PSA: Reductio ad absurdum

Well, I've watched the first disc of Big Bang Theory, season 1, and I do find it charming and geeky enough to cover over the fact that it was created by the same guys who came up with the much-and-accurately-maligned "Two and a Half Men" and "Dharma and Greg."

Sheldon is, indeed, the best.

The difference between Sheldon and Leonard, actually, seems to be the difference between the two types of nerds Benjamin Nugent points out in American Nerd: The Story of My People. The first type (Sheldon) is a human that acts kind of like a robot -- overly concerned with precision and execution, viewing social interactions as a kind of complex matrix of behavior rather than a spontaneous, organic way of living. The second type (Leonard) is someone associated with the same activities and ambitions as the "real nerd" but without the actual robot-like social impulses. The second type is a nerd by association, in other words.

Which is what makes Leonard so much less attractive as a character and human being than Sheldon is. Sheldon has the kind of self-assertion that only extremely arrogant people have, but without the social mettle required to be truly annoying. He's obviously not going to grease himself up and pick up a surfboard to get "chicks," since his is the power of precise observation, and he knows that neither he nor Leonard are likely to ever succeed in surfing or picking up women, except possibly as the result of some kind of physics experiment.

Leonard can understand Sheldon, but isn't able to quite grasp the idea that he occupies a certain place in society (one that doesn't include getting heavy furniture up the stairs, retrieving televisions from ex-boyfriends, or dating Penny) the way Sheldon can, partly because Leonard doesn't unambiguously occupy that place.

This combined with Leonard's general unattractiveness makes me feel less likely to befriend him, less likely to like him if I met him, and also saves the show from being a plotless portrayal of geeks in their native environment.

"Leonard wants Penny but can't have her" becomes, then, the main conflict of the show, and yet background for the much funnier, much more charming, much more endearing subplot, "Sheldon is a true nerd."