It was exactly 1 p.m. — right on time — when Ben Goldsmith walked into the Starbucks on West San Francisco Street.

Ben is a senior at Santa Fe Preparatory, and from what friends and teachers say about him, he's special.

But as he strolled to the counter after introducing himself, not much about him looked remarkable. He's about 5 feet, 10 inches, thin, with short hair, and he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

When he returned to the small window table, he plopped down in his chair and leaned back. He asked if other kids were being interviewed for this story. The New Mexican is profiling half a dozen or so seniors, trying to get a variety of kids, a mix of experiences.

"Well," he said, "you got the nerd here."

It was the first time, but not the last, that Ben proudly admitted he was what most people considered geeky.

First of all, he's graduating June 6 from Prep at age 16. He'd be young for a junior, but after skipping a grade in elementary school, he's an even younger senior. He's on his way to Stanford.

He was in the chess club, has received various science awards and as part of the math club participated in math competitions. "I mean, who goes to math club?" he asked rhetorically, "Who goes to a math competition?"

Ben embraces, even relishes, his role as the smart kid, the one all his classmates ask for help. It's something he's learned to live with and enjoy.

But that wasn't always the case. Until a few years ago, he didn't have many friends. He stood out, and it wasn't comfortable. "I was the alpha nerd," he said. "I blamed the world for not liking me, that sort of thing."

It helped that the schools he attended — La Mariposa Montessori and Prep — were supportive and nurturing. "I've been in incredibly accepting situations my entire life," Ben said.

The change caught up with him in middle school. "I was the annoying little kid," he said. It nagged him for much of seventh grade and got him thinking that skipping a grade was a bad idea.

It wasn't until the summer between his sophomore and junior years that Ben had a breakthrough. He attended a camp in Colorado, and for no particular reason, he started to realize the world wasn't such a bad place. "It's a lot more accepting than I made it out to be," he said. "It was a big paradigm shift."

Ben finished his iced tea and nonchalantly slipped his cup into a nearby trash can. As he talked, he alternated slipping back in his chair with sitting forward, forearms on the table.

He's not a rambler. He answered questions concisely, pausing briefly before answering. For a 16-year-old, he's extremely self-aware. "He was very mature in how he behaved," said Jay Shelton, Ben's calculus teacher at Prep.

Over the years, the teacher has had some extremely bright students in his class. Often, though, those students had an attitude. "Some students can be obnoxious" about their abilities, he said. "He wasn't at all."

Shelton, who said he sometimes makes special arrangements for students, recognized early on while Ben was taking an Advanced Placement Calculus class that he was heads above the other kids.

After the first test of the year, the teacher told the math whiz he wouldn't have to do any homework as long as he continued to do well on exams.

For Ben, the textbook was the last resort. "He doesn't want to read it in a book," Shelton said. "He wants to figure it out."

His math prowess is known schoolwide. "My daughter, Poppy, was going through this math program," explained English teacher Rob Wilder. "And she was really struggling over a problem."

"I had to call Ben Goldsmith," Wilder said. "He was like my Phone-A-Friend in (Who Wants to be a) Millionaire."

The teacher handed the phone to his daughter and watched as she and Ben figured out the problem. "The next day, I had to go into school and admit that I had to call a student for help with my homework," Wilder said.

So what career is a math whiz going to pursue? Video games, naturally. "I grew up on video games," Ben said. "It's always been a thing for me."

He said it's the interactive nature of gaming that attracts him to playing and wanting to design the games. "It's the zone you get into when you're playing," he said. "You forget you're holding a controller." It's the kind of enthusiasm perhaps only a gamer can understand. Or maybe you just need to be a kid.

And video games, he said, seem to be some of the least acceptable forms of play. "People would think it was crazy if we started playing tag in here," he joked about Starbucks. "I'd love it, but it's not going to happen."

Ben's cell phone rang. It was a classmate who had a question about a project they're working on at the Santa Fe Complex. The Complex is essentially a group of scientists interested in complexity theory. If you don't know, don't ask.

Ben interned there this year, working on computer simulations that could be used in planning for forest fires or, you guessed, video game design.

After getting off the phone, Ben said he now gets along with everybody, unlike in his younger years. His affability is what makes people like him, and his willingness to make fun of himself endears him to them. It's those qualities that have made Ben more than a nerd. He's managed to break down any social barriers that might come as a result of being different, and, well, smarter than most people.

Shelton compared it to being a star athlete. "He does things we can't do," he said. "And he does them better than everybody else."

After agreeing to meet with a photographer, Ben turned to leave, joking he'd managed to find a parking spot as far from the coffee shop as possible.

Then he walked off down West San Francisco, just an unassuming kid.

Contact John Sena at 986-3079 or jsena@sfnewmexican.com.