One Of A Kind. Damn It.

For those of you that don't know, I'm in the military and currently deployed, and that's all I'm going to say about that, not a topic for this blog. What I will write about is the fact that I seem to be a tad bit different from the other people on my team, the same people that I see and talk to every single day. These are the only people I'm able to converse with, mess around with, and hang out with. And that is annoying as hell.

Don't get me wrong, I like all (well, maybe not all, but most) of the people I work with. I've been with most of them for the past year and have gotten to know them pretty well, and they know me pretty well also. I have a pretty good understanding of what makes each of them tick, and what ticks them off. At work, I have a fine time. I'm able to talk shop and I do accomplish my primary function, which is to train and supervise the junior members of my team. I'm good at what I do and my team respects me for it. The problem comes in after working hours. I may not look it, I'm 5' 10", 220 pounds of (mostly) muscle after all, but I am a geek at heart. I love comic books, video games, and blogging. I'm a huge fan of Twitter, Penny-Arcade, and CAD. I love Red vs Blue, RPGs, and G4 TV (AOTS is the best). I know for a fact, I'm the only one that reads Wil Wheaton's blog. Hell, I don't think anyone else even knows who he is here. And I'm the only one on my team that is seriously into electronics and really understands computers. Sure, a couple of the guys know a thing or two about operating their laptops, but most get lost trying to create an Excel spreadsheet. If I was to actually explain how a computer works to one of my guys I swear, his head would literally explode. As in boom. No, really.

Off hours are a little bit of torture for me. I really can't relate to the people outside of work. It's not that they aren't as smart as me, because that's not true. I work with a very talented group, it's just that they think a bit differently than I do. Take this for example: I just got back from vacation and decided, in commemoration of the release of the Watchmen movie, brought my copy of the graphic novel with me. A couple of days later I was finally able to watch the movie (and loved it). OK, side note, pirated movies are bad and you should not support this illegal activity, unless there are no movie theaters that you can go to in the ENTIRE COUNTRY, then it's OK. After watching it and finding out that most of the guys had already seen it the week before, I decided to bring out and introduce them to the afore mentioned graphic novel. I mean, if they liked the movie then the source material should be interesting, right? Wrong. My roommate took a look at it, flipped through a couple of pages, then promptly became bored with the book. Here I am thinking "WTF?!?!", how is he bored with it already? The book in itself is a classic, and I found that comparing the similarities and differences between it and the movie was very interesting. How can someone lose interest in the first couple of pages? At that point I came to a realization, I am alone here.

No, I'm not actually alone in the physical sense, but I don't have anyone here that I can truly be myself with. I can't talk gaming or books. I can't discuss science or sci fi. But, it's not all bad. I really do like the people I work with, they are interesting and intelligent. They just aren't like me, and I'm OK with that. I still have the internet to escape to.