Chapter 2: CHAPTER 2: “A Shipper’s origin part 1 (lovesickness)”

- “If you listen to me, and follow the notes in my notebook, you will all have a shot. I will help you get chances, but in the end, it is his choice, my help doesn’t guarantee your success, it just guarantees a chance.”

- “…”

- “…”

- “…”

- “…”

- “Not that we are not grateful. But why would you do this? Is someone forcing you? Why waste your time like this?”

- “…”

{A small, dark brown-haired kid lowers his head, his eyes can’t be seen only his big grin.}

- “Waste of time? No… You don’t get it. This is my chance. Helping you get chances to be with John, is a dream come true. Helping people find love… HAS BEEN MY MISSION SINCE THE FOURTH GRADE!”

…

   Since I was a kid, I was always different. At that age where boys stick around boys, and girls stick around girls, where the mere talk about love causes all the boys to go “EEWW”; I was the only one who enjoyed the subject. I was the only kindergartner that was looking for a girlfriend. Yes, that is right, I was in kindergarten, and I spent my free time hitting on the girls.

   Now don’t misunderstand, it was all wholesome flirting, telling them they looked cute, complimenting their dresses, picking flowers for them, etc. I did not fully comprehend what the word girlfriend meant, I was still a kindergartner, I just knew it related to love and I wanted to have that. Both my parents were romantics, they really enjoyed American romance stories, and they allowed me to watch the “PG” ones with them. I always admired the comic relief character that flirted every time, even if he was rejected every time. Back then, I didn’t know those characters were there for comedy and to make a fool of themselves, I thought they were super cool and wanted to be just like them.

   Sadly, my weird tendencies alienated me from my other classmates. It's not like they hated me or anything, they didn’t exclude me either, but I wasn’t able to form close connections with anyone. When all the other kids formed their own groups of friends, I spent time alone in my thoughts… or flirting. When group projects were announced, I always had to wait for the teacher to pair me with someone, because no one picked me out of their own volition. The boys laughed at me when I failed a pickup line, it was not cruel laughter, but still. They kept to themselves playing or doing whatever. When I flirted with the girls, they either laughed, smiled, or thanked me for the compliment. They still thought I was weird and kept me at arm’s length. They didn’t hate me, or start rumors… After all, is not like I flirted with more than one girl at once. When my parents noticed my admiration for those comic-relief characters they made sure to explain that playing with the romantic feelings of people was wrong, therefore I should never try to flirt with more than one person at once. (Maybe they should have spent that time telling me that kindergarten was not the time to go flirting at all).

   This is how my life went all the way to third grade. Somehow, as if by plot armor, our class stayed the same throughout those years. Due to my tendencies, I was still at arm’s length from both boys and girls. But I was still happy, and my goal was still strong. I was going to find a girlfriend and give and receive romantic love (I still mean that in a “PG” sense). But it was on the day of my birthday that year that I had an epiphany.

   My parents took me to watch this American romantic comedy movie that everyone was talking about, it was “PG-13”, so they were extra cautious to explain what was right and what was wrong. It was near the climax when the protagonist’s best friend said something that shook my core belief and changed my goal and my way of acting.

- “Love is not like in the movies.”

   The character was heartbroken at the moment. His crush had fallen in love with the protagonist, his best friend. While everyone in the theatre remained silent or uncaring to the line, after all, everyone other than me found his pickup lines and attempts at getting his crush to notice him annoying, I cried. It was not loud crying, they were silent tears, and not even my parents noticed.

   Why did I cry? You may ask. Was it because I experienced his heartbreak? Was it because I felt as lonely as him? No… It was because I learned he was right. At that moment I learned the difference between love in real life and love in the movies. I learned that romantic movies were just for entertainment. That I shouldn’t expect to have an idealized romance by acting like the characters. And my most fatal flaw. Even when attempting it, I acted as the comic relief, and they never got the girl.

   We left the theatre, and my parents talked non-stop about the movie, yet I remained silent. Eventually, they worried, normally after watching a romance movie, I would talk so much about it my parents wouldn’t be able to speak themselves. They worried that the language in the PG-13 movie was too much for me. I dismissed their worries while faintly smiling.

- “It’s just that… Love is not like in the movies.”

   My parents immediately understood what I meant while quoting that movie line. They remained silent. I could see them faintly smile. I couldn’t help but widen my smile. “Your parents are jerks” you may be thinking, “Why would they smile at you realizing all you have done so far was pointless”, if you are thinking something like that then you are misunderstanding the reason for their smile, but if you are not thinking that, then you are smarter than I gave you credit for.

   They smiled because I finally realized something they had wanted me to realize for a very long time. But they wanted me to realize it myself, they didn’t want to tell me and ruin a lesson I had to learn on my own. There are differences between fiction and reality.

   I finally stopped. It was the second semester of third grade, and I stopped flirting and hitting on girls. At first, my classmates thought I was sick; concern took them over. As I said, my classmates didn’t hate me, they appreciated my existence, they just kept me at arm’s length because they didn’t know how to interact with me due to my actions. I told them I was fine. They asked what had changed, but I refused to talk about it. The oral report was coming, and I needed a topic, what better than my realization, why waste time researching something when I could talk about this. I didn’t mention it before, but I was cunning in class, trying to work smarter not harder, using shortcuts and schemes to succeed, within the rules, that is. I was a good kid, even if my teachers beg to differ.

   My report was a success, the first 100% I got in my life, and my classmates cheered, and applauded. I could have sworn I saw one of the girls, crying tears of happiness.

- “HE’S NORMAL!”

   They screamed in unison. They didn’t know how wrong they were, not even I knew how wrong they were back then.

   Things didn’t change much, the difference was that now I didn’t have to wait for the teacher to assign me team members, for projects, some of the boys (mostly anime fans), wanted me on their team. I still was not part of any friend group, that didn’t change, but my learning didn’t stop there.

   I had not given up on finding love for myself, if that is what you think, at least not yet, I had just changed my approach, I had decided to let things happen naturally, but I was about to learn that for me, things would never happen naturally.

   We had a group project, so the default anime fans approached me. I will always be grateful for all they thought me, they changed my life for the better and set me on my new path. The project was regarding sports. We chose to make a “compare and contrast” report on the similarities and differences between sports in anime, and sports in real life. Two of our members, through the process of 'rock, paper, scissors'; earned the honor of analysing the anime part. The unlucky soul was paired with me to watch the real thing. Since none of us liked sports, we just sat on the bench and watched the practice of our class’s soccer team. And then I saw them. The girls. The girls that sat at the lower benches, relatively close to us, were fantasizing about the players.

- “Shun is so cool!”

- “He is so cute!”

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- “But Dan is so fast, look at him, and his hair… sigh.”

   I was bewildered. If you heard them, you would probably cringe. I didn’t cringe, but my eyes widened.

- “I know that look, envy courses through you. You wish to be in their place.”

   He couldn’t be more wrong. I was just caught off guard. Weren’t guys just focused on playing with guys, and girls playing with girls? Wasn’t that the unspoken rule? Wasn’t that the reason I was kept at arm’s length since kindergarten? What was going on? But I was about to be enlightened. We were at an age where some people’s veil of unspoken rules was beginning to fade, my group partner beside me, and the girls below me. They began to notice the opposite sex.

- “People like us, will never get the girls. That life is not for us. That is unless we change ourselves. People like us that crave love cannot go about searching for it like in your previous life.”

(I know that don’t rub it in).

- “We either choose to live a life to impress the girls, like those gentlemen playing soccer; they unknowingly chose that path, whether they want to or not; or we accept our fate and find a way to alleviate the pain.”

Before you comment, I assure you, he is a wholesome fella, we were in the third grade.

- “I will not choose your path for you, nor will I judge it.”

   I didn’t care for sports, and I wasn’t going to change who I was for anyone but myself. If there was one romance movie type I hated, was the ones where the protagonists changed who they were just to impress their love interest. If you decide to change for the sole purpose of impressing others, then it is not true change, and it is not true love, and that is not what I want for me. There is a difference between changing to make the ones you love happy and changing to impress them or satisfy their whims and over-the-top standards at the cost of losing yourself.

- “I don’t like sports, and I don’t want to change who I am for girls.”

- “You have dignity. You are worthy. Above the inferior normies!”

(Where did that come from?)

- “Didn’t you say you didn’t judge the path people chose?”

- “Oh yes… My bad. I lost it there a second. Let me teach you a new path. Do you know about Rom-com Anime?”

   I was bestowed the greatest wisdom. The thing that changed my path forever. When I got home after working on our presentation, I logged in to my totally legal streaming site and began to look for the anime titles my group partner suggested. I was beginning to feel frustrated. Free legal streaming sites have cruddy playlists. I had not found any in the list, I was about to give up, but based on my search history on the site, it recommended one similar to my search. It was just 39 episodes. And so I began to bench watch. My parents were a little worried but allowed me to because it had been months since I had watched anything, ever since that epiphany I had no motivation to watch anything.

I stopped at episode 26.

- “Why?! WHY? WHY? WHY? … Why did you go for the cold beauty? She didn’t bat an eye in your direction at all until you saved her from falling in episode: 15, minute: 16, second: 04. She treated you like dirt for almost half the series. All the while Niki has been nice to you since she was introduced. Sure, she was shy and didn’t notice her feelings up until episode 13, but she always treated you with kindness. She asked you to go to the park to talk a bit, sure you had a previous agreement to meet ‘madam cold’ for a project, but Niki even told you it wouldn’t take long. Why are you like this?! I can’t continue.”

   I quit the show. I was frustrated, seeing that shy girl that was always there for him being relegated broke me. I played another recommended anime from the streaming site. It was similar, but the ‘main girl’ was the ‘best girl’.

- “Whoa. Seeing two characters come together is so satisfying. They truly deserve each other. I want them both to be happy.”

At that moment I had another epiphany.

   While watching I didn’t think about my own hope for love in the slightest. All I could think was about the characters, and how happy it made me when two good people ended up together. And how angry it made me when good people didn’t get the happy ending, they deserved.

   Life is not fiction, love is not a matter of who deserves what, but about who you choose, and who chooses you. But if you see people that like someone, would it be wrong to help them get together?

   And so, my life changed. I would not focus on my love life. I wasn’t meant to find love for myself, but to help others find theirs.

…

Next time, learn how the shipper met his first friends, and changed his life for the better as he learns what he truly wants in life.

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