Diary 1/15/17 - Twiggy

	I’m sitting down to write this as I just arrived home from AGDQ 2017. Tomorrow’s my 22nd birthday and I’m about to begin my 3rd to last semester of my undergrad. I had a run in AGDQ, it was a 4 person race of SMS any% and I won pretty convincingly. The run went amazing. The whole event was amazing. I feel as though it was possibly the greatest week of my life, or at least since I left my parents’ house for college. I had been to GDQs before and I had done runs in GDQs, and my run this time was better than previous events but that wasn’t why this GDQ was special.

	The truth is, I was in a pretty bad spot mentally going into AGDQ. I hadn’t had any interaction with other people aside from my housemates in a long time, my grades were slipping because I had stopped going to class, I was out of shape for the first time in my life, and most of all, I had lost a huge amount of the confidence that once had been a main trait of my personality. It may seem a bit melodramatic, but truly I had almost given up on ever feeling happy or prideful about my life. I was unwilling to let on how I was feeling though, because I worried it’d affect GDQ for others and I believe subconsciously I was afraid it’d take over my personality.


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	AGDQ started out great. I met everyone and was having a good time. It was great to see all my friends again, whom I had grown accustom to seeing only every 6 months. I played board games, practiced for my run, and organized a big live SMS race. I lost the big race which wasn’t a surprise - I was stressed the whole time because of organizing everyone and I had been losing most races against Trey and Panga leading up to AGDQ. The next day I woke up excited because it was the day of my race. A few people on twitter made little fanart things of bboyShrug with like #BboyWin in the tweets and similar stuff.

	We had another practice race to prep for commentary and it went amazingly aside from me playing really poorly and getting last place. Actually, I didn’t even finish, I ended up resetting in corona just to get ready to gather my thoughts before the race. The rest of the time until the actual race was a blur - StrongmanLin subbed in for Vallu because he had tech issues and I was busy helping make sure Strongman got his info onto the stream during the race. I honestly had no expectations of myself to play well at this point since I had been underperforming for a while, so I felt no nerves at all. Eventually the blur ends when I’m on the “on deck” couch before our race. I talked to Panga, took a few pictures, watched the SMB races and then eventually we started getting ready for our race.

	Once the race started I immediately hit my stride. I was playing the best I had played in a long time and I knew it. I still didn’t feel nervous (until I got early cycle (where I died lol)). I fell behind at one point in the race due to that death, but I knew pretty much from the start I wasn’t going to lose. The commentary was amazing and everything just came together, especially from my perspective.

	I got out of the race to see that I had more twitter notifications than my phone could load without the app crashing. It was the first time since getting WR in sms any% for the last time that I felt pride about my sunshine playing. Everyone was saying such nice things about the race as a whole, as well as my individual gameplay, and I felt the same feeling as I used to feel whenever I got a new SMS WR. It felt fucking amazing.


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	The next few days were a blur; I just hung out with friends, drank and played board games. I practiced sm64 a bit too. I felt happy for the first time in a while and I think a bit of my confidence came back. Not enough to make any actual change to my current life situation, but enough to follow back a cute girl (who I had talked to at a party(?) that night) on Twitter. I didn’t know much about her other than that her name was Twiggy and that she had lots of friends and was generally nice. This plus me finding her attractive was enough for me to assume that she was out of my league and to make me really awkward around her; I even gave her a handshake instead of a hug when I met her, even though I hug almost everyone at GDQs.

	The next morning I ran into her and things felt pretty normal but I noticed she was hanging around me a bit. She watched me play sm64 for a while. I told her that her outfit looked cute and talked to her a little bit. We then had to move rooms because there was the big sm64 race in the tournament room and we were sitting in the practice room. When she followed me to the other room I was pretty sure that she was into me, or at least was a friend. Then once the race started, she stood next to me the whole time and had her arm around me sort of. I managed to flirt a bit despite being in a public place, my confidence being bolstered by Sniperking’s presence next to me.

	By the end of the race I was sure that she was into me, or at least found me attractive and wanted to hook up. I decided there was nothing to lose and to DM her to ask to hang out, and she replied yes. Later that night I was supposed to go play board games but she told me she was on her way to the party I was at, so I had to tell the board game people that I was staying to wait for her. The people around me honestly were kind of mean - they told me that she wasn’t a good idea for me and similar stuff. I truly believe they were looking out for me but decided to make my own opinions and not make decisions based on hearsay (good choice bboy).

	She got to the party and after talking a bit I invited her back to my room. Not for sex (I didn’t even have condoms) but I was pretty sure I’d get some action so I was excited/nervous since it had been a while for me. It turned out that we clicked really well. We cuddled a bunch, kissed, and talked. I discovered she was 26 (5 years older than me), but that didn’t bother me at all. At this point there were 3 days left in AGDQ and I’m not going to go into the details of what exactly happened - I don’t think they’re particularly important.

	What is important is who this girl is to me. As I got to know her in that and the following day, it became more and more obvious that she was not just someone I found physically attractive, but an incredible person as well. She had been through some greatly difficult times in her life and  had grown from the bad experiences. She works as a scientist working towards a postgrad degree and is unbelievably passionate about what she does. She is super smart: fully fluent in 3 languages, talks very intelligently and is  both fun and easy to talk to. She’s extraordinarily nice and caring towards her friends. She smells faintly of strawberries and is warm and amazing to cuddle with. Her accent and body were sexy. And on top of all of this, she had this cute demeanor about her that just screamed “SHE’S PERFECT” at me. To be frank, I couldn’t believe someone so amazing liked me at all, but she made it very clear that she did.

	To be completely honest, meeting Twiggy was the reason this AGDQ was such an amazing week for me. Not because I spent a few days with the girl of my dreams though. That of course was great, but in those 3 days I felt feelings I hadn’t felt in an extremely long time - to have a girl who you can’t believe likes you back in your arms, or even to just spend time with someone like that. In those 3 days I had more fun than I thought possible and started to feel good about myself again. We hung out a lot, probably an average of 5-6 hours a day and cuddled overnight on the last night. It felt perfect.

When we said goodbye, as soon as I entered the car I felt a little emptiness and sadness inside. In just a few days I had gotten used to having her around and I know that there’s a chance I’ll never see her again. But somehow, I didn’t feel devastated as I expected my melodramatic brain would.

	Twiggy lives in Mexico City. A 30 hour car ride or 6 hour ($350 round trip) flight away from me. I know that if I spent more time with her I was guaranteed to fall for her. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve never met, and don’t expect to ever meet again, someone who I admire and enjoy being around as much as her. And realistically, I realize that a relationship probably won’t be possible, at least while we’re both in school in different countries.








	I’m sitting here now at my parents’ kitchen table thinking about AGDQ and the run and (amazing) first half of it feels like a distant memory compared to the time I spent with Twiggy. That time is why this GDQ felt more special than the others. I’ve been wondering why I don’t only feel sad and empty and what the other feeling in my gut has been since I left AGDQ.

	I think that this feeling is hope. And it’s such a surprise. Hope for my future: a belief that I can be a better person. You know how sometimes you can just feel that something changed? I truly believe this can happen and that I’m feeling this right now. The reason for this? My confidence is back and my anxiety about being in public feels so much smaller. Before I used to constantly tell myself I need to be better - that I can turn my life around so that people will want to be around me again and I won’t be depressed anymore. Twiggy taught me that I’m ok as I am. I don’t need to change who I am for people to like me, I just need to stop being so afraid that people won’t like me. And now I’m sitting here with confidence knowing that I’m going to become a better person, not out of fear of others not liking me but because I’m happy with who I am and I want to better myself because I can. I can be in my friends’ lives more. I can make new friends. I can be happy.

	For the first time in over a year I feel whole, and I truly credit that entire change of heart to the few days I spent with Twiggy. I undoubtedly have feelings for her, but more than that I know that I will always love her platonically because she made me feel ok with myself again. Even if we never date, I am pretty certain I’ve made a lifetime friend, because I just know that I will be eternally grateful for this change of heart she instigated. No matter what happens romantically, I’m not stressed because I know at the absolute least I made a friend whom I care about deeply. My college semester starts in 2 days and I finally feel free of the cage my anxiety has kept me in for over a year.

Thanks Vi. <3