Chapter 61: 14.1 Stanley’s Concerned Friend
As the boys argued and showed off the mods to their airsoft weapons and tactical gear one of them was not as into the conversation/argument as the others. For Jamie this was par for the course since his personality was more laid back and by his own admission he wasn't as passionate about airsoft like the others seem to be. His silence however had less to do with the topic of conversation and more to do with his introspective thoughts on the only man he knew to be shorter than his perfectly average 5'4" stature without being an actual dwarf.
It's been well over an hour since Stan busted into the house like the Kool-Aid man spouting the Rick Sanchez catchphrase showing off his new look and new girlfriend and Jamie was still in a mild state of disbelief. On the surface he was accepting of Stan's change if only because he didn't want to be that guy and make a big deal out of it. Plus it's not as if he disproved of the changes either. By far and large Stan seemed to be in a much better place than he was when they last met. He honestly looked a lot healthier, was less intense and considerably less grumpy overall.
If it was someone else Jamie wouldn't have thought the changes as being anything more than someone getting a new lease on life and working towards bettering themselves. With Stan on the other hand Jamie couldn't help but feel like there was something more going on. See Jamie knew Stan for far longer than the others and would like to think he had a fairly accurate read on the man's personality. So this change he's going through or rather went through raised a bunch of red flags for him.
First was the timeframe, it has only been a couple of months since the last time he met Stan in person. Back then he was a chubby, greasy and unkempt mess of a midget and now he was suddenly Chad Manlet. The timeframe itself wasn't impossible since it's almost been a year but it has almost been a year with no heads up, mentions or virtually any change to his upload schedule.
Jamie knew the kind of work it took to get like that because he went through a similar evolution himself. Long story short it took a lot of time, effort and personal investment for him to consistently maintain his physique and health. Stan was in a much more let's say dire situation than he was back then so it would absolutely eat into his content creation time if nothing else yet he was able to maintain his upload schedule without a single dip in quality or meaningful deviation.
Then there was the big elephant in the room, his girlfriend and to that Jamie will say there is no fucking way that Stan under normal circumstances could ever score with a woman like Ezraphel. To say that Stan had the odds stacked against him would be an understatement and he's not just talking about his appearance. But let's say for argument's sake that Stan was already the Chad Manlet when he went looking for girlfriend. Jamie could guarantee that any woman who would be interested would instantly run for the hills after a five minute conversation with him.
Jamie was genuinely one of the few people who could deal with Stan off the rip for long periods without getting offended, disgusted, argumentative or exasperated. This was because he had a weird sense of humor and didn't really get offended by anything. Seriously a big part of why people avoid Stan is because he can say the most offensive and outlandish shit as easy as someone would look up at the sky and say it was blue. It is only once you get pass his creative use of offensive words and naturally antagonistic personality that you will find Stan to be surprisingly insightful and funny.
Another huge aspect of Stan's overall nature was the fact that the guy was very self aware of his flaws but was at peace with them. He knew that his lifestyle was mentally and physically unhealthy and he even once said that he'd be lucky to live through his 30s. As fatalistic as it sounded he described his situation as 'make your bed and lay in it' and Stan was laying in it with no complaints. He didn't change because he couldn't but because he was content and didn't see a particular reason why he should.
Finally, and this may be the most important barrier for him to have an intimate relationship, Stan had a particular aversion towards relationships in general. In his own words girlfriends are a terrible investment, weddings are a scam and marriage is just a gateway to an existence of misery and despair. Personally Jamie thought he was being melodramatic but he genuinely believes this and openly mocks Liam and Amelia's relationship even going so far as to laugh at them when they announce their engagement.
With such an attitude towards relationship and in general one, that hasn't necessarily changed even now, Jamie found it hard to believe that Stan went out of his way to look for a girlfriend which brings up the question when did Ezraphel come into the picture?
An argument to be made about whether Ezraphel came in the picture because of Stan's change or was the reason for his change. It couldn't be before since Jamie was pretty certain that Stan would have mentioned her in all those months. He was definitely the type of guy to brag about getting a girlfriend especially a woman looking like Ezraphel did. So it would have to be fairly recent but that brings a whole other plethora of questions.
While Stan's changes were physically drastic as mentioned before personality-wise the man was the same. Even now while he was arguing with Kendrick he was tossing out the type of sentences that would make most women not want to deal with him let alone be in a relationship with him. The more time he spent in Stan's presence the more Jamie realized that the most drastic changes to his friend were almost purely superficial. The guy was the same as he was the last time they met, the same guy he's been exchanging DMs and voice chat with on Discord.
Stan changed but at the same time he hadn't which begs the ultimate question: does this woman actually like Stan or is there an alternate motive?
And this is where the first red flag was raised as the more Jamie thought of it the more he could see this woman being in it for the money. A common misconception about the career of content creating especially those who primarily do gaming content like Jamie and Stan was the state of their finances among other things. There are some people who still use the term 'virgins living in their mom's basement' unironically as insults for the modern gaming content creator/streamer as if this was still the mid to late 2000s.
Unfortunately for those ignoramus times have changed with the blow up of YouTube, Twitch and social media. There's a reason why people who gain a decent following on any of these sites quit their regular jobs and in some cases drop out of school to invest their full time in content creating. Stan has been doing content creating the longest out of all of everyone in the group and was a (in)famous and respected name in the online gaming sphere and this transfers to a lot of followers and thus revenue through views, donations and sponsorships. As someone with a similar number of followers to Stan Jamie can attest that Stan was earning a lot just from the sponsored videos and streams but the thing is Stan wasn't just a content creator he was also a businessman.
That's not to say that everyone else wasn't, they were all wise enough to realize that content creating wasn't a stable long term source of revenue and branched out to include more stable sources of passive income. Stan however was a completely different beast and over the course of their friendship Jamie learned that Stan stuck his fingers in a lot of pies so to speak. He's an affiliate marketer for several gaming companies whose products he promotes on his own website which sees a lot of traffic, he co-founded a successful independent clothing brand, he's a minority shareholder in a custom PC building company, he sponsors a successful e-sports team and he owns stock in several businesses.
Stan's business acumen was completely nuts and a good example of this was two years back when Jamie convinced Stan to get into crypto trading. The plan was for the two of them to invest in a bunch of random shitcoins as a stunt. It wasn't a big deal since they both had money to throw away and generally it was meant to be an ironic joke. Well the joke was on Jamie because fast forward a couple of months and he lost damn near all his investments.
Stan on the other hand hit him with the plot twist that he's been dabbling in crypto for years now. He invested a good chunk of his time and energy into understanding the market even going so far as to hire a financial advisor. So while Jamie was losing money Stan was able to sift through the shitcoin scams to find legitimate crypto currency to invest in and managed to make a profit from the stunt. As for Jamie he recouped all his looses through the revenue off his videos dunking on crypto bros and just making fun of crypto in general.
Now those were just the things Jamie managed to find out but he was pretty sure Stan got up to more than just those. The point of all this is to say that Stan was pretty freaking rich. He's a multimillionaire earning millions every year yet you'd never be able to tell with how frugal he was with money, like Mr. Krabs levels of cheap. There is no doubt that if Stan ever for some inexplicable reason decided to flex and show the full scope of his wealth it would put most Douchetubers showing off their luxury lifestyles to shame.
So with that said there was a pretty good precedence for Ezraphel being a gold digger. How she found out Stan was rich was up in the air but Jamie could believe his boy fucked up somehow and she found out about it. Now Stan's natural personality and appearance pre-chad manlet may repel most women on paper but Jamie knew better. Some women can be very determined when money was involved and while Stan being vocal in his opinion about relationships being a waste of time or that he wouldn't be bothered putting in the emotional and monetary investment into one seems like an ironclad oath Jamie also knew that such words were born of a place of ignorance.
Stan has never been in a relationship before, he's never had a woman pursue him before and he made the assumption that any woman in their right mind wouldn't go for him. He had a point as between his former appearance which he himself compared to a greasy troll and his let's say 'difficult' personality no woman in their right mind would put up with him. But what if there was a woman who was able to ignore all that and still show seeming interest? What if that woman was very beautiful and charming to a fault?
Taking another look at Ezraphel Jamie could admit to himself that if she tossed out bait even he might just risk being hooked which was saying something. Jamie has been in relationships before and he agreed with Stan to certain degree that it would take a special kind of woman for him to bother with that old song and dance again. Jamie didn't think Stan actually had a defense for a beautiful and charming woman aggressively pursuing him with no care for his appearance and personality.
If Jamie really thought about it then he could see Stan folding to a woman like that (with daily interactions) within a month or two tops. And if that's the case and Ezraphel was able to get past Stan's defenses and put up with his bullshit all for the sake of money then she might just be the most dangerous woman he's ever met. Or he could be making a mountain over a molehill and Stan has more game than Jamie gave him credit for.
Ultimately all of this was just conjecture on his part but Jamie was willing to at least investigate this theory after all Stan was his friend and he felt obligated to look out for him.
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