A few weeks ago the Chicago Tribune ran a piece called “You’ve come a long way, geek girl” about the trend of geeky girls as cool, best exemplified by Tina Fey, “Ugly Betty” and Lisa Simpson.

I am a geek girl to the core, despite bubble gum pop and glitter eye shadow overshadowing witty sarcasm and chunky-framed eyeglasses during my most formative years. I blame my dad, who without fail brings a book to family gatherings and high school plays. My mom, who has always advocated finding a nerd to call my own. My motley crew of literary snobs and political elitists, who often detest what I stand for but proudly stand next to me all the same as we spend our evenings shunning the Kam’s crowd, preferring philosophical debate.

I study English, the quintessential major for the impractical dreamy kids who fully realize the improbability of literature as a career. Kids who live in their fictitious worlds, who insist on seeing subtext and double meaning everywhere. Kids who melt under the power of the perfectly crafted metaphor.

I’m that girl who is happy sitting alone in the corner reading a novel, who is often lonelier in a crowd of people than with her thoughts and journal.

I have more crushes on literary characters than I did on boy band members in middle school, and forget film stars; the tortured hero of text makes me weak in the knees. But I’m not some cookie-cutter Jane Austen floozy who thinks Mr. Darcy is the epitome of lover boys. Give me Count Vronsky, Ashley Wilkes, Anthony Patch. Men of valor who try desperately to do the right thing but never get there quite in time. Infinitely quotable heartthrobs with strength of purpose who never show vulnerability except because of that one girl. I would take the tragically passionate life of Anna Karenina over some Disney heroine’s escapades in a moment.

In real life I find myself swooning for the guy who quotes Derrida’s concept of différance or admits he still hasn’t seen whatever flavor of the week YouTube video everyone else is gushing over. Win my heart by inviting me out for a cup or three of coffee and we’ll spend hours having those pretentious, precocious and utterly sincere conversations about the meaning of life. We’ll bask in the spirit of curiosity and self-reflection and leave the kind of spirits that can be purchased in fifths to the others.

I have yet to acquire the aforementioned glasses, but I look the geek girl part, furiously typing on my Apple laptop, sipping a mocha in an enviro-friendly cup. I’ve got a box full of chunky jewelry and I’m never fully dressed without a scarf.

So, the next time you see me on a Friday cuddled up with a book, don’t pity and please don’t hate. The starry-eyed view from behind my beloved books is just fine, thank you.

A vaguely related tangent: You’ll notice many of my geek girl qualifications stem from books. I recently wrote a column about our University library, which I fervently adore. I interviewed Valerie Hotchkiss, head librarian of the Rare Books and Manuscript Library. A geek girl turned powerhouse librarian, Hotchkiss is terribly frustrated by the conditions of her library – priceless books, original manuscripts, irreplaceable documents, thrown into a dusty corner on the third floor of the Main Library, lacking proper environmental controls.

Hotchkiss dreams of a new building, not just a space with bookshelves but also exhibition space, a lecture hall, a café. Our library is one of the few campus resources from which every student benefits and we have holdings worth more than anything found on the Bardeen Quad, yet this grandeur is hardly recognized much less reveled in.

All should share in Hotchkiss’ vision, not merely pleasure at owning the best stuff but a passion for one of the most simple and gratifying pleasures this life has to offer.