A couple weeks back, I ran into this channel on Youtube. For those who don’t feel like clicking, it’s essentially a vlog of a woman in Japan where she talks about stuff in her life. Mostly highlighting recent things that are rough in her life.

I felt a twinge of empathy seeing titles feature words like “no friends” and “lonely” While I’d seen plenty of people on social media like Twitter who say this to hundreds of replies, it felt a little more real with someone putting themselves in front of a camera (although not fully) It felt more like a plea from someone looking for a genuine connection, in my eyes.

I started to develop feelings for her.

I recognized right off the bat that it was pretty illogical. I knew it was mostly parasocial attachment. Even if she was responding to my comments, there was little chance I was anything significant. There was little chance I would even become someone significant. I knew all these feelings would get me was heartbreak when I had to inevitably face the truth. Yet I let myself dream.

Where the realization hit me that I probably would never be anything more, was when I started seeing donations in her comments. People giving her anywhere from 10-100 dollars. It wasn’t a lot of people, but it made me wonder who I was to her. Especially in the face of others who gave her money.

And it’s not that I would say that she only cared about money. I don’t know enough about her to say things like that. Heck, I can’t even say whether she’s a real person. It’s just realistically, what kind of relationship can bloom from a few comments on the internet. Especially with someone who’s getting comments from many other people, some of which are going as far to give her money.

I’ve often thought about doing a Youtube and/or livestreaming as a method to combat my loneliness. However, one of the things I’ve always thought about was, assuming I’d even gain an audience(which seems unlikely), how would you even process relationships? You can’t be good friends with every single person you come across online. You can’t make promises to keep up with just anyone that comes across your doorstep

Maybe I’m just focusing only on the potential negatives. In any event we’re getting off-topic.

Going forward, I probably will have to try and distance myself from them and break my lingering attachment. Stop looking so much for “what-ifs” and start focusing on things I can actually control.. Maybe

Introduction

Hi, my name is Adam. I currently go by Mae online.

My hope for this blog is to give people a window into who I am and how I think. I expect not many will bother to check it, but for those that do, my hope is that I can foster enough interest to get them to look further.

I’d love to make some strong bonds with people. I’m lonely, and my current situation doesn’t give me a lot of room or opportunities to fix that. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I don’t know how to fix it, and I’ve resolved to taking unconventional measures to address the problem.

By strong bonds, I don’t mean just following each other on social media or occasionally commenting on each others’ posts. I’m talking about a bond that shapes your whole life. A type of bond that’s unique and irreplaceable. A bond reserved for the people that actually matter.

Things I like

I got into video games at an early age. My father owned a Commodore 64 and many of my cousins owned a NES/Famicom (It’d be a couple years before I had my own NES) Back then, I mostly played and enjoyed what I was offered. I would play platformers, first person shooters, sports games, game show games, whatever.

The first game I played that I remember leaving a unique impression that wasn’t just something I was handed was Mega Man 3 (Rockman 3) Then after that was Monkey Island, Crystalis, Donkey Kong Country… Eventually my tastes evolved towards less gameplay intensive and more story-centered titles. I entered my Japanese RPG era around the time of the SNES and Playstation

I loved JRPGs. It helped that I was also getting into anime through Toonami/internet around that time as well. At first it was Final Fantasy, Super Mario RPG, and Chrono Trigger, but I eventually grew into Dragon Quest, Wild Arms, Xenogears and Breath of Fire.

The most influential JRPG and JRPG series to me, apart from FF7, was actually Suikoden. More specifically Suikoden II (and later V) I have played no other JRPGs (again apart from FF7) more than I have played II and V. I love their stories that much

My interest in JRPGs never died, although it was around the PS2 era where I felt myself losing interest in a lot of titles. Nothing quite hit like the stuff from the original SNES or Playstation. While I still enjoyed some stuff, I started to indulge more in my interests in anime and visual novels.

I was introduced to anime through Sailor Moon on Toonami. It holds a special place in my heart. I also really enjoyed shows like Tenchi Muyo, Outlaw Star, and Yu Yu Hakusho on there. Then on Adult Swim I was introduced to shows like Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, and Gundam Wing.

Over the years, I’ve watched many series I’d probably add to that. Honestly, there’s not a single anime I think I dislike. That’s not to say I’m simple, but I’d like to think I can appreciate anything. Though I’m sure it’s more that I never watch anything that’s bad enough for me to remember

Around the time I got into anime, I also started getting into visual novels. Though at this time they weren’t referred to as visual novels. Instead we mostly referred to them as hentai games since they were anime games that included sexual imagery.

I wont say the erotic nature wasn’t appealing to me as a blossoming hormonal teenager, but what I found more appealing were the stories. Most of the romance I had seen in anime up to that point weren’t very definitive. Either the shows danced around it, or at best you got a brief glimpse of budding relationship at the end.

It appealed to me because I was lonely. I fell in love with the heroines of the games, as simple as they were then, and as the medium grew in the west, I became exposed to much deeper and more complex stories.

I’ll talk more about them in another post down the line, but some specific titles I really liked: Utawarerumono series, Sakura no Uta (and Toki), Kara no Shoujo series (including the Cartagra remake), Summer Pockets, Little Busters, and Kazoku Keikaku

and more

I want to try to keep these posts as short and bite sized as I can. While there’s a lot more I could add, I think this gives you a very cursory glance at me. I hope. If I didn’t scare you away already…