The eyes.... I CAN'T LOOK AWAY

Definitely agree with 4. Ai no Kotodama. A lot of the Japanese BL ones (or at least a lot of the ones I've seen) tend to veer on the super-angsty melodrama with quite frequent prostitution/self-hate/ostracization etc. Which sounds like it's not what you're looking for, and is why I don't watch a whole lot of those.

Yes, sooo very happy that my non-US city of residence has its very own brazen (seriously, it's really brazen) Chipotle knock-off chain. ^_^

YES, I was just about to say that.

I know what you mean. I kind of did that to myself growing up.

True. But then the flipside is that, for example when my mom tells me I'm "beautiful" it doesn't carry much weight. I appreciate it, and it makes me smile, but on a certain level I don't really believe her — she's my mom, so she has to say that.

This sort of thing got my best friend in real trouble once. Her younger brother was known for sneaking drinks from the liquor cabinet, so their parents started marking lines on all the bottles so they could tell when some went missing.

I've only "seen" the first movie once, when I was at a restaurant — it was playing with the sound off.

"ketchup on his Farmer John"?

Yes, I saw that when it was being passed around on facebook a while back! Awesome sauce.

27 year old here.

My favorite is this skeezy French dude I met when I was out at a club one night (in Tokyo). He was a friend of a friend.

That is the weirdest thing I have ever heard. Definitely going to have to try and remember that one to test it out.

YES. I went to see this with my younger cousin, who was maybe 14 or so at the time? it was her first exposure to the magnificence of Ryan Gosling so I expected her to be all over that— but no, she came away from the movie with a crush on James Garner. <3

Agree with both of those! I know a lot of people hate on Scarlet/Gunnar but they are just so CUTE.

Really? I could be remembering wrong, but I thought they implied that he had known the whole time.

YES, I was totally thinking that too. There is no such thing as "Mr. Gold before he knew he was Rumple." That person never existed, so in theory it should totally work.

I think if anything, it maybe affects store-shelf browsing. I definitely agree that someone looking for a certain book, or a certain type of book, would get the one that interested them regardless of who the author appeared to be.

As others have pointed out, that's definitely not the case in Japan. In the entertainment industry, yes, this sort of thing is common — but I've never heard of any school with rules about dating. The high school/middle school first love thing is as much a trope in Japan as anywhere else.