Season 1, Episode 1 (Pilot) Introductions

LVL 10 Good Guy Blog (How I Met Your Mother Read Along)Season 1, Episode 1 (Pilot) Introductions

Welcome to my blog. I hope it promises to be entertaining for you and cathartic for me. Welcome to the pilot post, the introductions, the setup. So here it is. I am going through a divorce and about to enter the confusing world of single life in the modern era after 13 something years (exact number is known to her). I need to talk to someone.

I propose to put my thoughts down in electronic form as I go through each episode of the TV series, "How I Met Your Mother." I plan on revealing only what is core to something I'm reflecting on in the episode as I process my divorce.

I would like to work through all the anxiety I'm feeling and leave behind some cultural relic for others. Part of me wonders if there's someone out there going through the same thing halfway across the world in a romantic "Hopeless in Seattle" type of thing. If any of this helps then maybe I would have left the world a better place.

There you have it. Let's talk about some ground rules with this thing. I will write as many posts as I need to as long as it is a healthy activity. I will be raw. And I will be honest. I selected "How I Met Your Mother" because Ted Mosby is my spirit animal. I look different but I am like him in the way he expresses himself, is navigating single life, and in the desire to meet a Robin Scherbatsky of my very own.

I alternate between a level 2 anxiety and a full blown panic attack. I discovered this Valentine's Day morning that my wife left me for her cousin in Mexico. I couldn't leave well enough alone and I dug. I'll explain as needed. For now, I hope you get the premise of this blog. This activity helps me settle a bit. I see the show, stop and think, then figure out a way to best present that in writing. That is helping. I welcome you to this blog. I'd be honored to have you as a reader.

Ted Mosby VS LVL 10 Good Guy

The show focuses on the single life of Ted Mosby and his friends during their twenties. I am now 34 years old dealing with divorce. I sort of skipped my twenties and never really dated. I was in the dorms when I met wife. She was this inexperienced girl from a VERY traditional Mexican family. I was learning to live on my own, having left my first roommates to get my own place and getting by. The support group I've started to go to tells me that the age you got into the relationship is the dating age you are when you get out. Fascinating! I'm in my early 20s.

Really? I'm 34, buying a condo, career, and car. I am a sir. I am also a super pop culture geek. If the guys from the "Big Bang Theory" had a love child with the cast from "How I met your mother," I would be the offspring.

I am a comic book, Magic: The Gathering playing, board game collecting, Walking Dead watching, comic convention geek with social skills. This is why I am the LVL 10 Good Guy. Not a wizard. Not a Knight. A good guy. That's me. I'm the guy in a comic shop that brings all the awkward ones together to make sure captain sweatpants and socially awkward guy get along and have someone to play with.

The Olive Theory

Marshal gives a speech about marrying Lilly. He says he's not scared of being with her for the rest of his life. That's so romantic. I want that. In my twenties, I successfully avoided getting engaged for seven years because I was afraid. I knew then that she wasn't the one. I didn't ache to be with her but nothing happened bad enough to leave. I don't know if there's a prescription for how people fit together. My wife and I prided in being complete opposites but in time the divide grew. It was supposed to work. She hated Olives. I liked them. We complimented each other. We didn't like any of the same things to the point where I felt bad for liking the things I do. I liked Olives. They were stupid to her. I haven't been able to play a game of magic or watch a new show in weeks because I feel that it all somehow got me to where I am today.

I like Olives. Do I need to find someone who absolutely loves Olives too? I don't know. I'm kind of in this weird head space where I want a geek girlfriend. But when I think about what really matters all I want is someone that can communicate well in all aspects of the relationship. If we can talk then I can be secure and be that partner she needs me to be in return. All of it falls in line. All the sex stuff. All the insecurity. All of it boils down to communication. My wife is so introverted that I couldn't get a word out of her so I lived a separate existence. I think that is why Lilly and Marshal work. For them, an olive is just an olive.