Yeah, as a kid I was kinda the archetypal nerd. Short, fat, airheaded, besserwisser, straight A’s,* into manga and video games. My best friend for most of primary school was the guy with even better grades, but tall, handsome and a national championship level athlete.

Then puberty hit me pretty early and suddenly I was about median height for my age, I could do pull-ups while most of my classmates couldn’t, and even though I wasn’t that fond of gym class, I was mostly motivated enough to get a decent grade just for trying a little.

The nerd/jock thing always felt like an American thing from an older generation that wasn’t taken seriously. Maybe it was acknowledged by an overthinker like me, but to even bring up the distinction was kinda nerdy itself. It definitely wasn’t the defining social divisor in my adolescent life.

*Or rather, nines and tens on the weird 4 to 10 scale Finnish primary education uses.