I think I was eight, when I first visited London. It was for a family vacation. We always went on a lot of family vacations. However it was mostly to California, as my younger siblings had a certain affinity for Disneyland. I guess my parents wanted a change from the sweaty rollar-coaster rides, the constant walking, and the same polaroid photographs with Mickey Mouse every year. As much as my parents pushed me to be someone I wasn't; not to mention constantly made me feel like I was never good enough for them, I will always thank for them for that trip to London. It was there that I fell in love with the city. I fell in love with its culture, its heavy downpours, the way the sidewalks were shaped and how they called it pavements, everything about that damned city turned me into a raging anglophile. We only stayed for two weeks, however. But after we left, every single day, I felt a physical aching in my bones to be back there and not just for a silly family vacation . It was the only thing that kept me going through the nights of tear-stained bedsheets; not to mention the pressure and the venomous words inflicted onto me from my parents. This craving to be on London soil was only worsened when I discovered British YouTubers; specifically the most appropriately named AmazingPhil. His smile, his laugh, everything about him, made me fall in love. For once in my silly little pathetic life, I felt like someone cared about me. Even if he didn't know I existed, through the power of video, Phil Lester made me feel as if I could accomplish my dreams; to never give up; to be myself. Definitely things that my parents, for sure as hell, didn't teach me or made me feel. If I didn't achieve perfection, if I didn't do what they wanted, I was nothing to them. For following my dreams and doing what I wanted to them was wrong. But, even though, everyone else around me was against me, I had YouTube; I had Phil. I could escape onto my computer and in a matter of minutes, my stomach was in pains from laughing so hard. For even just a couple of minutes, I could reach solace. Even if in the background, there would be my parents yelling at me that my latest test wasn't the highest grade, that I was useless, and pathetic and that I would never achieve anything useful. None of that bullshit they were spouting at me didn't matter, because through YouTube, I felt like I mattered. So, that's what I did. Instead of my high-school years being filled with wild parties and substance abuse, it was filled with caffeine-induced long nights of my head in a textbook studying until my eyes bled and my parents yelling at me about how I needed to do better. It would be all worth it though. I would graduate with honours and manage to attain a full-paid scholarship to the most prestigious art university in London. But all of that came with a price. The price of being cut off from my family. It didn't matter if I achieved an amazing scholarship and graduated with honours; I wasn't doing what they wanted me to do. It left me in a half-broken state, a state which I thought no one could repair. But, the most unlikely of people appear in the strangest of times. That's for sure, I would've never expected myself falling for someone that I thought I hated. If it wasn't for that silly family vacation, I never would've met and fallen for Dan Howell.