The Longest Boss Battle

By Mark Thomas

While holding back the urge to laugh, cry, and cringe, two YouTubers named Mark and Pash describe their awkward journey from meeting online to traversing anime conventions together, and creating the channel called Bottle Service Gaming. With moments from their childhoods to life as adults, this nerdy duo explores the horrors and joys of being introverted while still trying to party, date people, and discover where their lives are going.

 

Cover arr by William Bright on Instagram: Cover art by William Bright on Insagram: https://instagram.com/williambrightrpg?utm_medium=copy_link

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mark and Pash Thomas
• Release date: Jul 1, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201108168

Mark Thomas

Mark Thomas, Pash Thomas While holding back the urge to laugh, cry, and cringe, two YouTubers named Mark and Pash describe their awkward journey from meeting online to traversing anime conventions together, and creating the channel called Bottle Service Gaming. With moments from their childhoods to life as adults, this nerdy duo explores the horrors and joys of being introverted while still trying to party, date people, and discover where their lives are going.

Book preview

Chapter 1 Mark

Mark, I want to see other people. I'm not done being a 24-year-old. Blah, blah, blah.

That sad bullshit Pash spouted still made perfect sense to me despite the unholy amount of liquor in my system at the time. Yes, we all know how heartbreaks go. If not, consider yourself lucky. Heartbreak is an internal pain that seems to amplify the more you think about past events of the person you liked/loved. It can turn you into a zombie and make one become lovesick, simply put, it hurts. I remember when she called, it was like a sad scene out of an anime. There I was in the rain, staring up at the sky, drenched. Okay, maybe not drenched, but a little wet, still sad though. I held it together until the second we got off the phone. Then the water works started. My hair began to glow and then a yellow aura appeared around my body. Before I knew it, I had ascended. Ascended upstairs to my small bedroom to cry some more like a baby.

This was the result of online dating! Okay, I am not going to blame online dating for the outcome. The old me would have been bitter enough to do so. At the time, I was a 23-year-old technician from the north side of Milwaukee Wisconsin who was nerdy, inexperienced, and clueless. Call me crazy, but a one-night stand never appealed to me. Yes, I said it! Not every guy cares for one night of possible pregnancy or the I hope she doesn't have a disease guessing game. I felt safer trying to find someone to be with online, and after some browsing for a month and learning how to filter what I wanted: Slim, nerd, anime, video games, within 125 miles, I found her. For the record, 125 miles is considered average for a long-distance relationship and I later learned she was 122 miles away, so close enough. Close enough for someone who didn't even have a car, what could go wrong?

Okay, my profile was created. I posted some convention pictures, an extra cringey bio and a very recent profile picture of me wearing a brown T-shirt with the Wings of Freedom symbol on the front. Showing my love for Attack on Titan from the start, clearly a winner. Luckily, she was exactly what I was looking for physically and based on her nerdy interests, she had the personality to match, so I decided to send my first message after spending a few minutes thinking of the perfect thing to say.

Hey, I see you're into anime. What are you currently watching?

I knew I hit it out of the park. Flawless victory. Luckily, she answered with honesty and genuine interest. She said, "Hello, I am currently watching Kill La Kill, Haikyuu!!, and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure. What are you watching? I see you like AOT and I’m curious as to why? The first season didn’t seem good enough to go out and buy merch, lol." At this point, I could tell she hated Attack on Titan. She gave me a list of reasons why she didn't like the show. Ever since then, I never wore that shirt again and would only bring it out as a joke. I knew she would give a You need to switch shirts! reaction to it. I know some of you might ask, how could I continue talking to a woman who doesn't like AOT?

It was easy. She was just that type of woman. As we talked more, I learned that her taste in shows, anime, video games, and nerdy things in general was very much to my liking. She even introduced me to a ton of things I've never heard of. For starters, the anime Black Lagoon, Cromartie High School, Guilty Crown and many more. Even some television shows like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Game of Thrones. Then came the drinking games like Red or Black, Pyramid, Spoons and more, but that was much later.

Growing up and even now, I don't watch a lot of movies or television shows. It took me awhile to watch the first Guardians of the Galaxy, Fight Club and even the Friday series. We talked for about a couple of weeks on this dating site, and I was a little hesitant to exchange phone numbers, but we finally did. Each new message caused the extra life jingle from Sonic The Hedgehog to play in my head. We were writing stories to each other with each message. Actually, we were receiving walls of texts that had to be deciphered because the messages would be so long and out of order! I was still using a flip phone at the time, so it couldn’t process everything properly which made communication a little difficult. I wanted to go back to talking online, but after I got her number, I deleted my online dating account! I still regret not keeping those messages saved somewhere, though.

I was hesitant to respond the entire time because I read everything she sent me about a million times and wanted to make sure my response made sense and she would keep talking to me. I was already becoming quite attracted to her. I sometimes went days without sending a message, but she was patient and typically responded faster than I did. I usually didn’t have as much to talk about as her since the winter air was slowly creeping up and encouraging me to stay indoors.

The warm fuzziness I felt when coming home after being out in the cold felt so much better when you know you have a long message to read from someone you hope to be with. I would usually rush to my room without eating, play some instrumentals and relax as we talked about what we did throughout the weeks. The movies we saw, the TV shows we watched, how we spent our holidays and what we looked forward to. She was quite good at getting me to talk about myself and I not so subtly copied her questioning method to find out more about her.

She always seemed to be doing something interesting. Bar hopping, hanging with friends, etc. This is when I discovered she had a car and was living life much more than I was at the time. I was slightly intimidated, but extremely excited because I had finally found what made us so different, and what could possibly bring us together. She's all the way in another state. Maybe she's just talking to me because she just wants more guy friends? I thought. She was a tomboy for sure, which I loved, and was probably the reason why she mostly had guy friends, but I didn't ask the burning question.

My heart continued to leap out of my chest with every text, and with that, I was happier every day, yet very anxious. The kind of anxious that makes you rush to the bathroom. It wasn't until three months later, in the dead of winter that she mentioned she wanted to meet up. Christ, Lord Jesus, this is it. This is that defining moment like in movies or an anime. I'm not even religious, but I needed to pray. This incredibly attractive person who seems perfect to me, wants to drive two hours away to see me.

Chapter 2 Pash

It was May 2014, I finally got my associates of art and I was slowly, but surely getting fed up with my pizza job. Being that it was my first real job, one that paid minimum wage, only asked for 24 hours a week out of me didn't seem that bad. My first manager there was the best because he wasn't strict, gave many hours, liked dubstep, and Magic the Gathering. Yes, at the time, I was really into MTG, especially playing red, white, and blue. The crew I worked with was no different than any other job I would go on to work with, except there were mostly young people. Once my second manager came, the job went downhill. I started not getting any hours like eight to ten a week. The worst part is when he mentioned he would give me more hours the next week and never did. After this went on, I decided it was time for a new job.

Two months later, I got the job at a casino and still worked a few hours at the pizza place. The feeling of getting a better job is one of the best feelings because you know anytime you want to leave your old job you can, which is exactly what I did. This new job was interesting at first. The hiring process was different. Let's just say, I did my best turning Super Saiyan act in front of a group of people and easily got the job.

The new job consisted of me cleaning on and off the casino's boat. It was an easy job if you were fine with cleaning up after people, smelling trash that made you want to throw up, getting paid less than what you should, and lifting heavy trash bags to the point where your cart wants to tip over. I was so desperate to leave my other job, it still sounded great to me at the time. Also, they offered full-time and an overnight shift.

I know what you're thinking, Where does the online dating and meeting Mark come into play? Ha! It doesn't, I wasn't fed enough cookies to talk about that, plus it's confidential... Wait! Hold on! Well, I guess it's not that confidential. In 2014 and even years before and after, online dating sites were my thing and took up a lot of my time, even though I didn't like calling them dating sites. For me, it was meeting friends, potential f-buddies, and if dating just so happened, then I was alright with that. The feedback I’ve gotten regarding online dating sites were some people thinking it was too risky and others being extremely interested, especially if it was free and if they saw that the person I was talking to was attractive.

Trust me, I know, there are some creeps and dangerous people on the web, but luckily, I haven't come across too many. They would typically send me the oddest messages. For example, Hey girl, you look so good I can just taste your sweet, delicious thang in my... Yeah, you get the idea. But the list of creeps goes on from there.

I know someone is wondering, How have I not met any of these creeps in person? I would look for any and every red flag there is, but also if I got any feeling that something was off, then I was on to the next one. I was so picky with who I chatted with most guys never met me in person. It was like I was waiting for the guy to do something that ticked me off so I could stop talking to them. It seems unfair, but once again, there are a lot of creeps online, so I was just protecting myself.

Chatting online was a fantastic way to improve my social skills if only by a little bit. Thinking about my younger years, things were quite different. Growing up, I was always reserved, shy, quiet, and nonchalant. In fifth grade, I got voted as shyest kid in class and never talked a lot to the other kids in my classes. In middle school, some kids wondered if I was a mute because they never heard me talk. I didn’t realize until later that I had a ton of social anxiety. I’m not sure if people thought I was stuck up because I didn’t talk much, but I had no clue how to talk to people.

I avoided ever being the center of attention and felt like people would judge me if I talked, so I kept quiet. In high school, I would avoid going to the lunchroom and hung out in the library to complete homework. I wanted each day of school to hurry up and be over with, so I could go back to playing video games, listening to music, and watching TV. I later learned that being that way gets boring and hinders your life, especially when you