I decided I'd post something here, and as a first post, and probably one of very few, as I'm more of a lurker and an awkward conversationalist.
To get right to the point, this isn't about a broken heart, though I guess it could sort of relate to the fact of why I haven't had a broken heart. As in I've had no romantic interactions with anybody, ever. Though I am only 15, and a half mind you, so I can't say I expected insta-romance. Also, don't expect phenomenal writing here, I'm only a freshman in high school, and despite being smart, and having a B in writing, I view myself as unfocused and bad when it comes down to it. I suppose I should say this light-hearted or casual tone will be completely gone by the first paragraph of my problems, as the only reason I am acting this way now, if I am acting this way, it sure feels like I am, is because of my socialization jitters. I have to get them out, hence the intro filled with a bit of irrelevant information. Oh, one last thing before I begin, I'm Nick, nice to meet you all, I've read each and every post here and find myself able to relate to a number of people. (Gelastic, I have an uncanny amount of similarities to you, not with the issues we face necessarily, but I've noticed some interest and personality similarities, though I may not touch on them in my writing.) < That's an example of my random unfocused behavior in writing, and that was thrown in there on purpose, it's just my style. Just looking back, I postponed my "One last thing... let's get started" thing a good bit. Time to refocus, here we go.
I'm a naturally shy individual, I always have been. I could go into depth on my personality, but I view myself in a very weird way, almost to the point where I feel arrogant and above everyone, but at the same time pitiful, and below everyone. A quick example being I find myself mature compared to other people my age group, but this sounds arrogant to me, and I hate my shy behavior, but I can't seem to overcome it and look down on myself. My low self-esteem probably hasn't helped matters much at all. Let's just say, the only pride I have in myself is my maturity and my intelligence, which, again, sounds arrogant, and I apologize.
First through fifth grade were dull and nothing of note. Though I will say I went to a small school, so going to a big high school was a bit of an unusual change for me. It was small classes, no more than 200 kids in the entirety of the school. It didn't help that I lived in a crummy, run-down(ish) area. My family is middle-class as far as I can tell, but it seems we're surrounded by those struggling financially, hence my description of the neighborhood. I took an interest in video games and television, never liking sports though. I had no true idea what I enjoyed, and I've always been jumping between interests, finicky is one word, though I'm not sure if it fits with that description, but I was finicky as well. I never made any close friends during these years, I randomly socialized with kids, shy, but not to the Hanako level.
My main issues that I face even today come from sixth grade through seventh grade, though I suppose eighth grade played an integral part in who I am.
In sixth grade I became close "friends" with one of the more popular kids in my class. I say "friends" because my definition of a friend is the average person's really close and trustworthy friend. That and he is the reason I now have severe trust issues. Anyways, I became known through the class, which wasn't necessarily hard seeing as it was only about 25 kids. Though we suffered from separation, clusters of three to five kids split off and went with each other, rarely socializing amongst other groups. At around seventh grade, though I didn't know it at the time, for reasons I will get to later, they merged together all except for about 7 of them. Back to sixth grade though. Anyways, I became known as the class pervert. I was viewed as most likely to become a sexual predator, though that wasn't the worst of some of the behaviors some kids had. I'm not trying to make myself sound better, as being a pervert isn't good, especially the level I took it to. This involved inappropriate contact with others, which I guess could be considered sexual harassment. Though I was one of many doing it, I was definitely the most active in it. No one minded it as far as I can tell though, even looking back on it, which disturbs me. Probably the early to middle of sixth grade, I began spending time with my friend's closest friend at the time, who got me into the whole of Japanese culture, excluding hentai and visual novels, which I got into later. (I say at the time, as I quickly became his closest friend, eventually. You'll see what I mean when I bring up the end of eighth grade.) I began getting close to the two of them, the popular one more so. (I'll call the popular one boy, and the anime fan girl, respective to their genders. Or at least refer to them as my male friend or female friend.) I began to trust him, something that lasted a mere 2-3 months.
At this point, things get a bit hazy. It was either late sixth grade or early seventh that this happened, but it was the only thing that happened during those times, so the timeline should remain logical enough. Basically, he lost my trust when I trusted him with a secret. Well, I suppose it wasn't necessarily a secret, but it was something I felt strongly about. I'm sure he realized how big of a deal this is. I am a very indifferent and indecisive person, so when I make up my mind on something AND feel strongly about it, people realize it is pretty important to me. Anyways, I told him this secret, which shall not be disclosed, and we went on, him telling me his "secrets" and I telling him mine. Whether they were true or not I couldn't tell you, he was someone who told white lies and exaggerated things a lot. Anyways, he revealed these secrets and twisted them, turning them into malicious rumors, then spreading them through the school and it made my friendship with those two awkward. My female friend was never all that mean, though she was violent. She enjoyed kicking my shins, and I have at least one scar to this day. I pushed through, though, I never told anyone one of my secrets again. That friend changed the definition of a friend for me. Instead of someone I get along with, and talk to, and enjoy being around, it became someone who I know enough about to be able to fill out a survey on them and someone who I have known long enough to be able to trust them. Trust for me has become something that I don't give away freely, like I used to, I realized then, that it is something that must be earned.
After that incident, was seventh grade. I couldn't take the lies being spread about and whispered behind my back, so I isolated myself. I stopped talking to people. I became Hanako shy. I never went out of my way to talk to someone, I'd merely respond when talked to. 90% of my social interactions from seventh grade to the present, aside from a rare few, consisted of shrugs, nods, smiles, fake laughs, and answers to questions. I didn't spend any time around anyone anymore, I found myself aimlessly wandering about during the times when I would normally be talking with my old friends. This allowed me to think about a lot, which helped. If I ventured a guess, I would say sometime around here, my maturity began to develop. I went on in isolation, until the beginning of eighth grade. All during this time, I continued my regular interests as well as developing several more, mainly my becoming hooked on my computer, eventually purchasing my own. It was nothing exceptional, but it was my own computer, in my own room, so I wasn't downstairs in the office all the time. I still played video games, but I never watched any TV anymore.
Now eighth grade is where I believe some of my current problems branched off of the previous one. For some random reason, my old friends began talking to me, and I would talk to them like I used to, and we began hanging out again. I couldn't tell you why, perhaps it was desperation from lack of any satisfying social interactions. That is probably the only way I could justify why I went back to those people. Anyways, they began to bully me, effectively shredding my self-esteem and stressing me out a good bit. I eventually developed some portion of a resistance to it, to the point where my rage would build up, and explode, probably every 3-4 months. I managed to vent this stress through the computer, which I had begun spending all of my free time on, every living moment of every day, even now, was spent on my computer. I also vented through bullying. I deeply regret this now, as I realized that I mainly bullied the one person who had never said a single thing mean, rude, or hurtful of any kind, towards me, or about me. I think once I realized this, I had hit true maturity. My previous level consisted of intolerance of injustice and wrong doing, which I then committed myself. This maturity basically ended my public perverted habits. I haven't physically touched someone, of my own free will, in well over a year now. I am still a dirty little pervert on the inside, hence my mention of hentai earlier, but that is aside from the point. After reaching this level of maturity, I wanted to apologize to that person I bullied, but I could never work up the courage, and after eighth grade, we all went our separate ways, or at least I did, and went to a new school in a different school district for my high school years.
Ninth grade will obviously be the easiest for me to remember, but is more about the effects of the earlier years on me, rather than more issues. As I had said, I had basically became Hanako on a social level. I responded, rarely in words, mostly gestures, and some ignoring in between. There were/are about 3 kids who brought me past this point, but I never got to know them all that well, and what I knew about them, was that we shared few to no interests. Even this socialization was simple small talk, usually about that persons social life or the class we were in, which for those 3, was Spanish. I considered myself blessed for a while, as I found an entire lunch table to myself. Of course, nothing like this would've lasted, as a ton of obnoxious, racist, "all-that" kids invaded my table, sandwiching me between them and another group of kids. This still goes on at the moment too. I pass all my classes so easily it is boring, which affected a very recent decision, about a few hours ago as I write this, that I hope will help a bit in terms of this.
This last bit is tid-bits on things I couldn't fit anywhere, and my current state of affairs.
First off I will mention family. I don't spend much if any time with them ever, seeing as how I spend much if not all of it on the internet. I get along with my younger sister, usually, despite the fact that if I am within 10 feet of her she finds it necessary to bathe in hand sanitizer. Yes, this is an exaggeration, but she is a germaphobe. I tend to irritate her a lot too, but we're siblings and that's what she is for right? That was a joke, don't take any offense. I don't talk to my family about any of my thoughts or issues because, well, I don't really trust them, nor enjoy talking with them about serious matters. They make everything awkward.
Second bit is how I ended up finding KS. I am a pretty avid YouTube watcher. One such person I watch, rarely, is ChilledChaos. He has a playthrough for this game, and I think he is done, or just about finished with Hanako's route. He doesn't take it seriously as far as I could tell, but it was funny and enjoyable, so I decided I would try out the game. (His interpretations of Kenji and Misha are the best.) This was my first VN as well, and I'm glad it was. I have played almost every route to the good ending, Shizune's excluded, I needed a break from "teh feelz." Anyways, KS affected me a ton, how I thought, and how I will treat people in the future, among other things, but this isn't the point of the post, so I will move on.
Recently, I faced a major decision. As in yesterday, and confirmed it today. It had to do with my education. I want to go to college and become successful, in what I'm not sure anymore. My interests have become so spread out, from art to music to technology and a teeny tiny bit of sports, if you count bowling as a sport. (I bowl leagues on a regular basis, not a just couple random outings with friends or anything.) Anyways, one thing that I've always been interested in was Japanese, anime, etc. That female friend of mine introduced it to me and I fell in love. There was a brief lull in my interest in it for several months, but for the most part, I've always loved it. Now onto the decision part. I had chosen to take 1st year Spanish, as Japanese apparently caused scheduling issues in ninth grade. I didn't want to deal with this, and plus the pressure from people around me, I settled with Spanish. Well, I will be signing up for classes for tenth grade tomorrow, and I decided to switch to Japanese (1st year.) Spanish was very uninteresting to me, but I was worried that if I didn't get enough credits, getting accepted into college would be difficult. I actually made the decision when I remembered an important message in Rin's path (I think), about living in the present, not dwelling on the past nor worrying about the future. So I decided Japanese then and there, all while listening to Moment of Decision. Fitting right? (I also felt I needed a challenge in school. Getting a 4.0 without studying once is boring.)
One last thing, before I forget. That girl I bullied, I recently learned, went to an auction from my old school, that is held annually. Her sister, and mine, both still go there, and as such, if I went to that auction, I would've seen her. I also recently made up that I will go to next year's auction in hopes that she will be there and that I can finally apologize for what I had done to her those years. That lifting of the guilt off my back would mean the world to me, but I fear I may forget or lose the courage later. I will try to stay motivated towards it though.
That is about it, let's see if I can actually be active on a forum for once rather than lurking for a few weeks. Thanks for reading.
I apologize for any grammatical errors or things that make little sense. This was written over 2 very late nights.
.