A girl I fancied in school used Linux (various distributions, installing new ones to try out was a hobby of hers). I had been meaning to try it out anyhow, but being able to impress her with Linux skills was the trigger to actually get into it. Also Python; she was also into Python and so I started on learning that as well.

Took me a few months to get settled, initially using Linux Mint, but I never looked back. I actually tried going back to Windows when buying a new laptop and the latest hardware just wasn't supported at all, figuring I'd just modify and tweak it in every possible way, but it is just too cumbersome and inflexible now that I'm used to Debian.

As for the girl, the impress-her part worked well enough I think but sadly we never got together and ended up losing touch. Sometimes I wonder if she's alive: accounts on all social media are inactive since years and while she didn't seem unhappy, she was an unusual person and didn't easily fit in with society. I hope she's okay.

Knowing Linux and Python are invaluable skills for the work I do now. If I hadn't started then, I would have had to catch up later or maybe ended up in a more standard tech job, so a head start there was definitely good to get a foot in the door at places that use both extensively in pentesting.