When you were a kid were you called a nerd, and if so, how did you deal with it?

[quaker bill]

4. I went on and won the Chess Tournament anyway

However for self-preservation I did make a number of friends who were decidedly not nerds. I found it was amazing what a little voluntary help with homework and test answers could do for my relationship with the jocks and machine shop guys. One or two "A" grades on the report card (for some the first their parents had ever seen) and they very quickly had my back in any confrontation.

Nothing really changed in the long haul, as most them ended up expelled or in jail before graduation, but I got through middle school and the freshman year unscathed.