Emily had always been a girl of many secrets. She had a thing for knitting - yes, knitting - though she swore no one ever saw her cozy in her living room with a ball of yarn, unless they wanted to get wrapped up in it. She was also a fan of really niche indie films that only hipsters talked about, but she could endure those conversations like a pro. But nothing compared to the real secret she kept buried deep within her soul: Emily was, in fact, a hardcore pro-wrestling fan.
You see, most people assumed Emily was an intellectual. She wore reading glasses, quoted Dostoevsky on occasion, and gave off an air of sophistication. She knew more about French cinema than anyone she knew, and when it came to contemporary art, she could rattle off names like Picasso without breaking a sweat. But behind closed doors, she was a smackdown sorceress. She could name every WWE Champion from the last two decades, identify the most famous finishers (don't even get her started on The Rock's People's Elbow), and she had a startlingly large collection of action figures - each one meticulously placed and preserved.
But for some reason, Emily was deeply ashamed of her wrestling obsession. Maybe it was the fact that wrestling was seen as "low culture." Maybe it was the complicated feelings she had about grown men wrestling in spandex, or maybe it was because she'd once accidentally mentioned it at a dinner party, and her sophisticated friends had laughed for hours. Whatever the reason, she kept her love for suplexes and steel chairs hidden - her biggest secret, like a dirty little undercard match that no one could know about.
That is, until one fateful evening when Charlie walked into her life.
Charlie was Emily's crush. The dreamy, intellectual, swoon-worthy guy who always knew the perfect thing to say, whether it was a quote from Rainer Maria Rilke or a sly remark about her favorite book. He was everything Emily had always dreamed of - everything that didn't involve foam fingers or superplexes. He was, in her mind, the exact opposite of the sweaty, half-naked men who often ended up on her TV screen.
One day, Charlie invited her to his place to watch a movie. She thought, "Great, no problem! I'll just get a little culture in me and put the wrestling on hold." But when she walked into his living room, something strange caught her eye: a WWE Championship belt sitting on the coffee table.
"I was just watching the Royal Rumble," Charlie said casually, noticing Emily's confusion. "I have a thing for the theatrics. I used to be really into it as a kid. It's fun to watch people throw themselves off ladders, don't you think?"
Her heart skipped a beat. Was Charlie - her intellectual, perfect, just-too-good-to-be-true Charlie - actually a wrestling fan?
"Uh, yeah?," Emily responded, trying to mask the excitement with a cough. "I mean, I guess it's.. interesting?"
But there was no going back now. She sat down, her eyes glued to the belt like it was the Holy Grail, all the while praying that her carefully constructed persona wouldn't collapse under the weight of this serendipitous discovery.
"Oh! Wait," Charlie said, rummaging through a drawer and pulling out a collection of old VHS tapes. "You might appreciate this. I've got the entire series of the Monday Night Wars from the 90s. You know, WCW vs. WWE. You ever watched that?"
Emily's brain short-circuited. She was caught - no, not just caught, but discovered in the most humiliatingly perfect way possible. She had spent years pretending to be above it all, only for Charlie to waltz in with his obscure wrestling knowledge, his championship belt, and now a VHS collection that rivaled her own stash of action figures.
She tried to play it cool. "Oh, yeah, I, uh, watched that.. some. I'm more of a, you know, casual viewer. I mostly watch.. uh.. documentaries on the history of art."
Charlie raised an eyebrow, but Emily could see the playful glint in his eyes. "Really? Cause I bet you could teach me a thing or two about the art of the Tombstone Piledriver."
Emily's face turned red. "Excuse me?"
"Don't try to fool me, Emily. I see you eyeing that belt. I know you're a fan. Come on, it's okay! I swear I won't judge."
And just like that, Emily's worst nightmare came true. Charlie didn't laugh. He didn't make fun of her. Instead, he leaned in conspiratorially and said, "You wanna watch some Royal Rumble highlights?"
She stared at him, her heart racing, her entire existence flashing before her eyes. What kind of person did this make her? A grown woman - no, a sophisticated woman - who secretly spent hours watching grown men fake-fight each other for entertainment. Could Charlie still like her after this? Was this the end of everything?
Then Charlie did something that made Emily's fears melt away. He held out a bag of popcorn. "Trust me, once you've watched a few of these crazy matches, you'll see why I got hooked. Plus, it's a good laugh."
As Emily sat down and they watched an insane Royal Rumble match unfold, something miraculous happened: she started to laugh. Not the polite, pretentious kind of laugh she usually offered at dinner parties, but a real, unabashed laugh. For once, she wasn't worried about hiding who she was. She was just Emily - the girl who could appreciate both high art and the art of the RKO.
Charlie smiled at her, and they spent the rest of the evening bonding over Shawn Michaels, Stone Cold Steve Austin, and an obscure match where The Undertaker fought against a giant, inflatable chicken (yes, that happened). And for the first time in ages, Emily realized something: maybe, just maybe, wrestling wasn't so much her dirty little secret after all.
After all, she had Charlie to share it with now.