Well, bear this in mind: you can consider condition 3 the least important. While conditions 1 and 2 are essential components of being a hacker, condition 3 is

Well, bear this in mind: you can consider condition 3 the least important. While conditions 1 and 2 are essential components of being a hacker, condition 3 is just a symptom. (1 && 2 && 3) is sufficient; (1 && 2) is necessary but not sufficient; (3) is neither necessary nor sufficient. It's not like (3) is some sort of formal induction ceremony. It'll just be an offhand comment that the speaker probably won't remember making a week later. Most often it'll take the form of "you should talk to Fred; he's an XYZ hacker too" during a technical discussion about XYZ. It also tends to occur more often in person than over the internet. If you're worried because it hasn't happened yet, but most of your socialization is on the internet rather than meatspace, then don't sweat it.