A recent letter from one of my readers was a potent reminder of what I was like when I was in my teens.
It wasn’t pretty.
I was a classic otaku; I was going through the stage where the only things I wanted to talk about were anime, manga and the fact that I wanted to find The One in the worst way. To paraphrase the ever relevant 500 Days of Summer, I could blame this on an early exposure to sad British pop music and completely misunderstanding St. Elmo’s Fire. And in fairness, my experiences at the time validated everything I was feeling. Love was everywhere. I didn’t just have a crush on a girl in high-school or college, I had a mad, all-consuming fire in my heart for her that meant I couldn’t eat or sleep.
