It’s been awhile since my last post and since Seattle’s last Sakura-con (April 2011). More specifically, it’s been that many days since I last met, talked, and seen who may very well be (for all I know) a paragon for THE love of my life (aside from Felicia Day of course). Yes, this probably seems like a very premature evaluation of someone I hardly know. In fact, more than likely it is. However, since I was unable to talk to her more and get to know her better, I can never know nor will ever know for sure. At any rate, it’s probably worth recounting the story of How I Met The Girl With the Batman Tattoo.
Sakura-con was scheduled for April 8-10th at the Convention Center in Seattle, WA. My coworker Brandon convinced Michael (another coworker) and I to attend this three-day event with him. He was only going because "his little sister forces him to go" (a likely story! She’s about 20-21 years of age; she doesn’t need a chaperone.) After we got our badge tickets on Friday night, we were perusing the schedule. There weren’t much going on in the Friday schedule so we headed home after spending about three hours there. Before we all went our separate ways, Michael noticed a “Speed Dating” event that was scheduled for 2pm for Saturday the 7th, i.e. le lendemain.
Therefore we agreed to meet up around 12:30-1pm the next day so we can get food and make sure we have ample time to get to the Speed Dating event not to mention enough alcohol in the system to survive it :P Now please keep in mind that both Brandon and I were not expecting much out of this. Chances were, not to be discriminatory by any means, fairly slim that we’d actually meet someone we would end up dating in real life. I’m not trying to fall victim to the disease known as "Being A Cynical Asshole" as Stan's shrink so eloquently described, but I simply could not fathom the possibility that I would meet many girls at these things, much less one I’ll be interested in. Don’t the statistics for speed dating, “Singles” night, generic mixers, and the like show a huge disparity between male and female attendees? I would not be surprised if the ratio was something along the lines of 1w:10m!
Sorry for that tangent. Anyway, when we entered the room in which the Speed Dating thing was held we reluctantly had to split up and couldn’t sit in consecutive seats that lie adjacent to one another. This is because, as predicted, the ratio of guys to girls was quite ridonkulous. The men outnumbered the girls but the moderators tried doing their best to limit the amount of empty chairs in both the men’s and women’s rows.
The rules were simple:
1. 2.5 minutes for each conversation before the bell rings and the men change seats
2. The ladies stay seated
3. The men cannot explicitly ask for any of the lady's contact information
4. Only the lady can ask the guy for his number, not the other way around
The first few rounds dragged in time as it was very apparent at the forefront that no chemistry was there. Hell, I’m not even into anime all that much in the first place! So while the girl sitting across from me was dressed fantastically in some elaborate costume that I had no doubt taken a lot of time to make, I could not geek out over it the way they would have liked. I did consider, for a moment, to pretend as if I did have some kind of affectation and facade of who they cosplayed as, but then it'd be awkward if I got caught...Regardless, I appreciated the craftsmanship and the work ethic they put into their costume but me not knowing anything about it definitely made it difficult. I hope they didn’t take it as an affront.
As we got deeper into this game and embarking on the 8-9th rounds, I was growing restless. Sure, some people were interesting and our little 150-second conversation had some substance that was starting to brew. But for the most part it was a cut-and-dry, back-and-forth, give-and-take of the most minimalistic human interaction known to man:
Them: Hi, I’m _____
Me: Hi. My name’s _____.
Them: Nice to meet you.
Me: Nice to meet you too. So what brings you here?
Them: Oh, I just love the ______anime series. What’s your favorite?
Me: Oh, I don’t really watch any anime….
Them: (awkward/embarrassed/nervous laughter) So why are you here?
Me: (sighs) *starts explaining the drawn-out story of Michael and Brandon and how I’m more interested in comics than anime*
Them: *looking bored half-way through*
Me: Enough about me. What about you? Why is that your favorite anime?
HERE IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING BECAUSE IT CAN GO DOWN TWO DIFFERENT PATHS...
Path 1:
Them: *goes into great detail about why they like it and what the anime means to them on a personal level*
Me: *bewildered by the details of the show, but fascinated at their response*
Path 2:
Them: I dunno. It’s cool I guess….
Me: Oh...
After about 9 rounds of this, you can imagine how restless you'd feel. What kept me going and what kept my ebullience energized was the fact that looking down the row of girls I was about to meet there was a cute redheaded girl with glasses coming up in the queue. Let's face it: speed-dating inherently presents this problem upon itself. The contestants are surely sizing up their competition along their row while comparing everyone with one another sitting in the row across. Instead of being someone who's trying to hit it off with everyone that I meet and
In this case, the short, glasses-wearing, non-cosplay-playing, dressed-in-black, redhead was the only speed dater that "tickled my fancy". No...wait...that sounds weird. She was the only one that caught my eye. Funny, considering some of the more...uh...liberal costumes...shall we say that were present in the room. Anywho, I paid my dues and waited patiently as the timer kept ticking and the seats kept changing. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Marisa (as the redheaded girl turned out to be named) was actually the penultimate girl with whom I got to speed date.
I didn't get the perfect start that I had wanted because the guy in front of me took some of my time as he was busy giving his number to her. Before you ask, no, she did not say specifically, "Can I have your number" to him. Instead, after his time was up with her he had asked her if she would like to have his number and she said sure. So while he was giving her his number to enter into her phone he took about 30 seconds of MY precious "date time" with her. Finally after he moved on to he next girl, I sat down and I said to her, "I like your costume."
Her: (laughs) Yeah, you like it? It took me awhile.
Me: I can tell.
Her: I was going for the natural, normal, regular person look.
Me: Well. Wow. You pull it off well. Anyway, so I'm Will.
Her: Hi, I'm Maris(s)a.
Me: Nice to meet you!
Her. Nice to meet you too. So what are some of your favorite anime shows?
Me: Actually...funny thing is that I don't really watch that much anime...
Her: Really? Me neither, I'm here with my friends (*points to the three cosplaying girls to her right*)
Me: Oh I see. That's really cool. Yeah, I'm actually more of a comics person myself.
Her: Oh yeah? I like comics.
Me: Really? No way!
Her: *pulls down the upper-left corner of her blouse to reveal a Batman symbol tattoo*
Me: *JAW DROPS*
OK
My jaw didn't really drop. It was more like this:
Me: Oh, very nice! So you like Batman huh?
Her; Yes! But don't ask me too much about it...I actually don't know THAT much about it.
Me: (laughs) Okay. I won't. By the way....you wouldn't happen to know who Felicia Day is, would you?
Her: Who?..Oh! Felicia Day? Dr. Horrible?
Me; Yes, yes! And The Guild?
Her: Yes! I know her. She's really funny!
Me: Yeah, she's great. I was only mentioning her because you actually kind of look and remind me of her...
Her: Oh, haha. Is it because of the hair?
Me: Actually, yes! Yes it is! Is that your natural hair color? That red, auburn, reddish-brown...? I don't know, what would you categorize it?
Her: Umm..yeah..auburn/reddish-brown sounds about right.
Announcer: Okay time is up! Please stand up and move over to the next person. This will be the last one. We have to leave the room soon, there are already people outside lining up for the next event. Once again, this next one will be the last one for the day. Thank you for coming!
Me: Aww okay well I guess I gotta go...but hey! Do you live around here?
Her: Yes...well..sort of. I'm actually more down towards the Olympia area.
Me: Oh...okay, I see...that's too bad. I was gonna suggest we should watch some Guild episodes if you haven't already seen 'em all. I already have all the seasons. If ya want...you can take down my number and so you'll get to catch up for free (smiles)
Her: (laughs) Okay, what's your number?
And that was that. Unfortunately I had to move on and didn't see her for the rest of the day. Or the rest of Sakura-Con for that matter.
I don't know what happened to her or if she only took down my number because she knew I saw her take down the previous guy's number and didn't want me to feel left out. Whatever the case may be, 150 seconds is not enough time to get to her story. It's even more tragic considering it wasn't even 150 seconds long thanks to Mr. Initiative who proceeded me in talking to her. Marisa may have a boyfriend, or a fiance, or maybe even a lesbian! I sure hope not though! But the point is that there ARE girls like her that exist. More importantly, there are girls like her that exist and is not named Felicia Day.
It's nice to see that there is a non-web Queen that is just as cute, smart, geeky, nice, and overall awesome that is alive and is in her mid-20s and lives in the great state of Washington.
I might never see her again and I think I can live with that...but I wouldn't have been able to if I didn't relish and become content with the fact that there ARE girls like her out there. They may be hard to find and they may be scattered about all over the world but they are out there waiting for their geek in shining, pocket-protecting armor. I hope to find my Princess Peach/Codex/Lara Croft someday. But, ideally, I'd find The Girl with the Batman Tattoo. <3
After scouring the internet for any signs of finding Marisa, all I came up with was the video below. My friend Jenny, bless her heart, tried assisting me on this seemingly futile adventure. She was able to find and download the pre-registration list for Sakura-Con 2011 (so basically the Sakura-Con attendee manifesto/blackbox, if you will) and filter by name and variations of "Marissa" and "Marisa" but with no real success or matches. Sigh. What kind of world have we come to when you can't even find or locate a cute auburn-haired girl with glasses that you met serendipitously one time at a speed dating anime convention and had a nice conversation with on the internet? #Lame-o :P
Link to a brief glimpse of Marisa from someone's Youtube video of Sakura-Con Day 2 (Saturday). Pay special attention to the 3:20-3:23 mark (next to the super bright red-haired and bright blue-haired girls AKA her two friends who DID do cosplay.)
Sakura-Con: Brief Glimpse of The Girl of My Geek Dreams
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