Red Flags, or: Apparently I’ve Been This Way the Whole Time
Three years.
That’s how long Red Flags has apparently been sitting there, quietly documenting something about me that I somehow never bothered to put into words.
And after three years, my response is basically:
Yep.
Still checks out.
I like weird women.
Not necessarily evil women. Not necessarily crazy women. Not necessarily women who will murder me in my sleep, although looking at some of my fictional choices, apparently my Paladin has occasionally failed his Perception check.
I mean weird.
Women with edges. Women with personality. Women who are intense, abrasive, obsessive, guarded, ridiculous, stubborn, dangerous, awkward, chaotic, or simply built differently from everybody standing around them.
Give me someone where you can immediately say, “Oh, that's HER.”
Apparently that's my type.
And looking backward, this has been hilariously consistent.
Mita. Monika. Yuno Gasai. Lucy and Nyuu. Amy Rose. Surge. Cammy. Kisara. Harley Quinn. Juri. Azula. Reze. Najenda.
Somewhere along the way the character-select screen started looking less like a dating pool and more like the warning label on industrial machinery.
And yet the thing that interests me isn't:
I can fix her.
I've never particularly liked that phrase.
My question is:
Why the fuck did I pick her if my first objective is turning her into somebody else?
If I choose someone because she's strange, intense, loud, stubborn, eccentric, complicated, or whatever else made me notice her in the first place, what sense does it make to immediately start sanding those pieces away?
Congratulations.
I have successfully converted a person I found fascinating into somebody I don't recognize.
Excellent work, Paladin.
[CHA 100]
[WISDOM CHECK FAILED]
There is, however, an enormous fucking asterisk attached to this.
Accepting somebody for who they are does not mean accepting everything they do.
Those are two completely different things.
You can love somebody and still have boundaries.
You can understand why somebody behaves a certain way and still tell them, “No. You cannot do that to me.”
You can stand beside somebody without volunteering to become their punching bag, wallet, therapist, hostage, or emergency food supply.
And sometimes the boundary is simply:
I can't live with this.
Then you leave.
That's not trying to change somebody. That's recognizing that two people can be exactly who they are and still be completely fucking incompatible.
Throw the deuces.
What bothers me is the other version.
I love you, but could you stop dressing like that?
Could you stop liking that?
Could you stop acting like that?
Could you be quieter?
Could you be more normal?
Could you please become the version of yourself that causes me the least inconvenience?
At some point you have to ask whether you actually love the person standing there or whether you're in love with a hypothetical future patch where the developers remove everything you don't like.
And then fucking Hyadain wandered into this thought.
Because I remembered Riajū tte Konna Mon Dakke? — Is This What It's Supposed to Be Like to Have a Girlfriend?
The joke starts with somebody who has finally accomplished the great anime protagonist objective:
GIRLFRIEND ACQUIRED.
Achievement unlocked.
Surely everything is perfect now.
Except it isn't.
The relationship doesn't feel the way he imagined it would. He's doing the boyfriend things. He's buying things. He's dealing with dates and expectations and all the little pieces that are apparently supposed to constitute romantic success.
And meanwhile there is this other person.
His male friend.
The person who was already there.
The person he'd rather spend time with.
And eventually the joke starts becoming considerably less of a joke.
Maybe the thing he thought he was supposed to want isn't actually the thing his heart wants.
And I think that's where this whole stupid journey through Hyadain, Red Flags, fictional women of questionable OSHA compliance, and my apparently terminal Paladin build lands.
Because my rule applies in both directions.
If I choose to stand beside someone, I will. And my goal is not to change them.
But there's another half:
I shouldn't expect somebody to change themselves simply because the rest of the world thinks they should.
If somebody loves a man, they love a man.
If somebody loves a woman, they love a woman.
If somebody is weird, they're weird.
If they're loud, quiet, awkward, nerdy, eccentric, unconventional, or some glorious combination of several poorly labeled character traits, that's the person standing in front of me.
Other people can have opinions.
Other people do not get a character editor.
And neither do I.
That doesn't mean every relationship works.
It doesn't mean every difference can be overcome.
It doesn't mean love magically erases incompatibility, bad behavior, betrayal, abuse, or the need for boundaries.
Sometimes two perfectly decent people look at each other and discover:
Nope.
That's life.
But there's a difference between leaving because something doesn't work and staying while spending years trying to rebuild somebody into the person you wish you'd met.
If I'm staying, I'm standing beside you.
Not Version 2.0.
Not the socially acceptable edition.
Not the one with the weird shit patched out.
You.
And if one day I decide that the real you and the real me simply cannot make it work, then I'd rather admit that than spend years trying to grind you down until you fit.
Maybe that's what I've been trying to say this entire time.
Red Flags made me laugh because the ending essentially says: if you're going to stay with the weird person, then understand that you have elected to stay with the weird person.
Hyadain adds something else:
Maybe you should also make damn sure the person you're choosing is the person you actually want, rather than the person everybody told you that you were supposed to want.
And once you've figured that out?
Stand by your choice.
Have boundaries.
Keep your identity.
Let them keep theirs.
Don't confuse acceptance with submission.
Don't confuse incompatibility with failure.
And don't spend your life sanding interesting people into beige furniture.
Apparently I've believed some version of this for years.
I just needed a cannibal-date comedy song, a Japanese musician arguing with himself in three voices, and an alarming number of fictional women capable of killing me to finally connect all the dots.
My character sheet remains unchanged:
STR: Good enough.
DEX: Don't ask.
CON: Working on it.
INT: Situational.
WIS: Frequently ignored.
CHA: Apparently dumped every available point into this motherfucker.
Special Ability: Talk to the Weird Woman.
Passive Effect: Questionable Life Choices.
And somehow, against all available evidence, the Paladin remains convinced he's got this.
— Jerry “The Ankle-Biter” Silverhand
Mr. Jerry's Unsolicited Advice
Don't date somebody because you think you'll like the person they might eventually become.
Meet the person who's actually standing there.
If you like them, like them.
If you can't accept something important about them, be honest about it.
If they cross your boundaries, defend them.
If the relationship cannot work, leave it.
But if the only problem is that they're harmlessly weird and somebody else thinks they ought to be more normal?
Fuck normal.
Life already has enough beige furniture.