4. A heart-felt thank you

A heart-felt thank you

  • Team Member

    I troll on here a lot. I know that. Actually come to think of it, I haven't posted anything serious on gamenet forums in probably 3 years.

    But that's not why I'm posting this. If you haven't been around for long on gamenet, this post probably doesn't concern you very much.

    This is directed to the people I use to play with back in the ancient times. We're talking back in the days of Taalasmaa, Grim, Progex, @JasperNL , @RadaSTL and others. I've lost contact with a lot of those people nowadays, so I really have nowhere else to post this. Which is why I'm going to post it in here instead.

    To start off with, and I can't believe the words are coming out of my fingertips, I'd like to thank GameNet for existing.

    Back when I first joined in the summer of 2010, I was 12 years old. At that point, in my 7th year of school. Not to drag this out too much, I got bullied in school. A lot. Teachers didn't care, I didn't want to tell my parents, and at the end of the day, I just ended up normalizing it. I don't think I knew what depression was at that age, but overall I would classify myself as a sad, unmotivated and extremely introverted kid.

    I would go to school, and every day I would get bullied. I would end up going home sad and overall unwilling to do anything other than sit at my computer and play games. I developed a fear of conversing with other people, purely because I was afraid of getting bullied yet again, by someone else. Friends I use to have sort of disappeared, since I would go out less and less.

    Overall, a pretty gnarly downwards spiral. That is, until I discovered MTA and joined GameNet.

    My english was not the best at the time, but GameNet was the first chance I got to utilize it. It became a sanctuary for me of sorts, where I could go, play some GTA with other people, and make friends over it. There I met people I still talk to every once in a while, like Progex, GrimRipper and our very own Jasper. It was the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere.

    And to be fair, I was annoying as all hell. Even more so than now. Hard to imagine, I know. But it was the first time I had communicated with people who were roughly around my age, and yet didn't reject me, or bully me. The Coconuts and the various other MSN chats we had, later transitioning to Skype, the forums, all of that, it made me feel like a part of this community, and I don't think I ever realized for myself just how valuable that was for my mental state.

    Seriously. If I had not gotten into MTA, if I hadn't discovered GameNet, I don't know where I'd be right now.

    You might think I'm joking now, but genuinely, if I try to imagine my teenage years without GameNet, I just see a potential suicide attempt somewhere in there, and perhaps even a successful one. GameNet might just be the only reason I'm still around today, and I don't know how I can ever express enough gratitude for that.

    Anyway, this post is long enough as it is. I know most of everyone who reads this is never going to understand it, or what it means.

    So, again, @JasperNL, thank you for directly helping me through a very rough time in my childhood.

    And with that, back to your regularly scheduled shitposting

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  • Administrators

    Thank you too head! I've not always enjoyed you were part of us, but in retrospect you were a great friend and member of the community. I hope you're staying with us from time to time and that you're doing well in your study and in the future!

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  • Global Moderator

    I can relate to this too! Saw your message on the discord server which brought me here. Gamenet (or should i say chaos) has played a great role in my life too! It's also MTA which made me interested in programming and i dont know where i'd be today if i hadn't taken it for my majors. The good old days were great; it's been awesome to have been a part of this community.

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