Inspiration Comes in the Strangest of Places

Video games and dating life usually don’t intertwine, and that’s most likely for the best. That’s not to say I don’t like girls that are into video games…for I very much am…I’m just saying when I want to take someone on a romantic date I’m not gonna bust out my game boy color and show her my pokemon collection. (not really fair, I haven’t played pokemon since 6^th grade but you get the point.) However, every once in a grand while the video game universe does give some applicable advice as to the more emotional side of us men.

For the past few weeks, maybe even months, I’ve been feeling rather apathetic when it comes to dating and relationships. Every time I’ve put myself out there I just get stressed and frustrated…mostly due to my deep-thinking, over-analyzing self. Then after a while I build myself up, put myself out there again and repeat the process over completely. Insanity right? I know! It’s like a never-ending rollercoaster, and to combat such an emotional ride I’ve tried not caring…enter apathy. Now I know it’s not an ideal solution...but it wasn’t without its charms. After all…It worked. I was no longer stressed, confused, or frustrated. Dating life was a giant MEH…

Then I had an epiphanic moment. (Yeah, I know that’s not a word, but it really should be. It’s really fun to say.) And of all to places to realize such a thought, it happened while playing a video game. The original Super Mario bro’s to be exact.

Your everyday, ordinary plumber sets out to save the princess who was taken hostage by the evil Bowser, King of the Koopas. Honestly, what guy doesn’t have some dream about rescuing his damsel in distress? At the end of every level you battle against Bowser thinking that you’ve saved the princess…only to have Toad tell you that your princess is in another castle. It’s messed up! Here we are, after putting in all this time, effort, and energy into saving whom we thought was the princess, only to find that you’re still 6 worlds away. That’s when I had my thought. It was right there on the screen, and for a brief moment the life I live in video games and dating combined to provide some sort of synergistic epiphany written in tiny 8-bit letters. “My princess is in another castle.” That means that she’s out there, somewhere at least…and that even if I have to beat 8 worlds to find her, then it will be worth it in the end. Many of us have been and will continue to go through multiple levels, finding out that the one we were saving, the one we were putting forth our time and efforts towards, was in fact not your princess, but that she is still in another castle.

That’s ok though, because when you finally do reach the last level and find princess peach, you’ll realized how you really weren’t ready for the game to be over on level 1 anyway, and that’s it’s taken your adventures to really appreciate the genius of the game designer.