Call me "Q"

I don't really like the name "Scott".  There are several reasons. 

1. It's one syllable.
It can't be shortened, but people have to try to make a nickname out of it anyway.  I hate being called "Scotty."  Do people really think they're being clever when they ask me to "beam" them up?  I like the original Star Trek and I love the new movie, but I hate that nickname.  Only Melissa gets to call me Scotty.
2. It's cute
In spite of what Melissa says, I just can't see being cute as a good thing. Cute people and things don't get taken seriously. Bunnies and babies are cute. Cute means innocuous, effeminate and harmless. Cute is what a preteen girl calls the new boy she just met, it doesn't help you land a job.
3. It's a last name
As far as I've been able to trace it back, Scott was a surname long before it became a given name. I hate it when people use last names for first names.
4. It doesn't say anything about me.
Why can't I have a nice biblical name or a name that means "warrior" or "shepherd" or "town drunk" or something? What does "Scott" mean? It means you're from Scotland. Seriously.

Ok, so it could be worse. I don't share it with half the town. I'm not constantly hearing my name called from across the room only to find out they were paging someone else (that only happens once in a while for me).  My fiance likes it, again, because it's cute.  Nevertheless, I have a few times tried to get by with a nickname.
Fischer dorm at Wheaton College is divided into suites.  Each suite is two rooms connected by a mutual bathroom, so there's two students to a room, four to a suite.  The one time I actually liked living with other people was that first year at Wheaton.  It was like camping.  I liked my roommate and my two suitemates.  This was a guys-only floor.  Girls weren't allowed except during certain open-floor nights when all the doors had to remain open.  It worked out well, I thought, but I'll blog more about my relationships with women some other time.
Anyway, there were 3 "Scott"'s on the 2nd floor of Fischer dorm.  Me: Scott Meyer, Scott Draper and Scott Mealus.  Now, I never did find out what method was used to assign students to their rooms, but the suite where I lived contained all three: Me and Scott Draper in one room and Scott Mealus (along with his roommate John Perryman) in the other.  There were 3 Scotts in one suite.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to give myself a nickname.
The first day I arrived at Wheaton College, I called myself Q.  It didn't really mean anything, but I came up with all kinds of different explanations for it.  My hair was short, so I looked like a Q-ball.  It stood for "Question Man".  It was after Q from James Bond.  It sounded cool.  I was cool.
I wasn't used to being cool.  I'd never been cool before.  I was used to being in the shadows, overlooked.  I was used to my actions being ignored.  As Q, what I did and said got noticed.  Suddenly, my words and actions started having weight.  It was like I was back on stage again.  I couldn't handle it.
I had lots of friends.  People who's names I couldn't even remember all remembered me: quiet, unsocial me.  Things I said in class became important, and I didn't even realize it.
Cut to Junior year.  I was trundling along, head down, off in my own little world.  I was struggling to keep up in classes because, once again, I was failing to work well with others.  I was taking mostly computer courses and trying to do everything all on my own so I never asked for help, never got to know any of the guys I was in class with.  I think I was growing a little paranoid, on my way to a nervous breakdown.  I didn't realize that I was still cool.
I was always jealous of the whiz kids.  It never really got through to me that I would be working with people smarter than me, and that I would have to deal with that.  Growing up, I had nothing to offer physically or socially, or so I thought.  The only thing I had going for me was my intelligence.  I just HAD to be the smartest person in the room.  I never realized that smart people ask questions.  More stuff to blog about later.
So one day there was a fire drill.  It happens occasionally.  College students love anything that's disruptive to dorm life, so everyone else was standing around outside having a good time.  I was just looking forward to going back in and getting back online.  So there I was: head down, not talking to anyone, getting annoyed that it was taking so long when this sophomore comes up to me.  I'd seen him before, probably had several classes with him, but I didn't know his name.  Didn't know him.
"Just who do you think you are?" he says.
"What?"
"Doc never answered my question because of you."  Doc was Doctor Hayden, head of the computer science department.  Most of my classes at this point were with him.
"What are you talking about?"
So this kid goes on to talk about a question he had asked, days ago.  It could have been weeks ago for all it mattered to me.  He'd asked a question, and I had blurted out a joke about it that made the whole class, including Doc, laugh.  I didn't even remember what the joke was.  Still don't.
"I never found out the answer because Q thought it was funny."  The way he said my nickname was the same way I would have talked about the popular kids in high school.  It reminded me of another junior who's name I never learned.  I'd called him a poseur once because of this stupid hat he wore: a baseball cap with dog ears on it.  Apparently, he'd overheard me because he stopped wearing the cap after that.  Sometime later, he asked me if I thought he was still a poseur.
Anyways, It's hard for me to explain what happened after that.  I guess "Q" really stood for "Quitter" after all.  That one conversation pushed me over the edge and out the door.  I quit school.  Too many people knew me, recognized me.  My desire to be cool conflicted too much with my need to be anonymous.
So Q went the way of the dinosaurs.  I went home.  When I returned to Wheaton a year later I was back to being pseudoanonymous Scott Meyer.  Things weren't the same and I dropped out again after another year.  I'll blog about it some more some other time.