It was a bit hard for me to get into Pokémon games since my parents were against of portable video games at the time (I already had a PS2) but I really wanted to play the games given that my friends at school talked a lot about them and I really liked the anime, cards, figures, etc. Luckily my mom bought a DS Lite for my dad as a Christmas present (December 2006) and after a tough battle I got my mother to buy me Emerald (Summer 2007) and that is where all started (at the age of 10).
One story comes to my mind too. Does anyone remember here when videos talking about strange procedures with Pokémart questionnaires to get a shiny were a thing? As a noob that I was at the time I decided to try it and you know what, the first encounter after all that was a shiny Marill. I took me some time to realize that the procedure was fake and the fact that the shiny Marill appeared was completely random. I still can't believe it happened.