All my friends are here

I always found the easiest way to make new friends was to find my fellow dorks. Even in the tiny town of a few thousand people where I was growing up, they were there. And while it sometimes took a little while to find them, I could always track some down. The geeks were my tribe, and my people. 

We might not all have the same passions, but it was the enthusiasm that always hooked me in. People who could get loud and excited about the weirdest shit were always the people I wanted to hang around with. I could feed off their positivity, and I still do. This shared happiness makes us all feel alive. 

Not all my mates share the same kind of drive for the nerdiest things in life. There have been some who actively hate the things I love - more than a few of my dearest friends think Dr Who is the stupidest TV programme in the world and tell me this on a regular basis, and I will always tell them they're wrong

As long as I can agree on the biggest things in life - some friends took a sharp turn down Bigot Ave, and it was painful to cut them out of my life, but it had to be done - there will always be a loving connection.

I went to a concert the other week with one of my oldest mates in the world, who I have known since 1984, and he's still as wild and honest and keen as ever, and it was the first time we'd gone out to something in many, many years, but we could have been 17 again. (Although he did not fail to remind me of the Radiohead gig he and my other pals saw in 1993 that I missed out on - still one of the great regrets of my life).

My oldest and deepest friendship started with a shared bond over the Judge Child Quest reprints that Eagle put out, and has been built on a shared love of 2000ad, X-Men, cricket and Doctor Who, but he's still the most loyal and kind person I know, and that counts far more than our shared opinions on Brian Bolland.

There were still times, when I felt like the only dork in the village, and the only one listening to Iron Maiden and reading Namor The Sub-Mariner comics. Those times felt like they would last forever, but they were extremely short-term in the end, because I always find my people. 

We're everywhere, and can bond over the dorkiest shit, and can always find each other.