Serious How We Have Grown Up (angsty teens itt)

[ssbbm]

So, everyone dreams of the future and what they think will happen to them, whether it be with relationships and friendships or with jobs or even just with what beliefs you think you will have.

How have your ideas of the present (from the past) differed from what really happened? Are you currently living what you think would have happened? Or is it worse or better?

Personally, I used to be a super devout Christian with strong aspirations in math and science just a few years ago. I believed fully in the importance of school, to the extent that I essentially made it my life; I was almost completely socially incompetent, and, even worse, I glorified my social incompetence as some sort of superiority to my peers (exacerbated because I have above-average intelligence so I took my social incompetence to be some sign of "brilliance").

My idea of myself in the present was that I'd be the valedictorian of the school and become some type of math / science genius that would be consistently winning awards and competitions. I also expected myself to become a good Christian, to the extent that I wouldn't curse (like... I wouldn't even say "crap", haha). Socially, I didn't expect any type of relationship, except for a (best) friendship with one of my friends that was (and is) extremely nerdy and a bit arrogant.

These ideas have almost wholly been destroyed. After the usual depressed suicidal teen stint, I am now an atheist (don't be pedantic about the definition plz), I have had a girlfriend and have had sex, and I have gained some social competence (a bit at the least!). Furthermore, I have grown away from math and science (although I still do like them) and am now involved with writing, drawing, and dance. My ideas have been barely qualified I guess because I am in the top 10 of my school and I have maintained a friendship with the aforementioned friend, albeit it has grown much weaker than it was in the past.

I guess a good benchmark is "How have you changed since you joined Smogon?" or for the super new people "How have you changed since two years ago?"

 

[ck49]

When I joined I had just moved to India, and basically hated it. I destroyed my reputation and was known as the kid who played pokemon. Everyone looked down on me (That's not an exaggeration, btw). Now I'm much more mature, which is to be expected since that was 3 years ago. I've more or less salvaged my reputation and have some semblance of a social life. I've made some friends and gone from the kid who shouldn't have made the basketball team to an indispensable member (again, 3 years of growing will do that to you). My life has gotten better, and now I'm applying to colleges getting ready to start over again (not complaining though, this time I'll make use of my opportunities). As a kid my dream was always Stanford or MIT, and I suppose I could still make it (I'm applying to both) I've tempered my expectations. Beyond that (and quitting competitive pokemon), nothing much has changed.

 

[Manafii101]

Well, I joined smogon back in '08, the first year of high school. And just a few weeks ago, I graduated. It's difficult to say how much I've changed since then. I mean, I honestly don't even have any photos.

But I'll start by saying that I didn't much enjoy primary school. I never had a large group of friends, and my close friends were limited to two, sometimes three. There were four groups in my grade: the whites, the sports players, the ethnics and the girls. Each group was dominated by a bully or two who basically did whatever they wanted. And I didn't really fit into any of the groups. Generally speaking, the bullying wasn't physical (though I got kinda beaten up once), but in exclusion and taunts. I wasn't the only loner, but most of the others weren't really the people I wanted to hang with. So I used pokemon and books and flash games as an escape. Honestly, I only became friends with a couple of others just so I could trade with them and evolve my mons. My relationships always felt pretty shallow as a result of this, and I had very little interaction with the opposite sex throughout the first 12 years of my life. Each lunchtime I'd retreat to the library, sit at the computer and fire up Heli-attack 3, while browsing smogon and serebii, "cleverly" bypassing the school internet filter.

Grade 7 felt the worst, as there was little to no academic stimulation. I was acing everything without trying. So then I went to a high school further away from where I lived, where only two people knew of me. I enrolled in a language immersion class, which had the effect of isolating our little group of 25 from the rest of the school. There I made friends with one or two fairly quickly, due to a shared interest in yu-gi-oh and magic cards. But it didn't feel like I was only friends with them for the hobby. I felt like I could speak with them on even terms. The others in the class soon warmed to me as well. I even suffered my first high school crush, much to my embarrassment.

As the years went by, my grades declined, and my social skills rose. I can honestly say I learnt much more outside the classrooms than in them. Unfortunately, I also spent less time reading, nor practicing drums. I got a ipod in grade 10, which is when I truly began to appreciate and explore music. I also got a part-time job at maccas. Yet through all this, I never had much of a social life. The occasional party, maybe a sleepover on the holidays. I never saw the parties, the booze, or the fun that I often heard about. I was just never invited, never in the right circles.

Not for want of trying, of course. So in grade 11, I began trying to become closer friends with my female colleagues. And it was great at first. I had many in-depth conversations with many whom I still consider friends. There was even one girl who moved to Canada whom I sent thousands of words in conversation. Then as the year went on, I felt more and more ostracized. Some of these girls had been friends for over a decade; my company wasn't much more than a novelty. The willingness to include me in conversations dropped. Several parties involving all my closest friends took place, and I was, through design or not, excluded. My Canadian friend replied more and more sparingly.

This exclusion culminated in the graduation celebrations, known around here as "schoolies", where hordes of teens get together and get drunk on the beach for about a week. Fourteen of my best friends went, together. They openly discussed the plans in front of me. And when I tried to confront the house-owner about it, emotions got the better of me and I choked.

Since then I haven't spoken to most of them. I'm moving on to university next year (hopefully, my grades are all over the place, from A to D), and I'm still hoping that I'll find more people willing to be friends. We're still all friends on facebook, and each photo I see is a photo I wasn't able to be in. I've kept regular contact with three or four friends, all male. The girls don't respond often, a lot of them are travelling anyways. And I'm working more hours at my job, where I also don't have any close friends. I sometimes try and remember to go outside for a run, or practice drums or guitar, but then I end up playing League, watching anime, or just browsing smogon and reddit.

Really, I'm just hoping the future gets more interesting. Meh. Oh, I fell in love once or twice as well, but I got over the heartbreak eventually. Still searching, but then again aren't most of us?

 

[jumpluff]

Good topic idea! Some of the older users should have really interesting stories. ^___^ Well, here's mine~

I joined Smogon on the 22nd of August, 2008 (my time). I was fourteen, and I turned fifteen in November that year. When I joined, I was really naïve, angsty, and had trouble speaking up for myself. I was very insecure and sensitive, being easily intimidated just by the prospect of talking in the Shoddy chat. I was really, really hyperactive. I could not really bring myself to say anything critical about others. I spent all my time on Smogon. Now I'm nineteen. Still idealistic, but of course I'm a lot less naïve than then. I'm still very sensitive and feel bad talking negatively about others, but I certainly make my opinions felt; I word my feelings much more strongly than the wishy-washy stuff I exclusively posted then. I spam smilies less, although I'm as hyper as ever and use them on IRC. (Just post them less.) Still shy, but since I've been around so long, I feel like I fit in better now. ^_^; I spend less time on Smogon but even more on the internet, now I'm not in school and an on-hiatus (medical reasons) university student. I don't play competitive Pokémon anymore and my primary internet activity is now League of Legends, although I'm around every day (mostly in #tf2 on IRC). I'm fundamentally the same person as I was then. If anything, I think a lot of it is just people getting used to me.

Maybe the difference isn't as apparent, because I've become more positive in some ways and more negative in others, but I've become a lot more of a mentally well-adjusted person overall. I'm more comfortable with myself than when I was fourteen. When I joined, I was depressed about my medical conditions among other things. I've been diagnosed with two brain tumours, unilateral hearing loss, epilepsy, and more in the last year and a half, but now I accept it and look for things worth gratitude. I've become considerably more jaded about Smogon, but I've become less jaded as a human being. I'm happy now. I've become a lot more emotionally honest as well, and I think those are the only real major changes in me as a person since I joined. I actually have always had a pretty clear idea of who I am as a person and I got through a lot of stuff (e.g. existential crises) when I was younger, so I didn't go through a lot of that kind of stuff while here.

The last major change (which I alluded to earlier) is that when I joined Smogon, I still had a dream of being a virologist and researching emerging diseases -- I have a special interest in Ebola and pandemic influenza strains. I struggled to accept for a long time that that was an unrealistic dream; I lack many of the qualities required for that kind of intensive work, and what I was really interested in was lab and field work. I am now studying computer science, something more suitable, and I'm happy with that, too. I'm still interested in Ebola, but I finally reached a point where I could accept it wouldn't be my career. Now I look back (my health is considerably worse and my hand control very unstable), I'm glad I didn't, because giving up now would've been infinitely more painful. I doubt someone who was incapable of performing high school science experiments despite her best efforts would be able to function in a BSL4 laboratory, and that's really where I wanted to be one day.

In other news, my post per day average went down from 3.14 earlier this year (!!) to 2.95 since I've been on a hiatus. I make longer posts than I did when I joined.

 

[apathy]

I think the answer requires a brief history and also i love talking about myself:

When I joined smogon in, i think 2006, I was sixteen years old and had recently dropped out of high school... a volatile mix of bad decisions, hard drugs, and absent parents. I moved into a tiny apartment in the middle of NOWHERE where I spent the next two years...online. I really liked smoking pot and being kind of silly on IRC, a noxious british boyfriend, and little to no social interaction that wasn't text on a screen for nearly the entire duration of my stint in this place. I lived in England for six months during this time period. I had tendencies towards being a silly goth tart (hello: my username is APATHY) and an ancient computer with the worst internet connection ever. most of my irc consisted of " *** apathy quit (Ping timeout) "

At 19, in 08, I moved back to where I came from. It took a little while to get used to, but somehow being shut-in for so long developed within me a penchant for exuberance that has hardly tempered since then. I threw a series of pretty epic alcohol-fueled parties from December 23 to a few days after the New Year to ring in 09 in style.
2009 went like this:
binge drank a lot throughout january
moved in with a friend the following month; quit job; ingested, smoked, drank, snorted every single substance put in front of my face, often simultaneously. especially partook in retarded amounts of prescription opiates.
moved out of friend's house in the summer because i was more concerned about my piece of shit boyfriend-at-the-time than my mercenary but awesome friend
increased substance use steadily, then ceased all alcohol/cigarettes/drugs simultaneously, trigger major depressive episode and what i now believe was a brief psychosis from substance withdrawal because i spent the next 3 or 4 months (basically the entire summer) in the basement of my mother's house being a nut job
move into new apartment that fall, get job, regain charm and sanity, sever from shiteous boyfriend, pay own bills, have a vibrant social life and a chill job.

2010 i have a random opportunity to move to massachusetts. shortly before i am supposed to leave, i bail because i meet *~*a boy*~* and at that point still hadn't figured out i shouldn't date narcissists.
i turn 21 and hitch my yoke to alcoholism, but i make it look damn good in the process. when i walk into the bar/liquor store, the employees behind the counter immediately place a liter of vodka into a bag for me before i even say a word.

i ragequit my job in 2011 and spend january through april getting REALLY REALLY drunk. like, headbutting cars, drinking glitter mixed with paint and puking it onto a canvas, and just being self-indulgent. i move to new york city in april.

in nyc i watch a bunch of concerts, drink, eat awesome food, get an awesome job, and learn that the east coast is totally cooler than the great plains. decide that my living situation was kind of weird and fucked up. i meet a guy. we hit it off. i cast my lot to the wind. one night, in the middle of the night, i pack a backpack full of my few remaining possessions and start living on the streets of new york city with a guy i just met but totally was falling hard for.
we decide to go travelling.
i spend the rest of that year hitchhiking, hopping some trains, and walking from new york to california where i spend the winter. there are a lot of strange and funny experiences during this time period. *i DO NOT get involved in the "Occupy" movement* by choice! i spend my new years 2012 trying to put a tent together in the middle of pea soup fog while listening to wacky mariachi music. lived in the desert for awhile.
2012: walk hitch hopped back to new york city, raged my fucking rage gland til it shriveled up and died, married that boy i left with, went south a little bit, decided to settle down. i think saying "i quit" isn't really the right term, but i don't use and/or have gotten bored with all the drugs, all the booze, and the billion cigarettes.
to abuse the cliche, what a long strange trip it's been.

How have your ideas of the present (from the past) differed from what really happened?

so strange, when we picture ourselves someplace and end up somewhere completely different. i honestly wanted to be married, working on UK citizenship, fluent in spanish and graduating from sheffield university by next year 2013, that was an intense goal of mine for so long that i wanted SO BAD, but it was easy to abandon it in an ocean of drugs and alcohol.
I guess I spent so many years languishing in "i don't give a fuck what happens next so come what may" for so long that it's still hard sometimes to imagine myself in any kind of concrete future anytime soon. i wonder if i'll always have this flighty, fickle nature or if i will grow out of it.
however if you had told me back in the day i would have dropped out of school, travelled overseas, came back and partied my ass off, manage to rage hardcore in new york city long enough to meet my future husband and go sleep outside, eat out of the trash, hop on my first train, and see the country from coast to coast...
i mean, who really anticipates shit like that?!

Are you currently living what you think would have happened? Or is it worse or better?

dude, did you read what i just typed? life is kind of awesome in unexpected ways and takes the most crazy twists and turns. i'm really grateful that i've gotten to do so much, more than some people accomplish in a life time. everything i've learned has only taught me to roll with the punches even better than the time before.
i'll always be curious. i'll always want to test the extremes. i'll always have the wealth of experience to draw upon for knowledge and i also have an awesome husband and an awesome dog and even though we don't have much, it's pretty much all we need to stay happy.
I'm also much much more interested in competitive pokemon now than I ever was. I think it's because I'm getting old and just like mah computers and my internets n stuff.



i think this is probably uber-long but it was a nice change of pace. i'm dabbling in being a self-published author these days and really needed a break from typing all the other shit. who doesn't love talking about themselves on an anonymous forum?

 

[manav95]

I guess I have changed a lot since 2 years ago. I used to be pretty socially awkward and annoying. When I joined Smogon, it made me an outcast here and eventually I stopped coming on here regularly. And it is hard to get back on now since I fear getting rejected and screwing up again like 2 years ago.

I also continued to excel academically until my senior year. But now I am tired of school. I feel like I wasted my life to earn really high grades. Only now have I somewhat matured socially and gained a few friends. But I still got a lot to improve socially.

I just feel really old now. College is coming soon and my life will change drastically. I basically get to kill my old self and replace it with my new self. I seriously want this to be my redemption. I don't want to be a geek anymore; I want to be a mix of a nerd and a jock. I want to be strong and smart at the same time. This is my goal now in life aside from other usual focuses.

 

[The Knights of Wario Land]

I haven't been on Smogon for two years, but I have been seriously been playing Pokemon for over two years now, so I guess I apply.

Back two years ago I was a naive, awkward, and stupid half-Christian. I was really considering going into game design, and thought I had my life all set before me. Over the next year I realized I was wanting to go more into art, and thought my Paint drawings were soooo good (ugh, what was I on). I finally got a tablet last year, joined Smogon, and got a Tumblr, and it's pretty safe to say my life changed so much. I've been starting to get really angsty towards my parents and people in my family because they go by a mono-Christian perspective, I finally realized that gay rights were great to support, and met a larger variety of people outside of a Christian upbringing. I've currently given up Christianity and am trying not to associate myself with any religion at the moment. Art has also become a huge focus for myself, but the better I get, the more and more negative on my stuff I become. I'm still stupid as hell in school but I've come to accept that as how I am.

 

[junior]

fuck i love threads about life gonna read thru everyone's and then post my own

 

[cim]

i have a feeling i won't get this right in just one post

so i joined smogon 5 years ago, june 2007 to be exact. i was just done being kicked out of boarding school and was trying to find new ways to fill my time now that i was to be homeschooled with Not Many Friends Nearby. one of my best friends at my old school was getting into netbattle so i of course started playing too, really getting into shoddy since it would run on my mac (haha ahahahaha hahahahahaha wow times have changed)

so back then i was expecting to just kind of nerd out for two years, stay straight edge, go to college, get my CS degree, make shitty code all my life, and move on.

now i'm an engineering student who does psychedelics on occasion and neither of those things looked like things i would ever say five years ago. i have a girlfriend that i live with and a good friend that i fuck. i had no idea my life was going to be this awesome, yet at the same time i'm quite disappointed with myself and how little i've gotten through my problems or how hard it is for me to manage to pass said courses. all in all i guess i have a lot to be happy about

i am certainly less generally pissed off which shows in my infraction count

 

[junior]

here goes,

I started playing competitive Pokemon in 2007 because I'd use to to escape my real life issues. High school was shit, the people were shit, I was confused about myself and I just didn't want to think. I didn't feel like I belonged anywhere and Shoddy Battle was just an escape. I was a pretty lonely kid back then, and I was extremely impressionable and I tried to fit in and whatever else. Aldaron, Gouki might remember. Tbh, they are the few members of Smogon I still actually give a shit about (I'll expand on this in a second)

I think in life, the most important thing about growing up is learning about yourself and about other people.

Regarding other people, what I've realised over the years is that life is too fucking short to deal with drama and bullshit, and too short to care what others think of you, and way too short to care what they are up to.

I find that the more people you're open to, the more drama you will have in your life and ultimately this WILL affect your happiness. This is going to sound VERY cynical, but keep around the people that make you happy, keep around the people who are always there for you (one of the reasons why I'm not surprised Gouki is pretty much the only Smogoner I really keep in touch with, and who knows me inside-out, and why I know him inside-out).

As for everyone else, keep your walls up with these people and be selective with who you let your walls down to, because people come and go and the ones who TRULY want to be in your life will find a way. Surround with people who will promote your growth, not the ones who hold you back with drama. Surround yourself with people who, not necessarily have the same interests, but the same life values and life goals.

The one thing in life I’ve learned to strive for is independence, and this is how I've changed from the impressionable 14 year old I once was who always looked for acceptance. Independence mentally, emotionally, socially; it's the only path to happiness.

I used to be such a computer/technology addict, but these days I'm beginning to really dislike this sort of technology, a change in perception which has affected my life greatly since.

Sure it brings people together, and sure I've met amazing people through the internet, but at the same time I feel like it makes people too dependent on each other because of all the instant chats around and in the process you lose who you are. Despite being highly extroverted, I've come to think alone time is really important in growing up and truly realising what makes you happy.

Not to mention we are WAY too connected in that we know what everyone is doing nowadays, and I'm sure at many points in our life, we see photos of people doing things that make them happy and we think to ourselves, "what are we doing with our life?" which is another reason why I think if we don't care what people are doing or what people think, and just focus on ourselves, improving who we are as a person first and eventually finding our own source of happiness, things of significant importance to you in life, and your life values. The things you would do by yourself and happy doing alone, our lives would be immensely better.


Also, adding to that, I used to think ones occupation was a very important aspect in life, what you want to be etc. I’ve realised that I was sucked into the trap of making my occupation my life DESPITE being conscious of this trap. People who talk about “dream jobs” are delusional imo, because bar very few occupations that aren’t exactly beneficial in life, work sucks. Doing the same thing over and over for years, work will always suck. And lets face it, even though we have to work for majority of our lives, it ISN’T our life. We have a life outside work, we have a life AFTER work. So what happens to your life goals and dreams when work is over?

Anyway, back to the whole technology/materialistic topic, I find the best places to heal and best places to get away and just be at peace is among nature. When I realised this and began visiting places like the ocean or the few places still packed with trees or just stargazing, I found myself at peace with certain aspects of my life, and with that came my direction in life. I know where I want to be and what I want to be doing in 10 years time, and where I want to be 5 years after retirement. I know if I continue to work on these personal aspects of my life, I’ll ultimately be the best and happiest person I can be.

School sucks, work sucks, people suck but they are all (or should be) stepping stones towards your life goals. For me, those life goals are pretty much being connected to the beach / ocean in some way and to go on an adventure of a life time (and that doesn’t entitle travelling all over the world, mind you, but the journey, sort of like the dudes in Into The Wild and 127 Hours but without the tragic endings) and of course, love which I’m sure will come to me as I strive to achieve these goals and continue finding myself.

I guess what all this comes down to is life is what you make it out to be. If you’re gonna focus on social standings and other people, then your life will turn into a competition. If you’re gonna focus on yourself, life will be an adventure in itself.


And I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've grown to realise the superficial things in life don't matter. Booze, money, social standings/type of friends you're with/society expectations. It's truly the smaller things in life that does.

 

[junior]

my bad at the essay. and it's like 4 am, and I don't think I'm even coherant in my post whoops.

 

[HiipFire]

my bad at the essay. and it's like 4 am, and I don't think I'm even coherant in my post whoops.

Nice 1k post.

 

[v]

jellicent, ogler, niggahaza...

tell me a tale, spin me a story, narrate me a novel even if you must

 

[WeGotTheJazz]

I've learnt that most people think their lives are epic stories and really need to get over themselves. It's all meaningless in the end, so focusing on your own struggles 24/7 is not only selfish, it's a waste of time that be could better spent enjoying yourself.

 

[Ninahaza]

jellicent, ogler, niggahaza...

tell me a tale, spin me a story, narrate me a novel even if you must

Alright Vader, when I get off work though.

Actually I'm going to need to think about the person I used to be, the person I am today and the person I truly wish I was instead, as well as the lies i tell both to people and myself in order to feel like this person, so make that tomorrow instead. Fuck, this is already sounding too deep.

 

[Alan]

I used to be a bit of a snarky cunt but now I'm just snarky.

I didn't imagine I'd be in my 4th year of college on the verge of flunking out. I value my parents and their opinions a lot more now that I'm out on my own and appreciate everything they've done for me and feel guilty that I can't repay them in any way. I've reverted into my shell, don't really socialise as much as I used to and kind of learned my role on this earth. I keep to myself, hope to get a career as a psychological therapist and eventually a job in the FBI working as a criminal psychologist or something because serial killers are interesting as fuck.


P.S. Hi everyone.

 

[MrIndigo]

I don't remember what I was like when I joined, or when I joined. But I finished uni and have a full time job now.

 

[Clicky Pen]

jesus i've been (mostly) lurking for 7 years? welp. when i first got here, i think, i was pretty into GSC, maybe rse was out, i'm no good with dates. i was just about to hit college, which was alright. i had a part time job, lived with my parents, whatever. a few friends, no girlfriend, pretty nerdy. i hung out on irc with people who i don't really see post (though i mostly stick to a forum now, they could be hiding elsewhere)

now? had a ft job in the field i got a degree in (comp sci), realized i burnt out in senior year and good lord i hate this i'm miserable, quit that, went back to a better retail place. sure, the pay sucks, but being in a dress shirt and slacks every day makes me feel like i'm wearing the wrong skin, and i'm pretty sure i was really depressed most of the time. i wrote a book, which i'm editing/rewriting, i live in boston with some friends, i have a sort-of ladyfriend, and new friends ! i don't really play pkmn anymore because i can't be arsed to keep up with all the math/prediction you have to do to win, so usually i limit myself to an ingame soul silver run or rby or what have you. still pretty nerdy, though.

my entire life can be summed up in that picture of a dog doing science that says i have no idea what i'm doing, but i kind of like it that way.

 

[cookie]

just posting to say hi alan