I have a bit of a story to tell, I'm, aware that few will be interested but it's fun for me to tell it so here I am.
I started by joining another pokemon fansite roughly 5 years ago. I was completely new to the competitive scene. I was 13 at the time, and my personality was very much that of a typical smarky 13 year old. I was very annoying, thought I was better than people and generally just was a nuisance. But for some reasons some people liked me. As I got used to what was my first every real online culture, I grew a bit, respected people more and became more mature.
Yes ladies and gentleman, a pokemon fansite genuinely made me a better person. Such a nerd, I know.
Anywho, some of these friends introduced me to showdown! tm and I was awestruck at the time. Being 5 years ago, this was the old old showdown. I can't even remember what it looked like really but it was much more clunky. But I still loved it. i made a bit of a name for myself (or selves, I used a lot of alts and didn't tell people who I was on other servers because I was still an edgy teen), integrating into rooms and servers, cosying up to mods often. I don't know why but people liked me. 3rd party servers don't stay for very long so I tended to jump ship, but I was a mainstay in kupo, oriserver, gold, tervari and a few others (though I almost never had auth in any of these ;~;). I made a lot of friends, some I stayed with for ages, while with others we parted ways after a short but sweet friendship. Most of my friends in pokemon come from the other fansite, not naming because I don't wanna sound like I'm advertising.
Bare in mind this is all without having a smogon account. I didn't like smogon at the time, and while I made this account 3 (I think?) years ago I didn't use it until last year.
As for my present day friends, I have a somewhat friendship with much of the LC room/discord, since that's where I hang out.
I actually have a fairly rich history on showdown which I can account at length, but I don't many would be interested.
Anyway thanks for letting me post this boring ridiculousness, it's nice to make long posts sometimes.