Picture a guy, your average guy who in college played a lot of video games, watched a lot of anime, and collected comic books.
Now picture that guy after college, still collecting comic books (but falling behind regularly on reading them), barely ever watching anime, and not playing video games much, if at all, anymore.
Picture that guy getting engaged to a girl who has no clue about comics, much less anime, and the only "video games" she plays are the free ones you find for your PC inside a box of Cap'n Crunch cereal.
What happens to this guy?
One would expect (if one were me) that the guy would probably cement the fact that he doesn't play video games or watch anime anymore and either have to fight to keep up his lagging comic collection or drop it altogether.
One would be wrong when talking about the guy that is me.
I am about four weeks behind on reading my comics and until about two weeks ago I had played video games for a total of about five hours in the year and a half since I had moved into my house. I had probably spent about the same amount of time watching anime as I had playing video games.
Despite this, it seems that my fiance will probably be the one to make me play video games more and more often, and probably keep up with my comic collection more and even start watching anime again.
It all started because of The Simpsons and angels. We had been together for a while and I took her by my comic book shop one day. She had been wondering why I spend a lot of money on comics (between $15-$30 a week, depending on the week), but really hadn't complained about it. Indifferent is the best word for her feelings on the subject. Well, while there she noticed how my shop had a ton of Simpsons figures. I commented that there are also Simpsons comic books, and her eyes lit up. She wanted one right then, but unfortunately the shop was out. She saw an issue of Oh, My Goddess! and was interested in getting that, but I told her I already subscribed to the series and she could read mine. So, instead she decided that even though she really didn't like Star Wars or sci-fi in general, she would pick up this certain issue of a Star Wars comic because it looked "cute" and was a "romance" issue.
She loved it. Okay, maybe "love" is a strong word, but she really liked it, which suprised her since she doesn't really like Star Wars. So, a few months after that she asked if I could keep checking at my shop for Simpsons comics and even commented that she might like to watch the Oh My Goddess! anime sometime.
After checking a couple weeks in a row, the guys at my shop asked if I just wanted to subscribe to it. So, I said sure and thought it would be a nice suprise for my fiance. Well, two issues later she's hooked on them. Today I get some e-mails from her that I think cements my comic book collecting and gets her started down the short road to addiction... ahem...
Subject: HI
I got 2 Simpsons comics & 4 Oh My Goddess... They were on sale... I really liked that shop, the owners also live down the street from me & I didn't even know it...
I was looking for bridesmaid shoes & found comics...
When I asked her which shop, she said it was the one in the mall near where we live. I told her I had a bad service experience there once, but may have just hit a bad day, and that I was happy with my shop and their 20% discount they offer on all comics. I knew that this was going from some small little thing to something delf-sustaining when she replied with:
I talked to them about that, and they said that when you subscribe to 5 comics per month that you get 20% off. I was asking about the Treehouse of Horror subscription... He said that he might work out a deal for less than 5 per month if I really wanted to get them there...
So, comics books... Check. What about video games?
Well, a couple weeks ago my roommate (and new NLJ contributor as seen in posts below) Mike got a wide-screen 51" TV, and in showing it off to her powered up his XBox and popped in SoulCalibur II since it displays in 720p and looks quite awesome on the TV. She seems to really like the graphics and thought it look like a neat game.
Well, last weekend my other roommate, Quad, was moving out and since he has a bad back, Mike and I were helping him lift stuff. Well, my fiance came over during this, so I suggested that while we helped him move that she might like to play SCII. Boy, was that an understatement. About 30 minutes later, we couldn't get her off of the game. She had gone through arcade mode 3 times already, and when we decided to jump in, proceeded to kick our butts. Yes, she was using one of the more powerful characters but still, Mike is an avid (understatement) game player, and we must have gone back and forth between each other taking turns trying to beat her at least 5 or 6 times before Mike decided to pull out another powerful character and finally beat her. A little later, hunger finally hit enough that we could pry her from the game, at which point she declared that once we are married, we "have to get an XBox and this game" because she loves to "kick ass." Then on Tuesday night, she told me that when I had gone over to my mom's house for dinner, she considered calling my house to see if Mike was there because she really wanted to play... It looks like I'll be playing video games more *after* I'm married than I do before.
So, let's see: Baseball? Check. Comics? Check. Video Games? Check. Anime? TBD, but hopeful.
In briefly going over this the other day with my friend, Doug, he commented to me "You've done it, man..." When I asked "What?" he said "You've found the perfect woman..."
