Hang around with geeks long enough and you get the feeling that a fair number of them cultivate what can only be described as a seige mentality. Certainly the geek self-image of nerd-as-persecuted minority¹ isn’t universal, but when dealing with geeks (as I do both personally and professionally, being a geek myself) one runs across it an awful lot. It’s a delusion, of course, one which feeds into the nerdish notion of dweebs as unique, unappreciated and highly talented (not to mention desirable to hot chicks) and places involuntary social isolationism on a pedestal. After all, some of these nerd separatists note, the reason they’re, well, nerds is because they have unique habits and social gatherings that other folks just don’t understand.

It is my sad duty to report, however, that this train of thought has been derailed more thoroughly than a plot device in an M. Night Shyamalan opening sequence. My fellow geeks, I must confess: I have proof that there are other groups of weirdos out there who act just as strangely as we do.

That’s right: I got dragged to a cross-stitch festival.

Now before you ask "Why on Earth did you go to a cross-stitch festival," let me pre-emptively offer a defense: None of your damn business. I was there, I was there with someone, and that’s all that need be said. Furthermore, let me state categorically that I have nothing against cross-stitch as a hobby or those who indulge in it, though my on-staff crafts expert assures me that cross-stitch is, and I quote, "just a goddamned fill stitch, and not even a very good one." That doesn’t matter to me; the last thing I stitched was my side after running for a cab in Los Angeles during E3, and all I knew about cross-stitch at the time I went to the gathering was that the person I was going with liked to do it as a hobby, and that if I went with her to this thing she might break down and attend a baseball game one of these decades. But I digress.

When I agreed to go to the cross-stitch festival (which I later learned was named "Heart of Cross-Stitch" -- presumably "Liver of Cross-Stitch," "Spleen of Cross-Stitch" and the ever-popular "Islets of Langerhans of Cross-Stitch" are also on the cross-stitch/internal organ crossover calendar), I learned that it was being held in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Winston-Salem is home to, among other things, the formula for Coca-Cola and Wake Forest University (which is odd, because Wake County and any forest therein are located 70 miles east), and a tourist district that shuts its doors on Saturdays. I know this because the process of trying to find a place to eat lunch there after the festival yielded no positive results save for a lovely walking tour of the area around the Hilton.

The festival -- no, I won’t call it a festival any longer. To me, at least, the word "festival" implies music, celebration and at least one or two quaint native costumes (SCA garb does in fact qualify). A festival should be, well, festive. This, however, was not. It was, and I shudder to use the term, a con. There were panels. There were workshops. There were people wearing buttons and sweatshirts with utterly goofy attempts at witty sayings. There was a dealer’s room, for crying out loud, loaded up with tchotchkes endemic to what can only be called the cross-stitch lifestyle.

In other words, my fellow geeks, they’re just like us. Swap out a pile of never-stitched patterns for your pile of never-read Tanith Lee novels, swap out the hand-stamped buttons that say "Kiss me, I’m Vogon" for hand-stitched ones that say "Cross-Stitchers Do It Precisely" and so on, and you find that the behavior patterns are the same. The last big con I was on the floor for had people lined up around the block to get autographs from Christopher Lambert²; Heart of Cross-Stitch had people lined up around the block to get an autograph from the gentleman who inflicted Precious Moments on the world.

(Don’t know what Precious Moments is? If you’ve ever seen those hideously cute pictures of widdle kiddies with big blue eyes so wide Greg Louganis could do a cannonball into them, you’ve seen Precious Moments³. Odds are, you’ve blocked out the memory.)

So that was the world I plunged into. The con was spread out over two hotel buildings, so the first hour or so was spent wandering aimlessly, dodging chattering cross-stitchers who looked at me with a mixture of curiosity and pity. Something in their eyes said "You are clearly here as someone else’s ride/signficant other/whatever, and are expecting your heart to be cut out in a ritual sacrifice to be used in our bizarre cross-stitching rites." Something in my eyes said "Why yes, you’re right. "

Eventually, I stumbled into the deepest, darkest section of the convention, the one place that can always be found located in the depths of the hotel basement: the dealers’ room. Here one could find innumerable patterns, as well as thread, books, sewing kits, finished bits of cross-stitch, sweatshirts with humorous sayings, and other bits of cross-stitcheria that no person outside the needle-wielding tribe would ever understand. Consumers roamed the aisles, gazing at merchandise under the cold stares of matronly hucksters anxious for the sale. Off in the corner, the hotel served hideously overpriced sandwiches and cookies. and cans of Coke that cost more than my afternoon’s parking.

Needless to say, this is where I found my travelling companion. She was examining cross-stitch patterns for Scottish clan symbols. As I’m of Russian/Polish extraction with a smattering of Austro-Hungarian, I quickly ascertained that it was pretty damn unlikely that any of my family crests (family lore has it that one is a peasant, standing next to another peasant, fleeing Russia. Vert, on field argent, if memory serves.) We then proceeded to another booth, and then another, and so on. She was genuinely interested in the incomprehensible doodads for sale, me standing there and trying to look interested. No doubt our roles would have been reversed at, say, a baseball card show, but the fact was we weren’t at a baseball card show. We were in a basement in Winston-Salem, looking at cross-stitch necessities.

After about half an hour of cruising the various aisles, it was deemed that my escortly duty had in fact been fulfilled. I was free to go elsewhere for the duration -- not that there was anywhere else to go⁴. So I took my book and made my way to what could only be described as "The Wall of Bored Husbands." They were there by the fistful, glowering men who’d volunteered to attend this even in hope of winning those mythical "Good husband" points that can later be squandered on golf outings, football games and getting caught at a strip bar after work. Each hunched up against the wall, making sure there was sufficient space between him and the next fellow so that the world would know that he was in fact a really butch heterosexual. Each glowered balefully at any passers-by, then returned his gaze to his exceedingly manly book. (We’re talking a lot of Tom Clancy here, folks, a whole lot. Why? Because when you’re at a cross-stitch festival it’s important that people not think you’re some kind of needle-knotting wuss. Or something.)

Me, I settled in with my copy of John Keegan’s The Face of Battle⁵, made sure I was the mandatory one foot from any other men, and settled down to read. Time passed. Men were collected from the Wall of Bored Husbands, one by one. I read. And eventually, a shadow fell across my book.

I looked up. It was a woman, probably in her late 40s. She was looking back at me with a bemused expression, and when I opened my mouth to ask if I could help her, she started speaking first.

"Let me guess," she said. "You’re here either as someone’s boyfriend or fiancé. You have absolutely no interest in being here, but you’re here because you’re trying to do something nice for your young lady. Am I right?"

I laughed and told her she was right. She nodded primly. "Of course. You know, my husband never came to these things with me. And now we’re divorced. Hmm. I probably shouldn’t have told you that."

With that, she walked off. I stared after her.

It was another hour before my companion wandered up, satisfied with her purchases, and it was a long drive home. I mentioned the possibility of doing a Grumble on the experience, and she told me that if I did so, she’d leave me instantly. Other topics were OK, apparently, but not this one. Cross-stitch, unlike any of our other misadventures, was sacrosanct, and I was left wondering why.

Ultimately, months later, it came to me. It’s because cross-stitch, like Dr. Who or Star Wars or running around dressed like a vampire or fantasy baseball or anything else, is serious to its devotees, and it’s serious in precisely the same way. It’s only weird to those on the outside. It’s just worth remember that just as we’re all on the inside of something, we’re all on the outside of something, too -- and the other guy’s inside looks a lot like ours. It’s just a pity we can’t see that from the outside.

Then again, if we could, we’d end up with cross-stitched pillows with Sontarans on them, and nobody wants that. Do they?

Naah. They don’t.

Freaks.

---

1. Over the years, people have suffered organized persecution because of skin color, religion, sexual preference, political allegiance and innumerable other factors. To my knowledge, the ability to differentiate between a Sontaran and a Zygon has never, ever been one of them.

2. Either him, or David Prowse. I get the two of them mixed up.

3. Or something appallingly like it.

4. More accurately, my companion sensed that I was bored out of my mind and offered to wrap up. I told her to take her time. Since we’d come all this way, there was no sense shortchanging the trip. I had a book, after all, and could go read. Unfortunately, my attempt to use this to gain more Boyfriend Points and coerce her to a Durham Bulls game failed. Miserably.

5. It’s a manly book. Trust me.