Reverse Thieves

#0099
I still have a few friends that I knew before I was heavily into anime, but they are few and far between. Most of the people I consider my friends I did meet, in one way or another, through this medium.

Thomas Wolfe said “The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.” As an anime fan that is also a lonely person I think on that quote and wonder how alone am I in feeling alone? Is the otaku by nature a lonely beast? How much do anime fans have friends? How often do they watch anime with others? Do anime fans still go out there and try to recruit everyone they meet to get the word out about these amazing Japanese cartoons? Is there still reason to do that? I don’t think this will answer all of my questions but I do think we shed some much needed light onto how social the average otaku is.

#0019
Several days often go by wherein I don’t actually vocally speak at all. Before, back when I didn’t use instant messaging, I more or less had zero interaction with anyone.

#0042
I talk to my forum friends at least once a day. I feel that they are close acquaintances that I would get a long with if I met them in real life.

Ah, camaraderie. It was one of the first reasons I came to love the Internet in my youth. The ability to find like-minded individuals with your hobbies from all over the world and you didn’t even have to leave your room was a rather enticing prospect. And it certainly made many times less lonely or even expanded my knowledge. It also had the greater effect of making me appreciate when I could have those people or conversations face to face or watch that anime with another. Ideally you get to participate in both experiences because they both have positive attributes. I think anime fans want to be social for the most part, atleast social within a circle of people who they feel think like they do, and with the combination of technology and real life meetings, there is an outlet for it.

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#0047
Anime factors in because I would like to be able to share things I love with a person I’ll share my life with.

We start off the new year with what everyone is really reading the otaku diaries for: dirty sex secrets.  Who is doing what to whom and if farm animals are involved. Well, actually, that is no where near what this part is about. This is mostly a look at the romantic relationships or lack thereof of the various participants. Like it or not there is a stereotype that otaku are mainly lonely, dateless losers who know more about how to win hearts in visual novels than they ever will about talking to a member of the opposite sex. But the survey found a wide variety of people answered from hardcore 2D girl proponents to those who were happily married to love em and leave em Lotharios. The only commonality most people had was that their stories were always extremely emotionally involving.

The answers in this section may be the most varied of them all. Our group of participants ran the gamut from new to the dating scene to downtrodden, rejection of dating to belief in true love, and still much more inbetween. And what resulted were answers that certainly are very personal but still they will resonate, some views more than others, but very much every type of person can be seen here. Heck, this may be the portion of the survey that goes to show most how much fandom is a mix of many different types of people.

#0015
Obviously an interest in anime would be a big plus, or even just someone who would be willing to be introduced to my interest, and in return I’d be interested in hers.

#0009
My ideal mate would be someone I would want to be friends with, not just lovers. Sexual compatibility would be necessary. I’d like a good sense of humor, too. Looks are not really important. God, that sounds so fake and self-effacing, the kind of thing you’d expect in a personal ad, but in all honesty I’d probably settle for anything with two X chromosomes and a heartbeat.

#0049
A young cute girl who’s totally accepting of all my flaws and willing to take care of me.

I was amused that no one said that they would not date another otaku. For all the posturing that some people put on their surveys I think everyone wanted someone to share their hobbies with. I think it is the clearest sign that the otaku who hate otaku idea is merely a defensive mechanism. 70 percent of the participants had a strong preference for dating someone who also liked anime and only 30 mentioned that it did not factor into who they would date but they always said that they would date another otaku if they liked other things about them. Other fans might occasionally annoy us but in the end we want to be with someone who understands that aspect of our lives.

#0079
In considering dating though I would give more weight to “long-term” versus “short-term”; perhaps I am merely naive on such matters, but I wouldn’t consider a “short-term” liaison a relationship in this sense. For various reasons, I’m far more interested in mutual respect than mutual lust.

#0014
I don’t consider “dating” at all. It is an entirely abhorrent concept and one that exists in American movies and TV shows. No one actually does that bullshit in real life, do they?

I would really have liked to see, concretely because we certainly had some more indepth answers, whether the people who listed anime fandom as unimportant had mostly dated non-fans. No one in this section seemed to be adverse to dating a fellow fan which is interesting because of some of the answers given in the section about the word “otaku.” Though there were no answers, or questions to answer, about how deep their mates love of anime should run. Perhaps some wouldn’t want to date another engrossed like themselves, just open to it. While others made it quite clear they wanted to share this passion, for good and ill, because it was such a huge part of their lives that there was no getting around it.

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