>meeting up with your handful of 'outcast' friends at school
>you sit on the floor outside the cafeteria or in the courtyard, playing MTG or Yu-Gi-Oh
>you're reading manga, talking about anime, and eating Asian snacks you bought at the new H Mart that opened up nearby, or in the international aisle at Walmart
>you agree to try meeting up at the anime con in a couple of months
>the 'popular' kids trash you and your friends relentlessly, but you don't care because you have each other
>you play Pokemon Emerald on your Gameboy Advance SP or Animal Crossing Wild World on your DS on the bus ride home after school
>maybe hop on Halo 2 or WoW with your friends later
>...
You will never experience this again. How's it feel?

>experience this again
Nigga I was born in 2003.

>>81951141
kek, waow. boi, did YOU miss out.

>>81951115 (OP)
>You will never experience this again.
nigga I didn't get to experience it in the first place, even the outcast kids didn't want anything to do with me

>>81951115 (OP)
I wish I got to experience anime cons before they became full of normies and social media star wannabes

>>81951168
damn, that's rough. It wasn't until many years AFTER high school that I realized those 'friends' really just tolerated my presence.

>>81951186
I was only able to do so twice. Those were the days. The cons were small and the things you could buy, see, and do were limited, but it felt more genuine. The cons had soul.

>>81951161
I know. I missed out on that and teen love.
How do I cope?

>>81951223
Idk about teen love because I missed out on that too, but...I guess you could play some Gamecube games.

>>81951210
nowadays cons are full of overpriced merch you can buy online, ai slop and stolen art being sold, 90% of the panels are stuff like "cosplay while black/disabled/trans/gay", there's more pride stuff than at a fucking gay parade, oh and since this is a very social media driven hobby nowadays, any fuckup you make is online FOREVER

>>81951263
True. I still want to go to at least 2 cons before the end of this year (had to miss one because I had a dental abscess), but...I don't know. I feel like I'm just going for the sake of going. They didn't even have a Principality of Zeon flag the last one I went to.

>>81951210
your pic has always been me. no matter who or what or where, it's either I force myself into stuff, always initiate stuff, always talk to people first, or I get left in the dust. Nobody ever reached out to me, nobody ever invited me anywhere
I remember when I found out my "friend" was fake when he didn't invite me to his birthday party and I only found out because I overheard others talking about it, confronted him about it and he said he "forgot to invite me" you know the guy who fucking sat next to him in every class

>>81951281
Yes, it hits hard when you finally realize it; realizing that the only reason you were 'friends' with certain people is because you had to see them x-amount of times each week. It's even worse with 'family' because you grow up having to be around them ever-so-often (summers, for example), only for them all to completely drop off from your life the moment you become an adult. That, or (as in my case), THEY stay connected while excluding YOU. One is truly alone in this world.