That confession is made in the same spirit as when Anthony Edwards' character said it at the end of "Revenge of the Nerds," as a proud declaration of my comfort with being outside the mainstream.
When Edwards spoke those words (he actually said "nerd," but whatever), it was portrayed as shockingly brave. He was voluntarily marking himself as a social pariah.
That was 1984. Today, being a geek has become so acceptable that most people probably shrug and think, "So what? Me, too."
Such was not always the case.
Geekiness certainly wasn't the norm when I was devouring secondhand fantasy and sci-fi novels as a kid and tearing pages out of video game magazines to store in three-ring binders with as much care as my friends did their baseball cards.
As an adult, I spend a significant portion of my income buying new game systems, but throughout my childhood my first and only console was the Nintendo Entertainment System.
Despite this, I went gaga over new releases that were tantalizing yet mostly unattainable. The only exception to this was at Christmas, when my Yuletide bounty from relatives was blown at Electronics Boutique (I eventually worked there part-time).
Later, when my friends were dreaming about getting behind the wheel of a car, my fantasy was having an arcade cabinet in my closet or a high-end video card that would let me play "Quake II."
I understood how computers worked and loved fixing them, which yielded both pocket money and the privilege of leaving classes to help tech-deficient teachers. I was on the chess team and collected action figures. I watched Japanese animé. I wrote short stories about sorcerers and space stations.
That used to be what being a geek meant. Somewhere along the line, though, the definition flipped.
Now, playing games like "Halo" and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" has become a socially acceptable activity. "World of Warcraft" commercials even feature Mr. T, Ozzy Osbourne and William Shatner trying to attract even more people to the 11.5 million-strong online roleplaying game.
Geek icons like Optimus Prime, Tony Stark and Frank Miller have left the shadows of ignominy to enter the spotlight as cultural juggernauts in Hollywood blockbusters. That's baffling to those of us who first experienced them in comic books and cartoons.
Geekiness has even become fashionable. Walk through Hamilton Place Mall, and you'll see people strutting about wearing thick-rimmed glasses and T-shirts emblazoned with zombified Star Trek ensigns, one-up mushrooms and slogans like "I See Dead Pixels" and "Han Shot First" (he did, of course). People are now as proud of owning Dr. Who apparel as they are band T-shirts for The Ramones and Led Zeppelin.
This might seem like a wonderful turn of affairs, a free pass into acceptability for all geeks, but the reason being a geek isn't something to be ashamed of is that we have never been bothered by it.
We've always shamelessly indulged our fixation with comics and video games while tossing around catch phrases like "Beam Me Up" and "Don't Cross the Streams." We didn't care if we were laughed at because we knew it was cool before the rest of the world caught on.
I think that's why being geeky has become trendy. A geek is someone who can take a devil-may-care attitude about his or her passion and pursue it, regardless of what other people think. Who wouldn't want to be that free?