Tom Sanders <speedgameolympics@gmail.com>
2:59 AM (8 hours ago)
to saperogo

Hello LewdDolphin.  This is Tom.  Whatever you may be speedrunning (or anything else), I hope you have been having fun with it, and continue to do so.


This email has been crafted with much thought, but I want you to know that I will not push this interaction further with you, or anyone else, unless I receive positive reception from you.



I am not going to fill this email with mindless nonsense that the last ones may have had, so I hope, and encourage you to rest easy with that knowledge.  Another thing I will not be doing is making an argument over "why you should let me in your discord/accept me, etc." and you will see why later on in the email.



I am never going to be your favorite person.  Regardless of what might happen, it is almost certain that a friendship will not form between us.  I have grown to accept that as a consequence for the choices I made.  However I am not homosexual, and was never sexually attracted to you.  I will now begin the explanation of why I put on such an indecent charade.



I would like to reveal to you the underlying reasons as to what truly drove me to do much of the despicable acts I have committed, but before that, I feel it is important for you to know that no matter what I say, it justifies nothing, and I was the person who committed the malice in our interactions.  What I have told you about my past was true, however.  I was indeed constantly bullied and tormented throughout the majority of my school years (as well as online).  This had already put me seemingly permanently into a state of high anxiety, sensitivity, and fight or flight prior to have even meeting you.  These events also "gifted" me with a significant amount of bottled up anger.  Those hideous side effects I was plagued with quite unfortunately for both of us "set the stage" as to the type of mindset I had at the time of meeting you.  Now our history might seem complex to us, with a myriad of events...However, I clearly remember a deep timeline of key events that triggered deep feelings in me, (and presumably you as well), that caused our interactions to evolve (not in a good way).   You might remember where this all started.  It began with a youtube video (a run IIRC) and when you were at the Proudclad 2, I believe you mentioned you were an introvert, and had kind of lost faith in humanity - taking too many arrows to the knee.  As you can probably tell from my history, I thought you were a perfect guy to hang out with, given I love FF13 too, and thought I had finally found someone who feels like I do.  I was an internet noobie at the time, so I believed the best course of action was to contact you via a youtube comment (lol).  I mentioned how I resonated with what you said, and I can see now, why no one would reply to such a comment, but at the time in my naive head, it evoked feelings of low self esteem, resentment, depression...Again, you were in the right to avoid weird comments like that so I am not trying to guilt trip you here, but i feel it is truly important to let you know how this clash evolved.  I waited a few months and then I decided to come into your twitch stream.  You were running ff13-2 at the time, and I tried to explain my (fucked up) feelings about the world.  I tried to reason with the people there, but I eventually got banned due to creeping everyone out.  I realize this was the wrong course of action for me to take, but I have aspergers, and it was the only way i knew how to connect at the time, and I was essentially "starving" for a meaningful human connection.  I then kept evading twitch bans, and trying to convince you (stupid I know) that we were alike (for fucks sake...) but clearly, I was unaware of how the "social game" worked.  After this went on (on and off rather), we exchanged some heated emails (civil though), but eventually, you were willing to talk with me via email.  I am not pulling your leg when I say that this meant the world to me.  When i was interacting with you, I always had something to look forward to.  I now see why you eventually left (my emails were literally jacked up), but I was still an infant regarding the social scene...  So after that I was really hurt for some time and was full of anger (because i was crazy back then), but I hope you can kind of see where the anger stemmed from.  Not at you, but from being unable to find a connection.  I was a starving man, allowed ONE bite, then no more....  This turned me into an even more deranged animal.  This is when i started going on twitter, discord, and acting really crazy (about loving you), then after a few months, I became even more starved so I went further and tried to get attention in horrible ways like giving out personal info.  A suffering demon would be what perfectly described me back then.  I thought I was the victim, but I was just playing the social game wrong.  I may not be the best, but i definitely feel capable of surviving out there now.



As you can see, despite our interactions lasting for around 3 years and being on and off, my tension level was increasing the whole time, with big jumps in between specific key events, that felt personal to me.  I was completely unjustified in my actions but maybe you can see WHY I broke down...?  However, my emotional state is now back to its default level, as I have been doing a lot of productive things with my life these last 6 months.  I now work part time as a Courtesy Clerk at Safeway (low-key I know), and i got a new psychiatrist who is much better than the last one, and I feel I am able to function much better.  I have been going to a meditation class as well to prevent my tension levels from rising too much.  Those are some of the big things.



There you have it.  I just wanted to "unmask" Tom Sanders for you.  You know who I was, you know why I was that person, you can see some sights of who I am now, and how I grew...If you have read this email all the way through, know that it means the world to me.  Just given an opportunity to open up...completely...It honestly is such a great privilege to be given.  I have not been contacting any of you for about 9 months, since I was hoping time would heal things enough for you to read this email with a level of seriousness, so I have not sent anything to them, and since my past involvement in the community was most personal to you, I thought I would share what I felt needed to be shared to the other party.  FF13 is my all time favorite game, and I would just love to speedrun it with someone...  We will never be friends I can live with that but...I do not even need to join the discord...perhaps if there was just a way to interact with any part of the community in any other way?  Regardless, please think about what I said, and remember, I will not push this interaction any further unless you respond relatively positively.




                                                                                                                                                                   Take care, LewdDolphin - Tom Sanders