so there's this boy.
I have a lot of experience identifying and tearing down fiction tropes as applied to relationships. Basically the entire year I was 17 consisted of various aspects of figuring out how my own behavior was affected by fictional depictions of human interaction and then figuring out ways to address that. It was important psychological work and I'm very glad I did it.
But it's only just occurred to me that the same thing might apply to fanfic tropes. (Well, aside from sex. A lot of what I knew about sex as a teen came from fic. But I was very aware of that, and it never really took me off-guard.) Today I found myself in a situation I am very familiar with from fic, and I had to stop and notice that I was automatically reacting the way a character in a fic would.
This whole relationship has been very fic-esque. He's on my beer league hockey team, sort of--we have factions in two divisions and he's in the other one, but our games are always back-to-back at the same rink, and we all do stick-and-puck practice and go out for beers together. He's cute and witty and very thoughtful on the ice during practice, which somewhat surprisingly was the thing that made me realize I was into him; he kept passing to me right when I was looking for someone to pass with. What a sickeningly appropriate metaphor, right? Totally something you'd roll your eyes at but be smiling anyway if you read it in a fic.
I invited him to a hockey bar for Canadian Thanksgiving, and he invited me to a drop-in hockey session, and this week we started texting a lot, and it's gotten to the point where I need to find out for sure whether he's interested or else I'm going to start acting weird and pushing him away. (I know myself very well. I don't always understand myself, but I'm pretty predictable about this kind of thing.)
So today on the way to the rink I was thinking about what I actually want here, because I don't know him well enough to jump into a relationship and I have a couple of concerns about compatibility anyway, and I had this great character development moment where I realized: oh! this is why people go on "dates"! I've never been much for traditional dating, but in this situation I think it would actually make a lot of sense. I came up with a plan for when and how to ask him, and I walked into the rink, where he was already on the ice with the Div7 team. I watched them for a while, then went to get my gear on for my own game right afterwards, and then I went back out to watch the rest of their game.
And then this guy I'm crushing on stumbled off the ice and collapsed against the wall right by me.
I asked if he was okay. He said no. I tried to ascertain what was wrong; he couldn't seem to tell me. No one else was helping. I tried to ask the scorekeeper what happened, and in the meantime he dragged himself into the locker room to sit down. I followed and sat next to him. His eyes were watering and unfocused. He kept trying to smile at me, probably in an attempt at reassurance because I was pretty clearly freaking out.
Concussion. I had never seen one before, and had no idea how to check for severity or what else to do beyond ask for medical help, which I did. I stayed with him for another five minutes or so before the rest of the Div7 team trooped in and told me to go play my own game, and my immediate reaction to that was NO. I was seriously five seconds away from changing back into street clothes and driving him to the hospital myself. Which was ridiculous, because the Div7 game was over, so there were plenty of people available to help him out. They told me this and ushered me out, and that was when I realized I was automatically playing the C part of an h/c fic.
I guess this kind of thing has never happened because incidents like that don't usually fit into relationship narratives quite so neatly. Like, what were the odds that I would be the only one standing in that hall, and that he would be the one injured right then, after I'd been thinking about the two of us? How probable is it that no one would check up on us in the locker room long enough for all the worried gazing and brave attempts at smiles? That's the kind of unlikely moment we read fic for.
Anyway, in a fic I would go over to his place tomorrow and check up on him and argue with him about his ludicrous insistence on playing in next week's game and probably wind up getting into a conversation about personal things that we only now feel comfortable sharing because we bonded in crisis, or something like that. But in reality he's got someone taking care of him, the doctor said it's not too bad, and the bullshit about playing next week is something he'll just have to take up with his team captain. Still gonna ask him out, probably, but I'll let him heal up first.
This entry was originally posted at http://jedusaur.dreamwidth.org/102870.html.
But it's only just occurred to me that the same thing might apply to fanfic tropes. (Well, aside from sex. A lot of what I knew about sex as a teen came from fic. But I was very aware of that, and it never really took me off-guard.) Today I found myself in a situation I am very familiar with from fic, and I had to stop and notice that I was automatically reacting the way a character in a fic would.
This whole relationship has been very fic-esque. He's on my beer league hockey team, sort of--we have factions in two divisions and he's in the other one, but our games are always back-to-back at the same rink, and we all do stick-and-puck practice and go out for beers together. He's cute and witty and very thoughtful on the ice during practice, which somewhat surprisingly was the thing that made me realize I was into him; he kept passing to me right when I was looking for someone to pass with. What a sickeningly appropriate metaphor, right? Totally something you'd roll your eyes at but be smiling anyway if you read it in a fic.
I invited him to a hockey bar for Canadian Thanksgiving, and he invited me to a drop-in hockey session, and this week we started texting a lot, and it's gotten to the point where I need to find out for sure whether he's interested or else I'm going to start acting weird and pushing him away. (I know myself very well. I don't always understand myself, but I'm pretty predictable about this kind of thing.)
So today on the way to the rink I was thinking about what I actually want here, because I don't know him well enough to jump into a relationship and I have a couple of concerns about compatibility anyway, and I had this great character development moment where I realized: oh! this is why people go on "dates"! I've never been much for traditional dating, but in this situation I think it would actually make a lot of sense. I came up with a plan for when and how to ask him, and I walked into the rink, where he was already on the ice with the Div7 team. I watched them for a while, then went to get my gear on for my own game right afterwards, and then I went back out to watch the rest of their game.
And then this guy I'm crushing on stumbled off the ice and collapsed against the wall right by me.
I asked if he was okay. He said no. I tried to ascertain what was wrong; he couldn't seem to tell me. No one else was helping. I tried to ask the scorekeeper what happened, and in the meantime he dragged himself into the locker room to sit down. I followed and sat next to him. His eyes were watering and unfocused. He kept trying to smile at me, probably in an attempt at reassurance because I was pretty clearly freaking out.
Concussion. I had never seen one before, and had no idea how to check for severity or what else to do beyond ask for medical help, which I did. I stayed with him for another five minutes or so before the rest of the Div7 team trooped in and told me to go play my own game, and my immediate reaction to that was NO. I was seriously five seconds away from changing back into street clothes and driving him to the hospital myself. Which was ridiculous, because the Div7 game was over, so there were plenty of people available to help him out. They told me this and ushered me out, and that was when I realized I was automatically playing the C part of an h/c fic.
I guess this kind of thing has never happened because incidents like that don't usually fit into relationship narratives quite so neatly. Like, what were the odds that I would be the only one standing in that hall, and that he would be the one injured right then, after I'd been thinking about the two of us? How probable is it that no one would check up on us in the locker room long enough for all the worried gazing and brave attempts at smiles? That's the kind of unlikely moment we read fic for.
Anyway, in a fic I would go over to his place tomorrow and check up on him and argue with him about his ludicrous insistence on playing in next week's game and probably wind up getting into a conversation about personal things that we only now feel comfortable sharing because we bonded in crisis, or something like that. But in reality he's got someone taking care of him, the doctor said it's not too bad, and the bullshit about playing next week is something he'll just have to take up with his team captain. Still gonna ask him out, probably, but I'll let him heal up first.
This entry was originally posted at http://jedusaur.dreamwidth.org/102870.html.