Like any little boy, I had an active imagination. Started off innocently enough, I had some Megazoid from power rangers and stuff and I thought they were real, just sort of smaller. Always thought of stories they had that I vaguely remembered seeing and acted them out. Growing up as a kid, playing imagination based games were fun, like playing war and stuff. Gave context for what I was doing and why. I didn't really get into the RP scene until I was about eleven or so. I had my start in a place called GaiaOnline. Being a young whelp back than, I was a certified noob. No one was there to guild me along, so I just entered any old RP I stumbled upon and started causing a wreck. Eventually I stopped because people started saying mean things to me, but that didn't necessarily stop me from RPing. Neight, instead, I simply sought other RP's. Soon, I began to improve. I spelled words correctly, had more formulated thoughts. By than I was about thirteen or fourteen years old.
Around this time I was also told to "grow up" a lot. My dad in particular thought I was too imaginative and that I needed to stop being a kid. Being a rebellious youth, I did the opposite. I continued to imagine and fantasize about RP's and other stories, and eventually I became detached to reality. This had mixed effects, and not entirely good. I became to engrossed with my RPing that I failed to understand the reality of my life. I thought the world was a crapsack place, so I figured anything I did wouldn't make it any more worse than it already was. Little did I know that I could always make things worse.
So a few incidents later I was promoted from young rebel to homeland terrorist. I was kicked out of school and had to go to court a lot. I did my time. And it was around than that I really had to affirm what my reality was, as well as rely on RPing to get me through the stressful parts. I became somewhat more mature, or at least subdue. I left GaiaOnline and tried to go clean for a while. Didn't really help. With no outlet for my imagination I ended up becoming even more disconnected from my family and reality. I didn't know what to think of it and it seemed like everyone else thought differently from me. Somehow my notion of being unique put me in a situation were no one emphasized with me. It was very hard year.
I don't remember the exact date when I got back to the RPing scene, but I know that I bounced around a lot of RP forums until I hit the RPGuild. I needed it; while I was able to at least hide my insecurities behind a facade of stoic apathy, with no idea of how to express my thoughts it was only a matter of time before I exploded in emotions and hurt someone again. I suppose my father was right, that I was too imaginative. I thought too much and I over think when I'm not busy. RPing helped relieve the stress of my thoughts. I had been taking martial arts to relieve my physical anxiety, but I needed RPing to take care of my mental facilities. Through RPing, I could test new persona and masks I could wear in public. I became snarky, perverted, and confident in myself to the point of delusion. But I knew it was all fake, and that was a constant that I didn't have otherwise. In reality, I have no idea how much truth a person speaks, how much they really "Love" or "Hate" me or others. There was no solid answer, most of them being extremes in that they were usually opposites but also constantly changing. By RPing, I was able to create something that I knew was "Fake", and because of it, I was willing to let this "fake" me out into the real world, to take the hits that I otherwise wouldn't be able to handle. Through RPing, I learn the patterns and methods in which I need to react to others and their emotions. I also condition myself for disappointment and sadness.
For me, Rping allowed me to not have to worry about getting hurt, because the only thing that I showed others was a distraction, a dummy, a drone. Something that I could use to "say" that it is me, and if people react possibility, I could continue to use that puppet until it no longer suited the situation. In reality, Rping allowed me to conform with others to appease them in such a way that I actually do nothing to curry their favor, simply nothing to gain their ire either. If it does not please I can easily change, knowing that the facade I put before them was just that; a facade.
Now it's five in the morning over here and I don't know if I conveyed my message in this tirade, so I guess I'll summarize what I think I was trying to say in this last few sentences. Why did I start and still write? Because I don't know how to deal with people, so I pretend to be someone who could understand them and show emotions that I otherwise cannot express in real life. Even now I don't know how to deal with people as simple as strangers, so through RPing I try to become as confident or inane as the characters I create, so that one day the masks that I wear so often eventually becomes an actual part of who I am. In trope terms, I am
becoming the mask.
