Shizuku Takahashi - Hiding Behind a Mask

I discovered my addiction for the internet during my last year of primary school, 5 (technically 6 now that Year 10 is over for me) years ago. The first thing I did was sign up on Facebook and add all of my friends, from my school and from my past friends in Belgium. However, after that, I wanted to join more social media, like Google+ and Twitter, but because of a tiny incident in past, I didn't want to use my real name. Around that time, I had also discovered anime, and it was probably around at that time I was watching Bokura ga Ita (We Were There) and Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun. And I came up with the idea of using a Japanese styled name as a persona on the internet, and so, the name Shizuku Takahashi was created.

I was using this name everywhere, on many, many different websites, like Tumblr, WeHeartIt, Pinterest, etc. I even used it as my administrator profile when I was in charge of a few anime pages on Facebook. I became so attached to the name, I even created a page of it on Facebook. That became my personal blog where I wrote down my feelings that I couldn't express in person. However, that also included my emotions towards my friends when I was annoyed at them. And not too long ago, that was used against me.

Before I explain what happened, the person who did this I am now friends with again as we met at a party yesterday, and quickly returned to our old relationship. We both apologized for the things we did wrong and were able to reconcile.

Anyway, at the beginning of January, my best friends, who were in a relationship for two-three months, broke up. One of them decided to take out their anger on me, by saying that I was the reason they broke up because I hung around with them too much. I did this because the other best friend was really anxious and nervous around their lover, and wanted someone for moral support. Moving on, I got really upset later that day because I didn't want to fight with my best friend, and I even ended up leaving my Philosophy class to cry. Thankfully, another good friend of mine was there for me and I managed to calm myself down after a few minutes. Later after classes had finished, I went to go talk to them and they apologized after explaining how I felt. We hugged it out and returned to normal.

About a month later, I got a message from this same person on Facebook, basically saying they had something to talk to me about. They said that they have never or would never like me, and would never want to go out with me (I liked this best friend for a long period of time - 'tis why they said this sort of thing), and they still thought I was the main reason the break up happened. Instead of getting upset over it, I got really angry instead. We had a lengthy fight, and the argument ended after I refused to say anything further and blocked them.

After another two weeks, I found out that this person had been spreading rumours about me around the school, basically saying that I hated on my friends on the internet. This is where the Shizuku Takahashi page came in. They found all of the posts where I said something about my friends and send those posts to all of my main friends. None of my friends really cared because after I posted these things on the internet, as I would tell them how I felt after that. Anyway, since I didn't like the fact that there was someone trying to make my friends "unfriend" me essentially, I told my form tutor, their form tutor and the head of year about this, and it was quickly resolved afterwards.

Now, about 5 months later, I resent the name of Shizuku Takahashi. I have erased as much of that name as I could from the internet. The page on Facebook is gone, I quit all of my admin jobs, I got a new Twitter account, I changed my Google+ name to my real one, and I got a new Tumblr account. Now, for reasons, I do still use a fake name on some websites, but I don't use it as a persona. It's merely a mask of identity. I use the names of Isuzu and Lucy, making sure I don't give them a last name, which gives them a story.

I don't know why I decided to tell you this story now, I just wanted to get it off my chest. I guess I could count this as another life message post, so I'll give it a moral:

Hiding behind a mask can be a good thing, but never give it meaning in your life.

Thank you for reading.