As if the previous Confession wasn’t evidence enough, I’ve realized that my geek cred is perhaps higher than I’d thought it was. Here’s how I got the wake-up call.

One of my friends – the one who introduced me to Who, as matter of fact – recently went to an estate sale where he happened across a couple of Who-related books. They weren’t fantastically popular titles or anything, but each had some autographs in it. As such things often are, a few of them were hard to read. Here’s how he transcribed some of them, trying to figure them out.

• carole amy ford?
• S—–ke Wills?
• wendy cadbury (zoe?)
• nicholas c—–squiggle
• john …very squiggly…_eu/vene?
• very sqiggly but first name looks like neel/ro

Now I don’t know about the “average” fan (or the “average neowhovian,” for that matter), but I found I was able to identify these as fast as he was able to type them to me via chat. See how well you did.

• Carole Ann Ford [Susan Foreman]
• Anneke Wills [Polly Wright]
• Wendy Padbury [Zoë Heriot]
• Nicholas Courtney [Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart]
• John Levene [Sgt. Benton]
• Nicola Bryant [Perpugilliam “Peri” Brown]

Now if you got them all, too, then you’re probably either a Long Term Fan or completely obsessed like I am. If you haven’t even heard of some (or any) of them – either the actors or the characters – then you likely have a healthy, passing interest in the show. Or, possibly, you’re fanatical about post-Hiatus Who but have not yet begun to explore the pre-Hiatus back catalog.

Part of what surprised me about the level of my own geekdom was that it had so quickly surpassed that of the person who showed me the Whoniverse in the first place. Thinking back, I guess I always knew he wasn’t really A Fan (he’d rather call such folks “Whooligans” than “Whovians,” for example), but it still comes as a surprise when something I now consider common knowledge among the fanbase is unfamiliar to him. Welcome to Next Level…

I suppose I should have seen it coming when I purchased a region-free DVD player for the sole purpose of watching The Movie (which wasn’t out in North America for another two years afterward). Who else but a true Who-geek would do something like that? (And how many of those would love what they saw?) And yet, I still think of myself as an utter n00b when it comes to the Doctor. Maybe I’ve actually got a certain amount of qualified cred.

Now I just need to find a way to translate this into Real Cred within the larger Who Community. Hmmm… Gally, anyone?