This was seven or eight years ago before I quit smoking. The place I worked at had an outdoor smoking area where most people gathered to socialize. At the time I, a woman in my late twenties, had my bag with a bunch of geeky pins, including several Marvel pins. A new guy came up to me, looked at my bag, and scoffed.
New Guy: “Are you even a real fan?”
Any girl into geeky stuff knows where this is going.
He started quizzing me on Marvel but in a weird, obscure way. Like, “In which issue of ‘X-Men’ was Kitty Pride first introduced?” kind of obscure — pedantic statistic kind of questions. When I didn’t know, he rolled his eyes.
New Guy: “I knew you were just another fake fan.”
My turn. I put on my best “clueless girly-girl” voice.
Me: *Faking confusion* “Aren’t you going to answer some questions, too? You know, to really root out any fake fans, since you seem so concerned about the concept.”
The guy was wearing a Deadpool shirt.
Me: “What’s Deadpool’s full name?”
New Guy: “Wade Wilson.”
Me: “No, his full name. What’s his middle name?”
He didn’t know. I asked if Deadpool had any kids. He didn’t know. A few more (actually) basic Deadpool questions later, he hadn’t gotten any right.
Really upping the girly-girl voice, I said:
Me: “Huh. You asked me all those weird questions, and I just asked for the name of the guy on your shirt and whether he had kids or not. I guess both of us are fake fans, then?”
And then, I just beamed at the guy. His face turned red, and he stormed out. He didn’t even finish his cigarette.
He never talked to me again. There’s no “…and then everyone clapped,” but I did get a high-five and a smirk from another smoker who had been watching.
Pulling an Uno Reverse while ramping up the girliness has become my go-to move against gatekeeping a**holes, and it is AMAZINGLY effective. I highly recommend it!