I was 16 when the third Iron Man movie hit the theaters. Even though I was still a newbie to the Marvel fandom, I was extremely excited. Iron Man was still my favorite Avenger and I couldn't keep my excitement to myself. My high school friends weren't too happy with all that. 'What's so amazing about Iron Man?' they kept asking. I tried explaining on several occasions, but they didn't really listen. To them, I was just a fake fan who'd seen too many Big Bang Theory episodes...
For a while I hid my inner geek, until I noticed that being a geek is completely awesome. I embraced it when I entered college, but a bit of the fake fan shame stuck with me. That's why I put buying a comic book on my Make it Happen List. I'd been missing out on something for years and decided it was time to make up for it.

From Envy's Make it Happen List
#11: Buy a Marvel comic book at the local comic book store and be proud of it
Status: Awesomeness achieved

Finals week is usually the worst week of the semester. I get bored, frustrated and annoyed, Especially if there's a three-hour break between my finals, a break I really don't want to spend with people who are stressing out even though they're well-prepared.
That's why I decided to go to the comic book store in the middle of my finals week. The comic book store is only 15 minutes away from my college and it's my favorite place in all of Rotterdam. My dad frequented the store long before I was born. He introduced my mom to the store's awesomeness and about six years ago, he took me there for the first time. They have everything: Marvel, DC, manga, every Dutch and Belgian comic you can imagine and merchandise from every franchise... It's like a little piece of heaven to me. Oh, and their bags are freaking fancy. They look like a comic book themselves.

I got to Yendor about once a month, usually to pick up some Dutch comics for my dad. This time I went in with a mission: find myself the perfect Marvel comic book, buy it and be proud of my purchase.
I'd tried before, but failed. It's easy to buy a comic book, being proud of it, however, is a different story. As soon as I entered the store, a nasty voice inside my mind told me: 'You don't belong here. You're a fake fan.'
I stopped for a minute and thought real hard. Why wouldn't I belong here? Because some mean girls labelled me a fake fan years ago? That's ridiculous. Maybe I haven't read every Marvel comic book on earth, but that doesn't mean I don't love Marvel. So I took a deep breath and started browsing.
Believe me, the pressure was on. Not only did I want to buy something awesome, one of my friends who has read practically every comic book in the universe was keeping track of me and wanted to know exactly what I was going to buy. Lucky for me he wasn't there with me, he was just texting and I simply turned my phone off. I still felt the pressure weighing me down though: there were so many awesome-looking comic books there, how was I ever going to find the most awesome one?
I had no idea where to start. Everything looked great. The price tags... not so much. As a sufferer from the broke-college-student syndrome I had to keep things under €20,-. I was about to give up since everything that looked cool was way outside my budget. But then I saw it.
Deadpool. The only thing I knew about Deadpool was that the kid who sat on my head back in May liked him a lot. The cover looked totally awesome and the art inside stole my heart. My high school friends would have called me a fake fan for this choice since the movie will be released sometime soon, but the great thing was: I did not know. I'd been living under a rock for a few weeks and I was absolutely clueless about the movie.
Long story short: I went up to the register to pay, slightly trembling and with a bright red head. Two minutes later the comic book was officially mine. It felt so good.

Let me tell you what happened next. I went to college, where I should've revised for my next exam. Instead I got to know the awesomeness that's Deadpool. As a result, I messed up my exam. But it was worth it. Completely, totally worth it. You know why? Not just because this comic book had me laughing out loud several times. Buying it made me feel good about myself. I'm no longer fake fan Envy. I'm just Envy, in all my awkward nerdiness. Another demon of my past had been slayed.