During the vast majority of my involvement with ANKU the club met every-other Friday from 7 (or later, 6)pm and lasted until 1 (or later, midnight)am before "breaking", and by "breaking" I mean "everyone who has money or someone they can bum off of goes to Applebee's for happy hour". Then the first Saturday of every month there was a meeting from noon to midnight.
It was a ritual for me. If I applied for a job, I made sure that I could make it to the entirety of the Friday meetings and the majority of the Saturday. It was really the only socialization I had. I've never been a party-goer, overly outgoing, or even charismatic, so finding a group of nerds who were about as socially awkward as me was thrilling.
For a time I was the secretary for the group. I intended on building a new website, keeping track of all the animes we watched, cataloging them, and attending different on-campus functions to keep our involvement steady. There was a small group of members, including me, that really wanted to expand ANKU outside of just being a group of friends and acquaintances that just watched anime. However, the organization we talked about was not widely accepted by the other 15-20 active/frequent members of the group. Either that, or they just didn't care enough to help us take the changes into fruition.
Of course there is bound to be drama in that large of a group that see each other so often, but most of that is irrelevant to the purpose of why I am writing. What is relevant is that I lived in an apartment with Myra and two gentlemen from ANKU for a year.
During this time, I went to my second anime convention - Anime Punch in Columbus, OH. It was a great weekend with great friends. I cosplayed, purchased a lot of art from artist alley, and enjoyed a few panels. The same basic principle occurred over the course of the next seven conventions I went to.
It was 2009, I began dating a guy who I met through ANKU and the group of friends I had developed through the organization. During the course of that year, I went to three anime conventions and two of those were as a couple. Being a couple at a convention can be challenging if you have different interests within the anime category. He would want to go to a panel, I'd want to go to the gameshow or just hangout. Also, honestly, that was my first relationship - ever. Being homeschool until high school, then as socially awkward as I was, I never really caught onto dating.
Anyways, so anime conventions lost their luster when I felt like I was manipulating my boyfriend into not doing things that he wanted to do just because I didn't want to do them. We broke up the day after Christmas. I asked him if he ever considered me to actually be his girlfriend, he said he tried for while, but no.
It was fine, and I was happier because I didn't have to worry about a failing relationship. We remained friends and went to dinner with a mutual friend that night.
Later in the month of January, I met a wonderful man in my Japanese class. We started dating soon after I went to Ohayocon in 2010. Ohayocon was a blast; however, this began the diversion of the group that I normally hung out with.
Of course there is bound to be drama in that large of a group that see each other so often, but most of that is irrelevant to the purpose of why I am writing. What is relevant is that I lived in an apartment with Myra and two gentlemen from ANKU for a year.
During this time, I went to my second anime convention - Anime Punch in Columbus, OH. It was a great weekend with great friends. I cosplayed, purchased a lot of art from artist alley, and enjoyed a few panels. The same basic principle occurred over the course of the next seven conventions I went to.
It was 2009, I began dating a guy who I met through ANKU and the group of friends I had developed through the organization. During the course of that year, I went to three anime conventions and two of those were as a couple. Being a couple at a convention can be challenging if you have different interests within the anime category. He would want to go to a panel, I'd want to go to the gameshow or just hangout. Also, honestly, that was my first relationship - ever. Being homeschool until high school, then as socially awkward as I was, I never really caught onto dating.
Anyways, so anime conventions lost their luster when I felt like I was manipulating my boyfriend into not doing things that he wanted to do just because I didn't want to do them. We broke up the day after Christmas. I asked him if he ever considered me to actually be his girlfriend, he said he tried for while, but no.
It was fine, and I was happier because I didn't have to worry about a failing relationship. We remained friends and went to dinner with a mutual friend that night.
Later in the month of January, I met a wonderful man in my Japanese class. We started dating soon after I went to Ohayocon in 2010. Ohayocon was a blast; however, this began the diversion of the group that I normally hung out with.
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