<p>My oldest embraced computer geekdom at 7 or 8 and never looked back. As far as I can tell he never was bullied. He got into a shoving match with a kid over something very stupid in 8th grade and got a one day in school suspension. The administrators were all terribly apologetic, but I actually think it may have had the effect of kids realizing he wasn’t someone to mess with, but he also kept better control of his temper after that. He ended up being well enough known around school that he was voted “Mostly likely rocket scientist” and kids like the guy who works in the local art store knew his name. That said he only had three close friends and he had no one at all who was interested in computer programming like he was. He really blossomed in college (Carnegie Mellon) which was full of kids just like him. Now there are lots of kids who play board and video games or think it’s fun to work on the Linux kernel in your spare time.</p>
<p>My younger son says he’s a nerd (“look at my t-shirts Mom”), but he was much, much more social than his older brother. He also did Science Olympiad, but instead of Academic Team, he was on the literary magazine because a friend was an editor. He didn’t go to parties with a lot of drinking (but some of his friends do drink and some don’t). His friends did seem to spend a lot of time hanging out doing things that didn’t cost much money. I don’t feel like he’s found as compatible a group of friends in college, but maybe he’s just not talking about them.</p>