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Dated a Shizune once. Pretty and smart chick, but she turned out to be a real bitch.

Ethanol wrote:Dated a Shizune once. Pretty and smart chick, but she turned out to be a real bitch.

I feel bad for you for experiencing Shizune's bossy-ness..

Popo wrote:

inthewind wrote:post

counterpost

Yeah, I'm a few years removed from the mess, and in a far more stable place. Amusingly, more now like I pretended to be then. I'm in a stable and healthy relationship, albeit still in the first couple of years during which any number of things could reveal themselves. Who knows? Ultimately, I learned more from the bad than I would have otherwise, and I can't object.

I won't pretend I was always so mature and collected about it, but time and distance really does cure more than you ever think it will at the time. So it goes.

I've really enjoyed reading this thread. I guess I might as well post myself in it.

inthewind wrote:I won't pretend I was always so mature and collected about it, but time and distance really does cure more than you ever think it will at the time. So it goes.

Amen.

I can't imagine myself ever growing out of complexes that were very much so in Hanako's vein, were it not for those exact two factors and for the fact that I managed to convince my family to support me in them, or at least give me a chance to work within them.

As for myself, I still remember my high school days with much more fondness than I did at the time (for as I said, it's pretty stressful living in high school with fear wracking your nerves the way they did Hanako's). In retrospect I find it hilarious how everyone percieved me as that 'weird outsider/loner' and did not know just what kinds of personal and intimate details I had on a fair number of people, mostly the girls. Looking back now, I never realized it at the time but I had so much power through the information they told me - if I had been a manipulative bastard I could've really hurt a lot of people, but ultimately the thought never occured to me at the time. As I said, I was too much like Hanako for anything like that.

And how did I get to that kind of personal information on a regular basis? Constant, revolving 'friendzones'. It truly is funny that, while this sounds like a nightmare for a normal heterosexual male and at the risk of this sounding incredibly pompous, me being demisexual I could deal with it just fine (a short explanation for this: I've been suggested or offered whores before in my life, but while I like them just fine aesthetically I'm honestly not into what they offer. It has to be love ---> sex in order to arouse me when it comes to another person). So many girls saw me as 'the safe kid' and as Littlefinger puts it (though he's just butthurt over it ) 'their little confidant' and told me those secrets of theirs that their teenage hormonal minds couldn't keep in. Sometimes even stuff they never dared tell their boyfriends. And while an average heterosexual might've been endlessly frustrated with this scenario, those were, honestly, some of the fonder memories of my high-school days. Because I never fell for any of these girls, even though all of them got to confide in me at sometimes blinding speed (one of them outright told me of her anal sex experiences with her boyfriend in the very first conversation we had - I was that 'safe' for them apparently).

Except, of course,...when it came to the one whom I did eventually fall for.

I'd been infatuated with girls before, but always moreso on the surface level (me being demisexual this meant - I was in love with how they behaved and carried themselves, but not that much with what they did and who they were as a person). But this was different. As we occasionally managed to wind up sitting together, I remember I came to school a bit sick, but not enough for me to stay home, and I remembered her saying in a very Rin-like manner, without encouraging me or being sarcastic about it: "Maybe you should just skip class?" As strange as this might sound, do remember I was much like Hanako at the time so I was conflicted. Ultimately I stuck it out and stayed in school...but I didn't learn much during class because of my illness and couldn't help thinking that she was right in posing that question. What did an unexcused hour or two on my record really matter in the end? Stuff like this between me and her kept happening, even while other girls confided in me in other classes. She always somehow managed to challenge my preconceptions or pull me towards possibilities I had not considered before that point. Not much of a connection to Rin but still...there you go.

And there was a startling difference between how this girl 'confided' in me in turn and how the others did. You see...virtually every other girl confided in me because she needed the stress release basically. They couldn't tell anyone else, so they told me because they had to tell someone and I was 'safe.' They didn't really care what was going on with me, but that was fine too - I liked the opportunity to just listen. With this girl, however, it was different. She didn't seem to have a burgeoning need to confess anything, she just talked like any normal person would to another with me. Without ever talking down to me or treating me like a child or any of the other prejudices that were always there when anyone else really talked to me. You have to understand, for someone who is like Hanako, that is damn-sight near amazing. Even moreso considering that the most other girls her age had to worry about back then was stuff that would in 5 years time not matter to them one bit. She, on the other hand, came from a poorer family and had to work a job at the factory for 8 hours along with going to school. And I never told her how amazing I found it - that others complained so much about so little, while she endured so much and never complained or had a vicious word to say about anyone or anything else.

Of course, not everything was perfectly laid out for me. She already had a boyfriend, but even this I discovered while, during one of my late-night strolls I saw the lights in her small house on and joined them both for some late-night TV and chit chat. He was a really good guy...and for the first time I felt actual jealousy. That was the moment that I realized for certain that I was, indeed, falling in love. But even that I could've dealt with...even that I could've accepted eventually, because there was no rational way for me to butt my way into their relationship and I could never rationalize myself actually doing it, especially because her boyfriend was a genuinely good person.

But then I hear offhandedly that they broke up. And for the briefest of moments, one of the last times I saw her, I bumped into her in front of my home as she was running late to pick something up somewhere else. We laughed and talked briefly regardless...and looking back on that moment I can almost see the KS-themed choice hanging above me: "Go home." or "Offer to run with her and help her out."

I chose to go home. She moved on to another place shortly after that with her family and in the end...that missed moment is why I'm here telling this story.

Even so, when all is said and done, I know that my choice led to the person I am today. That for every loss there is a gain and that if things turned out differently, I would be a very different person right now. And while there are things I don't like about myself (such as the above making me promise myself I'd never just go home when the opportunity for something more interesting is right there in front of me), I never regret the choices I have made. Because when all is said and done - I am, in fact, happy with who I am and wouldn't have it any other way.

But when the trigger for it happens (like playing through the Rin path) I will always think of what would've happened if I had spent that day with her and chosen something more than the comfort of the friendzone.

Loonie wrote:I've really enjoyed reading this thread. I guess I might as well post myself in it.

inthewind wrote:I won't pretend I was always so mature and collected about it, but time and distance really does cure more than you ever think it will at the time. So it goes.

Amen.

(many snipped words)

Fun fact: this post contains words, lot's and lot's of words.

MegaMoto wrote:Fun fact: this post contains words, lot's and lot's of words.

So does a book. Have you ever read one of those things? Words everywhere, man!

[/sarcastic remark]

KeiichiO wrote:

MegaMoto wrote:Fun fact: this post contains words, lot's and lot's of words.

So does a book. Have you ever read one of those things? Words everywhere, man!

[/sarcastic remark]

I think I may have read a book once a long time ago. Wait does KS count ? Also I have to thank you for the /sarcastic remark I never would have been able to figure it out.

MegaMoto wrote:

KeiichiO wrote:

MegaMoto wrote:Fun fact: this post contains words, lot's and lot's of words.

So does a book. Have you ever read one of those things? Words everywhere, man!

[/sarcastic remark]

I think I may have read a book once a long time ago. Wait does KS count ? Also I have to thank you for the /sarcastic remark I never would have been able to figure it out.

KS Kinda-sorta counts. A good story is about 20% cooler when you add visuals.

And no problem! I'm glad to help ^_^

KeiichiO wrote:

MegaMoto wrote:Fun fact: this post contains words, lot's and lot's of words.

So does a book. Have you ever read one of those things? Words everywhere, man!

[/sarcastic remark]

what's a book

mateh1 wrote:

KeiichiO wrote:

MegaMoto wrote:Fun fact: this post contains words, lot's and lot's of words.

So does a book. Have you ever read one of those things? Words everywhere, man!

[/sarcastic remark]

what's a book

When I first read the question that was my reaction to. The last time I read a book lay in a memory in the back of my mind covered in dust and cobwebs from abandonment. But the book was there laying in a small memory file in a rusty cabinet. If I remember correctly books were used by ancient civilizations before video games and visual novels were invented. Damn primitives.

mateh1 wrote:

KeiichiO wrote:

MegaMoto wrote:Fun fact: this post contains words, lot's and lot's of words.

So does a book. Have you ever read one of those things? Words everywhere, man!

[/sarcastic remark]

what's a book

Well, it can be many things. It can be a portal to a distant land. It can be a physical source of information and education. It can be a curio to put on a shelf and never touch again. It can be tinder.

KeiichiO wrote:

mateh1 wrote:

KeiichiO wrote: So does a book. Have you ever read one of those things? Words everywhere, man!

[/sarcastic remark]

what's a book

Well, it can be many things. It can be a portal to a distant land. It can be a physical source of information and education. It can be a curio to put on a shelf and never touch again. It can be tinder.

whooaaa...

mateh1 wrote:whooaaa...
*Keanu Reeves*

Amazing, innit?

KeiichiO wrote:

mateh1 wrote:whooaaa...
*Keanu Reeves*

Amazing, innit?

VERY..
I should try eating one..

mateh1 wrote:

KeiichiO wrote:

mateh1 wrote:whooaaa...
*Keanu Reeves*

Amazing, innit?

VERY..
I should try eating one..

I wouldn't recommend it. They're just tasteless, empty calories. Also, two words: paper cuts. Trust me. I know from experience.