Random Pieces of Me

How I Became A Wattpad Reader

I hated reading at first. To me, it was just something that had to be done for school. Just like any other school task, I read for compliance. I read only when necessary, specifically when there was going to be a quiz the next session, an oral recitation, and an exam. It was something I promised myself I would never do unless something important was at stake.

It all started to change, however, when my friend told me about Wattpad. I had heard about it before, but they were all negative reviews. People claimed Wattpad was where only terrible stories existed. For a period of time, I believed them. I didn't bother knowing more about the app specifically for that reason. Apparently, I didn't want to be associated with what people considered trash.

When my friend told me about how Wattpad had become a part of her life because she was reading everyday during her free time, that was when I became really curious about it. She loved romance books, which a lot of people considered garbage. She showed me the books that she had stored on her Wattpad library. Most of them were rectangular pictures of half-naked smoking hot men, gorgeous faces with oozing sex appeal, and wonderfully-shaped torsos of men in expensive-looking suits. She told me she loved CEO romance stories, and that it had the kind of pull that she just couldn't resist.

I would be lying if I said the sexy covers didn't capture my attention. Of course, they did. Any sane person attracted to men would salivate over those covers. I'm sure I did. Immediately, that night, upon arriving home from my classes, I downloaded the Wattpad app. I made this account and eagerly went to the search bar to find interesting books. I didn't really have any preferences yet when it came to genres. So, I explored anything and everything I could find -- classic, fantasy, thrillers, and romance. Before I knew it, I had already stored over a hundred books on my library. I had had the app for approximately two hours, and that was how many I had already hoarded. It was crazy.

I found so many books with amazing concepts. I also looked at the number of reads of each book and instantly added anything that had over a million to my reading list. My reasoning was that if a book had over a million reads, it must be great! Of course, I later learned that was not always true. There were some that were not great. In fact, they made me feel like I had wasted my time reading them. Anyway, as a new user, everything on Wattpad was overwhelming but in a positive way. It felt as though I had entered a new world that I could freely explore whenever and however I wanted. It was new. It was great. I was immensely excited to navigate it.

In retrospect, I think what excited me the most was the curiosity of finding out how each story concept would be executed -- how the main character would deal with the problem, whether he would be selfish or helpful with his powers, whether he would succeed against the big bad villain, whether he would finally admit his feelings for the other character, and so on. I guess that is the main objective of any synopsis. It is meant to give you a taste of the story that leaves you wanting more. Well, they did a pretty good job at it.

As I kept going through the world of treasure that was Wattpad, I found my way to the genre of boyxboy. Before then, I hadn't known that such a genre existed. It greatly surprised me that there were thousands of them published here. Since I lived in a conservative society (and I still do), finding bxb stories was finding hidden gems. Their being considered a taboo made it incredibly difficult for anyone to have access to them. We rarely got them in our popular films and television shows.

Considering I had been deprived of these stories for so long, I was elated to find so many of them here. I couldn't believe I could finally enjoy homosexual stories, stories to which I could relate and connect. Finally, there were characters where I could find my identity and innermost desires represented. Even better, there were vivid descriptions of sex, something I found fascinating. Lol. I hadn't read anything as explicit before. They were all very interesting to me.