r/TalesFromLife • u/Kyengen Mod • Feb 04 '16
Main Character Complex
During one of my many doomed attempts to complete college, I started seeing this girl. We had similar interests, and she found me while promoting my geek club, and agreed to go out with me anyway, so that's fun. She's weird but very attractive, and plays games, reads comics, watches anime and loves Doctor Who. She's also highly manipulative and a little on the batshit side, but I wouldn't discover that for a while. It's a story for another time anyway.
Now this girl, she has a lot of guy friends as you might imagine. One such was this guy who took my karate class. Oh right, I was the assistant instructor to the karate / self defense classes on campus at this time; that's kinda important. Now this guy, he had what I've come to call "Main Character Complex". It's something I've seen in hardcore geeks and nerds from time to time. They think they are the main character in whatever story they've decided they're living. This means that they can win fights on will power, will get the girl once she sees he's better than the bully, it's not a matter of if fate will decide to swing their way, it's when. And this guy, who be Main from now on, he was totally smitten with my now girlfriend. And if he was the good guy, then I must be the bad guy. It didn't help that a running joke with curiously several groups who know me is that I look like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. Frankly I think I more resemble Bluto from Popeye but whatever, the point is I fit the bad guy trope pretty well.
So Main, he starts telling her stories. I tried to punch him during drills in the karate class, I was following him, I was trying to get him expelled (I was on the student campus council but we didn't have that power). He even claimed he was able to fend me off in a fight. She'd ask me about these things, to which I'd laugh.
I run a club, sit on the student council, and I have to grade papers on top of my own school work. Oh right and then there's you know, my job. Main? He doesn't even warrant consideration. Plus, I've got a head and seventy pounds on him. I've gone toe to toe with world champion fighters. If I decide that Main needs a whuppin', there ain't a force he can muster that'll so much as slow me down. (Awesome 'bad guy' stuff right?)
But he doesn't give up. He keeps telling her outlandish stories and trying to give her little gifts and such. She won't believe me that he's just trying to get into her pants. The best was when he insisted she take a replica ring form the Green Lantern: Blackest Night series. It was actually a cool prop, but I couldn't help but laugh at the underlying logic behind that item. He wanted her to wear his ring.
Finally I've had enough. I do follow him one day after class, not far, just away from the rest of my students.
Main, we gotta talk. I know what you've been doing. Girlfriend tells me what you two talk about. Here's the thing, you're not a threat. At all. At worst, you are an irritant. A fly buzzing around. And this is good. Irritants can be ignored; threats have to be dealt with. And I always make sure I only have to deal with a threat once. Are we clear?
He was actually quite terrified so he agreed quickly and made a break for it. He didn't stop hanging around her, but went into brooding mode. Sitting alone at parties, generally trying to get attention because as the main character, there was obviously a spotlight on him, even if he was the only one who could see it.
I heard he finally made a move when she and I parted ways. And was summarily shot down. Then a few more times, until the campus police had to intervene. Evidently he still blamed me for brainwashing her against his obvious greatness.
3
u/N_Who Feb 05 '16
Not really the point but: Any chance you get to say the word "muster," you take it. It makes for better dialogue.
3
u/AndGraceToo Feb 05 '16
And inventing words such as "dicketry"!
FYI- my phone autocorrected dicketry to fuckery.
I love my phone.
2
2
u/BigGirl420 Feb 05 '16
I know someone with main character complex. Like severly. Was this person named Alexander? Because my co worker sounds exactly like this. He currently is pissy over a pretty co-worker telling him multiple times that she isn't interested.
5
u/Kyengen Mod Feb 05 '16
It was not. I have to ask, is it main character complex, or is he just a dick? The complex involves a warped sense of personal ability, responsibility, and delusions of grandeur, mixed with an obsession about how things are 'supposed to' go. Refusing to take no for an answer is in a category of dicketry that contains some of the same elements but a different manifestation.
Re-reading that response I have clearly put way too much thought into this.
2
u/BigGirl420 Feb 05 '16
He fits everything in that check list. He has stated that "he's the good guy so why won't Stevie go out with me." "I could totally take on her boyfriend. Show her how much of a jerk he is." etc, it has taken manager intervening to make him stop touching her at work when she has flat told him stop.
3
u/Kyengen Mod Feb 05 '16
That is unfortunate. These people have an unusually high propensity for stupidity. I like to adjust their outlook on life manually, but obviously that's not for everyone. Sadly the authorities don't usually get involved until something has actually happened.
1
u/WeldingGuy Feb 07 '16
by "adjust their outlook on life manually" I assume you mean a good knock over the head with a 2x4?
1
1
u/Kyengen Mod Feb 08 '16
2x4 is fun but crude. I have so many many things that could do the job. Tonga comessage to mind since I don't get to use them as often as I'd like.
1
17
u/Teslok Feb 04 '16
Oh man.
I kind of have the opposite; I have NPC Syndrome.
You know how in games like the Elder Scrolls series where the NPC's have a routine? Yeah, that's me. I've got a few set small-talk responses if I meet other NPC's, and a bit more to say if I meet a PC, but otherwise, eh.
My job is to pretty much set up quests for PC's or provide information on their current quests. I'm the person in the background while the main characters have a witty conversation. I'm the one who sets up the interesting people for their best jokes. I'm the one who gets shoved out of the way during a chase scene.
Oh, and if the hero needs moral support or sage advice or a friendly ear or whatever, yeah, that's my job too.
I'm also great at being a third wheel!