The Change Up: Looking Back

I'd always like to think that I would never change for anyone, but upon further reflection, I'd be pretty foolish to think that. There's a slew of ridiculous things I've embraced for the sake of impressing a boy.

I, too, went the vegan route like Amanda. That ended when I got so fed up that I ordered the 50 chicken wing platter. Obviously, things didn't work out. As a side note, no chicken wing has ever tasted as good as the one I scarfed on that day.

I even pretended to give up drinking when I dated a straightedger, but that didn't last long. I was pretty nervous before I would hang out with him because I didn't know what the hell to talk about. He wouldn't have been impressed by my awesome stories of keg stands, burping contests and flip cup victories. To calm my nerves before dates, I would have a drink--errr--a few drinks. Then, he called me a fake and gave me the boot when he smelled the booze on my breath.

Most recently, I dated a gorgeous nerdy boy who was basically the opposite of me--except for the gorgeous part, of course. He introduced me to comics, zombie/horror/slasher movies, Adult Swim cartoons and light sabers. He also opened me up to old school punk rock, thrash rock, and other music genres I had previously avoided. But ya know what? I started to like it.

My friends made fun of me when I gushed about a vintage Captain America limited edition comic book, Aqua Teen Hunger Force's latest antics and how I could totally take on the intergalactic hamburger meat-seeking zombies in Peter Jackson's Bad Taste. They shook their heads when I explained how cool Slayer's Reign in Blood album was, and how badass Darth Vader was and still is. For the first time, my eyes were being opened to a totally different world of geekdom. And, it was awesome.

So my point is that the "change up" isn't always a bad thing. While I quickly returned to my meat-eating, beer-guzzling ways after dating vegans and straight-edgers, and I'm happy to return to chick flicks after having multiple almost-heart attacks watching zombies hack into people's skulls, there will always be a part of the geeked-out, Master Shake-loving "force" that will stay with me, and I wouldn't have it any other way.