types of people: A and B.</p>
<p>You are B and your son is A.</p>
<p>You want your son to be B. Your son wants to stay A.</p>
<p>You have some clear misconceptions on what A is while your son has some clear misconceptions on what B is.</p>
<p>Neither side is more correct or more open-minded. </p>
<p>Your son should be able to do whatever he wants with his life. If he doesn’t go outside of his room then this is obviously a problem(Just like never going to class and partying every night would also be a problem). But, if he is socializing and is making friends then I don’t see the problem with him staying A.</p>
<p>I’m not really B, not as much as you probably think after reading what I have written. I’m more A. How else do you think I know so well what’s going on here?</p>
<p>It’s just that I’ve learned through hard-won life experience that just a LITTLE tweaking toward the B side is very, very useful. Like I said before, introverts are never going to become extroverts. But tiny bits of extroversion can be learned easily and it brings huge rewards, out of proportion to the small amount of change made.</p>
<p>Of course it’s his life, not mine - I know that. But like I also mentioned - I could also just watch his teeth rot out but because I’m a mom, I advise him not to let that happen. Similarly, I advise him not to make the mistakes I have made. Parents all realize that only a small percentage of this advice might sink in and have any effect. But we provide our viewpoint to our kids anyway - because we care. It’s something you just can’t understand until you’re a parent. Or maybe unless you discover later in life that it sure would have been great if your parents had taken more of an interest in you than they did (some - not all - parents take such a “hands off” approach that it’s not really the best thing.)</p>
<p>Anyway, I keep saying that he’s doing better and said that I was right on that count and he’s glad he listened. This might chafe the people who, for whatever reason, think parents are basically the devil, but the outcome speaks for itself… I’m not perfect but frankly I do a pretty decent job as a parent. I do consult other sources (like strangers on the internet now and then.) Thanks for your thoughts, folks.</p>
<p>People are misreading the post. She is upset that her son passes judgements on people before he knows them. It doesn’t matter if he’s a geek or prep or jock or whatever. Good for her for at least pushing her son not to make judgements on first appearances of based on a habit or two. </p>
<p>She never mentioned drugs. She said her son won’t consider being friends with someone who smokes. </p>
<p>My parents realize that my friends not be the best people to be around (legal problems), but they also know bad habits don’t make bad people. I have friends in every catagory, and I think the OP wants her son to have diverse groups of friends. She’s also right to think of it from a networking perspective: you never know when you’ll need a favor or whatnot, as in knowing certain people pays off. It pays to be nice and respectful of everyone and laid back enough to hang out with different groups. Plus, if there is ever drama, you can get away from it by hanging with another group. </p>
<p>The OP isn’t shallow or controlling. People on her just want to act like she’s a shallow extrovert who is embarassed her son isn’t cashing in on his social skills, because people on here love to start debates about stuff like that. It’s actually really annoying. I guess people my age look at any help from parents as unwarranted intervention and mingling. </p>
<p>Sheesh.</p>
<p>Thanks, tiff90. You definitely get what I was saying, all the way.</p>
<p>This is a low-risk proposition - getting to know people in this new college environment. This is a freshman dorm hall as tightly policed as a jail. Almost no one has cars. It’s a small campus. It’s essentially a non-partying school (although at ANY school there are those who bend the rules, very discreetly at this place.) If people make him uncomfortable, he can just say “I’m going to bed” as he already has. You’re right - I just wanted him to not write people off in the first two days! He was saying he could not be friends with his roommate because he smokes cigarettes outside and this was my red flag that he was making extremely narrow restrictions on his social life. He also mentioned a mohawk in the room next door. I wasn’t even aware that he had a very negative view of mohawks. I have hung out with people who wear them, although I don’t now. I would not sport one. He would not. But these are not reasons to refuse to have anything to do with a person.</p>
<p>I was also raised in a family in which is was believed that “bad habits do not necessarily make for bad people.” </p>
<p>I think some people either didn’t read carefully, or they have intelligence or reading comprehension issues (sounds harsh but really, not all of us can comprehend as well as others) and/or they have axes to grind (such as “parents! What a pain!”) and they are just looking for keywords and phrases so they can go to town with those axes. And then there is the fact that people in this country come from all walks of life with varieties of social and family customs. That gives people an axe, also (they want to proclaim that in their family, parents don’t interfere with what 18-year-olds do - ever. Fine for them, then. So be it - in their family. It’s not strictly that way in mine.)</p>
<p>I think your son strikes a healthy balance. I am definitely a nerd, I have no issue admitting that, but I have made friends in college that I would never have been able to in high school. College is more open minded and your son will have the chance to make all types of friends with out a worry that the opposites will butt heads.</p>