Rivals are a typical part of pokemon journeys, hell some might even say they’re a requirement! So of course when Joel sets out with his team the first goal is to get a rival!
But, here's the thing, Joel's team is made of pokemon that have only ever come from house life, never seen a day of trainer battles in their life. So when he declares the first trainer he finds his rival it uh- it goes?
It doesn't go good, it doesn't go bad. Honestly they kinda both just sat there.
Joel's "rival" BigB then goes on to follow along with him and bail him out. I mean really what kind of rival does that?!
It's not all bad Joel supposes, at least his rival/travel buddy is cute tolerable. He meant to say tolerable. Obviously.
It doesn't help that BigB has two modes: most mellow guy to ever exist and chaos creator. There's no middle ground, though sometimes he seems able to do both at once! Like, what does he mean he decided to just dig through the walls of this cave? That's not allowed! Hell yeah, Joel is going to follow him - he was getting sick of zubats and pushing rocks.
But don't think that means Joel likes him! They're rivals after all. He's not hanging around towns to make sure they run into each other (and he's pretty sure BigB totally isn't doing the same.) And if they were, that's what rivals do, right? Mmhm.