Embarrassing Reads - Comic Books and Hedgehogs

Recently I read the second volume of a manga series called Kingyo Used Books. Basically, the series is composed of a bunch of one-shot stories about people, the manga they read, and how said manga can affect or even alter their lives. All of these stories are episodic, so some of them stick out to me a little more than others.

The one that stuck out this time was the chapter called "One Percent Man", about a tough street punk, who also happens to really love a manga made for women and girls. Part of the problem he has to overcome is his embarrassment of even asking the store clerk whether the next volume is in stock yet, afraid that these complete strangers will know his little secret. I really connected with this guy, and I could think of one good reason why.

For a few years in high school, I was a huge Sonic the Hedgehog fan. Not of the video game - the comic book. Every month I'd whirl the little comic rack in my mall's Walden Books until I found the new issue of Sonic or Knuckles the Echidna, and then I would buy it - always in a bag, with the cover facing towards me so no one could see it through the plastic, or behind another book if there was thankfully something else I wanted to buy that day. I hid the comics in a box, under my bed. No one was supposed to know about it.

Here's where I got ridiculous.

One day I go to the comic rack, and it's not there - no new Sonic the Hedgehog. Was it not out? Did I get the date wrong? Did the store stop carrying it? I expressed these worries to my mom, who simply told me I should ask the cashier if they had it. Yeah, easy for her to say! She wasn't going to be the one to be humiliated asking for a children's comic about a blue hedgehog. But I needed to have it, I needed to know if it was out. So my mom asked for me, while I hid behind a shelf.

I'll repeat.

I hid behind a shelf while my mom asked about my comic book.

I was a teenager, capable of speaking words, and not so socially inept that I couldn't talk to salespeople. Yet the idea of asking someone if they had that comic utterly paralyzed me, and I only popped out when the woman pulled out a copy from an unpacked box behind the counter.

Now I'm in my twenties, and I still buy comics, graphic novels, manga, and children's book, for myself. I've even bought copies of the Sonic the Hedgehog archive books in recent months (I have 7 of them now, and I'm waiting for a Knuckles collection). And I'm not really embarrassed to do it anymore, reading the stuff with my parents, at work (on break, of course...), even plopping down in the bookstore cafe and reading my comics and kids' books right there.

Hiding while the store clerk pulled out my comic book was not one of my proudest moments, for sure. But I still hadn't figured out I just needed to be who I was going to be, and like what I was going to like, and everyone else can just shut up and let me read my book.

So what have you been embarrassed by? And are you over it yet?