I wanted to take a moment to reflect and share my Pokémon journey and what Pokémon has meant to me. I’ll start with a small disclaimer: I haven’t been into Pokémon for very long.

Most people my age have a great deal of nostalgia for Pokémon. For myself, Pokémon became popular during those awkward, angsty teenage years. My egotistical, myopic view of masculinity kept me from enjoying a lot of things that I enjoy today. To me, Pokémon was for children and maybe girls. My youngest siblings were no older than 9 and indulged in the cartoons every chance they got. Pokémon was something of a kitchen table joke in my household amongst the parents and I. If given the chance I’d often prefer the comfort of Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, eighties action flicks or “cool” science fiction, fantasy or shoot ’em up games.

Having been born in the mid eighties and growing up in the nineties, I was raised during a time where things like toxic masculinity weren’t popularized as problematic yet. I was also raised during a time where the paradigm of what it means “to be a man” was finally starting to shift. This was especially the case for me given that I was raised for 10 years by mostly a single mother. Try as my parents might, hetero normative stigma and peer pressure was just too much. I just didn’t feel like Pokémon was for me to enjoy.

I’ll never forget the older of my two sisters showing me what Pokémon was actually all about. She told me that Pokémon was more than just a kid’s TV show and that it was actually a really good role playing game. With the promise of returning her Gameboy Color in two weeks, my sister let me borrow Pokémon red. The game was so good that I could not put it down and I easily beat it inside of those two weeks. It was like playing an RPG where you had 151 playable characters and it blew my mind. If that seed were not planted in my brain, I’m not sure I would be writing this article today.

Over the last 10 years I’ve done a lot of work with the help of my wife to heal trauma and reverse a lot of old, bad habits and insecurities. We had a daughter together, and I started getting out of shape. I turned to games to help motivate me to move my body more and got hooked on Pokémon Go. I was blown away a second time by the 1025 monsters now available to discover. My neurodivergent brain latched onto it like an obsession. Before I knew it I was walking 60-90km a week while catching a slew of awesome and cute monsters.

My wife connected me with my now dear friend Colteon over Pokémon and he got me curious about the card game. I was very reluctant to get into a trading card game. I had spent years and hundreds of dollars on Magic: The Gathering. The Pokémon card game was sure to be an expensive, ruinous hobby that I’d spend $200 on and abandon in frustration one day when I realize I could never be able to spend “enough money” to build a competitive deck. I was so wrong. After one League day at Elite4 games a light bulb turned on. It turns out that to be competitive in Pokémon, you only need about $60 and some time to practice.

The shift into playing the card game regularly was swift and painless. My wife was very happy that I had a fun hobby that was helping me be social with real people in person for the first time in our marriage. I could not play enough games in my local town that I sought out the help of the owners and management of The Fort in Duncan. Those first two months where I spent every Thursday night mostly alone and trying to talk people into playing with me were challenging. Thankfully Keely, the now general manager of The Fort gently coerced some of her friends to come and play. Today the Pokémon group at The Fort has been running for about six months. I have gotten my Pokémon professor certifications and The Fort is officially a sanctioned Pokémon League venue.

Sure, I have spent way more than that $60 to date, but it’s not because of expensive gate keeping. It’s because I’ve come to love the hobby and the wonderful community I’ve met, and built, around the Pokémon trading card game. What’s more is my wife and daughter adore the cards and stuffies as well. Pokémon has become a cornerstone in my household and a great source of joy and pride for my newly found community.

Most importantly, Pokémon and the community that I’ve built and been adopted by has helped me heal more of my old insecurities and anxieties around masculinity and what I can enjoy.

Pokémon is for me because Pokémon is for everyone.