A Terribly Long Tribute of Appreciation
I’ve been meaning to share my story with you guys for a long while, and now is the perfect occasion to do so. This is extremely long, for which I apologize in advance. Even so, I feel like I haven't communicated everything I meant to say.
I tried to condense everything, but there was so much to say! xD
By a fortunate accident, I found TDL in January of 2009. I surfed through the forum a bit, and was extremely impressed.
The first thread which I read through in its entirety was BK’s “Give the Moviemakers Silly Ideas!” one. I remember sitting in front of the computer and dying of laughter. As I wrote in my journal, the ideas you guys came up with were even weirder and more wonderful than the things I dreamed at night. It was this thread which completely sold me on the forum.
You guys were just like me. You liked Narnia, didn’t approve of Twilight, valued insanity, liked to write, etc. Many of you were even Christians! This forum reminded me of another that I’d been a member of, which had closed some months before, only the average maturity rate here was significantly higher.
I considered joining, but decided it would be best for me to wait until I was older.
1. I rarely got online, and wasn’t willing to make an investment in the forum if I would only sporadically be involved.
2. In the threads I liked and wanted to join, the average member was older and more mature than I was, and I had a paranoia about being annoying.
From time to time, I checked back and lurked for a while, but I knew that I’d made the right choice. In 2010, however, the VDT trailer was released. I ran around the house screaming in wrath, because I thought it looked terrible, and wailed to my sister until she got thoroughly sick of it.
I desperately felt a need to discuss it with someone who’d really understand, and remembered you guys. I impulsively joined, and my life has never been the same.
I enjoyed getting involved and being able to respond to threads, although I was still paranoid about being annoying. Long story short, I didn’t really have friends in real-life, and felt like nobody understood me. I liked youth group, but I felt that I was nothing but an intrusion. I convinced myself that I was awful, and although I was content with my personality, I assumed that nobody else would ever appreciate it.
I assumed that it would be the same here. I was at times reluctant to join into discussion. I had things to say, but was afraid that it would be arrogant to expect an audience without first gaining their friendship. Slowly, I overcame this, and saw that people could still value my opinions even though they didn’t know me.
At first, nobody really reached out in any overtures of friendship. I said that this was okay with me, because I didn't want to become good friends with someone online. In my limited experience, it only resulted in sadness if/when you lost contact with the other person. Now, this makes me want to laugh. I have made life-long friends on this forum!
For this reason, as well as the fact that I was still paranoid of being annoying, I was not willing to try to make friends myself. Then things began to change. I realized that people actually liked me.
People liked
me.
At first, I thought that you guys were just being nice. In the past, I had been in situations with people where I was friendly to them because they needed a friend, not because I actually liked them. I was afraid that perhaps it was the same with you. I thought that you were being kind, and did not really like me. After all, I was terrible, right? Who would like me?
Then
this happened.
It was such a little thing, and yet it changed everything. Although the change was gradual, I realized that I actually was a nice person, and that people enjoyed being around me. This opened my eyes to realize that even though I didn’t really have real-life friends, that did not mean that everybody disliked me! Once I realized that I was not terrible, I began to make friends with you guys.
For a while, I turned to what my family and friends know as “the Narnia forum” because I had no friends. Everyone who appreciated me was here, and I felt so liberated to know that I was not alone. Then I made some real-life friends, during a youth retreat in April 2011.
GG is my best friend. I never thought that I would ever have anyone like her in my life. Other people had friends like that, but I didn’t think I would. Always in the past, my friends were friends of necessity (excluding family friends). We would never get together outside of youth group, we’d just hang out there because we had shared interests, and everyone else was talking about Justin Bieber.
GG actually really likes me, and that was such a new sensation at the time. xD I love her so much, and am so glad to know that she is there for me. I look forward to meeting her in real-life someday. In the meantime, I shall have to content myself with email, facebook, and letters.
I am so extremely thankful for the friends that I have made here. GG, Zella, Lossy, Glen, Sopes… (I’m sure I’m leaving someone out. o.o) All of these are people who I would never have met in “real life”. I am incredibly thankful that this forum was here to bring us together. I finally have real friends! I hope to meet you guys in real-life one day. I can’t imagine what my life would be like without you.