How I Feel about Speedrunning

So, I've got a few things to say I suppose. This pastebin is gonna be a long one, and probably my most serious one, so I'm not gonna put a "tl;dr: i'm a little bitch" at the end. Anyway, here goes.

I'm not really feeling speedrunning anymore.

Lately, my motivation has been at an all time low. I simply haven't had any desire to do, or even watch any runs at all. I'll open a stream, and then close it a few minutes later. I haven't really made any attempts to do runs lately anyway, but I've still had a desire to do something to beat one of my times. But now, I feel nothing. I think I've finally just lost all interest in speedrunning. I'm just not that into it anymore. It's been nearly two years since my last PB in any skill based category, Paper Mario - All Cards, and I ran Legacy of the Duelist with the Exodia deck for like a week, and immediately got bored because it's literally "how fast are you gonna get good RNG draw Exodia?". Literally every split is just RNG. I've also tried learning Majora's Mask glitchless a few different times in the past, but every time I just ended up getting bored and burned myself out. I think I'm coming to the realization that I'm just not interested in the hobby anymore. It doesn't capture my interest nearly as well as it did when I started four years ago. My first speedrun I ever watched was Almo's 5:56 in TTYD, and I've always said I was hooked ever since. Well, I was, until about late 2015 to early 2016. I didn't want to tell myself right away that I was just losing interest, so I kept denying it and tried to force myself to keep speedrunning. Honestly, that did more harm than good, because time and time again, I simply could not do anything to keep my attention with speedrunning. I thought for sure that going to AGDQ back in January would light a fire in me and renew my passion for the hobby. To be quite honest, it did, but that feeling was shortlived. I was honestly more happy to meet all these people face to face for the first time, as well as make new friendships during that time. And with all this said, do not get me wrong. I love all of the people I've met through speedrunning. For the majority of you, I'm better friends with you than a lot of my IRL friends. You guys are the reason I'm around even writing this pastebin. Without all of you, I simply would have dipped out in 2015 and went about my life.

Another side note/main point I need to bring up: This isn't solely just me "losing interest". Growing up, I've always been sort of an awkward guy, but recently, I've noticed myself growing out of that. I mean, I'll always be weird, but lately I've been doing more things IRL, taking steps I wouldn't have a couple of years ago. One really huge step for me is I've started actually talking to girls when I'm interested in them, instead of writing them off as "probably wouldn't date a guy like me". There's a girl that I work with that I'm interested in and I've actually managed to work up the courage to talk to her regularly. There's another one I'm interested in, but I'm still a bit nervous talking to her, and I'm working on that. I'm also starting to get out of the house more instead of spending all my time at home. I think I'm actually beginning to make more friends and not be so anxious about being with them. I don't really know where I wanted to go with this point, but I think its along the lines of "I've started to reach out to people IRL, which has pulled me out of speedrunning a bit.". I never really was good at conveying my thoughts very well. This paragraph is a great example of that.

I'm gonna get to my main point here, which is this:

I'm done speedrunning.

It's pretty easy to say that since my last actual PB was July of 2015 and I've made little attempts to keep going since, but as I explained previously, I'm just not interested in it anymore. I'll still be around on twitter to talk to you guys. Like I said in the past as well as this pastebin: you guys are some of my best friends, and meeting you all has been one of the greatest things to ever happen to me. Just because I'm not interested in speedrunning anymore doesn't mean I'm not interested in you guys.

To sum it all up, you guys are cool, I'll still be around, and I still think that anime was a mistake.

Thank you for reading, means a bunch to me.

-Tanner