I watched the movie and was like, "Wow, a character I can actually relate to! This is super cool, he's just like me!" Then I read the graphic novels because I loved the movie so much. And I related to Scott in the comics even more.

I memorized random fun facts and trivia and used them to impress girls. I'd be in a constant revolving door of dating people, picking myself up after I get inevitably dumped. I dated my best friend and it didn't work out but she was still my best friend. While I never dated a high schooler, I wasn't against the idea of dating an 18-year-old when I was like 23 or so - if the girl liked me.

I was midway through the series when my IRL girlfriend at the time broke up with me. She said that she had wanted to break up for a while, but I was toxic and every time she worked up the courage I would manipulate her feelings and make her back off. And of course she wanted to stay friends but I tried to manipulate her again afterward... but this time she held strong and walked out of my life.

I didn't take it well, at all. And one of the only things I could do was keep reading the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels she bought me. And that's when I started noticing that, yeah, comic!Scott is a massive asshole. And all those things that made me identify with Scott (both in the movies and in the comics) weren't a good thing. (It really helped that this all happened like right around when I was reading the beginning of Act 3 where Scott himself realizes he was an asshole.)

I was chasing girls because I was afraid of being alone. I would date anyone who would agree to go on a date with me. I didn't have much in the way of morals when it came to relationships, and would do what made me happy... and then I'd purposely say and do things in such a way that would purposely make breaking up with me as difficult as possible.

It sort of made me think, because if comic!Scott is an asshole, and I really identify with comic!Scott and would do the same things he did a lot of the time... wouldn't that make me an asshole? And considering my fresh ex-girlfriend thought as much, maybe it was true. And I realized I had been treating my best friend (who I had used to date) really poorly since we broke up; we were still friends on paper but I was still jealous that she had moved on.

And weirdly it got me to realize what a fucking asshole I have been to absolutely everyone in my life, that Scott is not a role model, and that he really doesn't deserve to be with Ramona (or anyone at all, really) until he fixed himself.

So weirdly, it got me to stop being like Scott and work on being... not Scott. I stopped trying to date everyone around me. I stopped silently judging which girls were the most attractive and stopped trying to "accidentally" bump into them so I could make conversation. Etc.

I didn't date anyone for 2 years. I didn't even try to date anyone. I just tried to find what made me happy without trying to find happiness from other people. And, over time, I went from being a 4chan-browsing redpill-taking GamerGate toxic incel to being... not those things. It took literally 2 full years of working on it, but slowly I sorted out my issues, I recognized that I was a huge asshole to literally everyone I cared about, I apologized, and today I'm a completely different person.

Thanks, Scott.