Quote Originally Posted by XanBcoo
I dunno. There's enough girl otaku out there to give the dude otakus some hope. The only delusion a lot of otaku suffer nowadays is that having a girl in your group of friends actually makes you attractive.
We have to be careful to differentiate between the Japanese and American definition of otakus. In Japan, otaku-ness is slowly gaining acceptance, but only where it's an obsession (some would call it dedication) to something, particularly if its not tech/anime culture. Just as in the US, wide acceptance of super-dorky geeks will probably never happen in Japan.

If you love something enough, like cooking or guitar playing, you can be considered an otaku in Japan. And since there will be girls who love the same things, you can break free of the "loner nerd" stigma that is associated with tech/anime culture.