Tales of a Recovering Hikikomori – 4

During the recently concluded Ozine Fest 2010, a few interesting things happened to me. I’d like to share them in the hopes of either entertaining you or letting you get a glimpse at how the Hikikomori mind works.

Basically, the Hikikomori mind has the tendency to over-think things. The flow of though may or may not be logical, though usually it isn’t. But given an odd situation, you can pretty much expect a Hikikomori’s mind to be working extra hard, trying to figure out what was going on.

The first story I’m going to share happened during the third day, right about when the cosplay competition was about to kick-off. I was seated near the front of the stage as part of our strategy to get lots of pictures. However, I noticed that a cute cosplayer walked over and sat a few feet away from me.

Now, as a guy, it’s hard not to take notice of this kind of thing. Naturally, I subconsciously glanced over her side, since the competition has not started yet. I never stared at her, just the occasional turn of my head, looking around, catching glimpses of everything around. But lo and behold, I began noticing something different.

On occasion, I’ve noticed her looking at my direction. Now this surprised me; this was not something I’d expect. Now I started wondering if she glanced at me as well, and if there was something weird with how I look. And thus my glances around increased, resulting to a healthy workout of my neck muscles.

Looking back, it’s mostly just a delusion. The highest probability is that she was looking beyond me, over to the side of the stage where some of the people who were about to go up were waiting. There’s also a slim chance that she looked at me because there was something weird with me, though I’m not too sure what that would be.

The second story I’m going to share happened on the second day, after the group cosplay competition ended. I was walking around, waiting for a bit of time to pass while give my legs a good stretch. As I was near the Toy Kingdom booth, I was surprised to hear voices of girls behind me…

Kuya, kuya, pwedeng pa-picture?

Now, this caught me off-guard. Were they talking to me? And did I hear them right?

And that point, my mind started to run with different scenarios. If they weren’t addressing me, wouldn’t it be quite embarrassing to turn around? It would be weird if I suddenly stopped in the middle of nowhere to turn around…

But what if they were indeed addressing me? I’m not a cosplayer, so why? Were they mistaking me for somebody else? I’m no one famous to be honest. It’ll be awkward to be put in a spot.

So I went on, walking forward slowly, but the voices remained…

Hindi naririnig ni kuya…

Wait, wait, wait. Were they really referring to me? What am I supposed to do? Turn around? Keep going?

To be honest, I was waiting if they’d tap me from behind. If that was the case, then I’d be sure that they were referring to me. But that did not happen, as the girls eventually stopped and I went on forward…

Looking back, I realized that I should have turned around to see them. There’s one simple reason to it: They were asking me to take their pictures as the photographer! How could I be so stupid?!

You just have to love how the Hikikomori mind works.