Love Advice and Drug Discussion Quite Literally Changed My Life - General

I thought of posting this earlier when LA was deleted, but after the Relationship Advice thread was moved, I thought I'd share my story. And before a mod deletes this or whatever, this isn't anything to do with discussing or debating the deletion of the custom forums. It's of course relevant, but this is just me simply posting a story about myself, like any other thread. I came to Facepunch as a depressed, miserable, anti-social asshole. I had very little friends, and I spent my time with them playing online video games and nothing much more than that. At the time I was deep into a 3 year long crush on this one girl, who I was making all sorts of mistakes with. This is essentially what led me to become so emotionally withdrawn and lonely. One school holidays, my Internet was broken for the entire 2 weeks so I was basically alone the whole time. My 'friends' (WoW friends mostly) were preoccupied with gaming and didn't think to call me the entire time and try organize something, so I had a lot of time to think about myself and my 'conditions' and my friends, and basically reconsider what I had been doing for the last few years of my life. It was in these times that I decided to turn my life around so to speak. I basically wanted to change my attitude towards people and myself and society and all the other childish thoughts which were holding me down. I watched a lot of movies during this time, which gave me a lot of food for thought, just adding to my changing mindset. The few times I got on to a computer with Internet I would be browsing Facepunch, and most of the time I was in the sub-forum, 'Love Advice'. As some of the older vets would remember, I posted a long ass thread there about the girl I mentioned earlier (something along the lines of 'A Diatribe on the Last Three Years of My Life and a Girl Called Nadia' [which unfortunately, is now lost forever]), and I was finding a lot of help through the members who regularly posted there. But this was only ever about girls and relationships, which was obviously a large portion of the reason I was depressed but it wasn't all of it. One time as I scrolled down to click on and enter Love Advice, I noticed right next to it was another forum called 'Drug Discussion'. This intrigued me as I had always had a very negative and typically uninformed view on drugs and it was surprising to me that there was actually a forum dedicated to it. The thought of this bothered me somewhat but I was also very curious, and eventually one time when I went down to LA I decided to check out DD as well. Over time I would keep Drug Discussion open in one tab and Love Advice in the other. I would only ever read posts and threads in DD, but I never posted. I essentially became a lurker. I grew fond of the forum, as there was a lot of freindliness and a generally laid-back and chilled attitude running throughout its members, unlike the majority of FP. I read a lot of posts about people's experiences with various drugs and their thoughts on various issues, all of which was very fascinating. Over time I really felt my eyes open. Gone was the sterotype I had long associated with drug users, as I quickly realized that the 'junkies' and 'stoners' were very normal people that came from many walks of life. I learnt the idea of responsible drug use; that not all drugs lead to an inevitable death by addiction. It was immensely eye-opening to say the least. Not only did it open doors for me into this world of psychoactives, it completely shattered every other aspect of my perception on life. For so long I had simply believed what I was told, thinking that all drugs were bad, and anyone that used drugs were stupid. After all, that was what I was told to believe through family/media/religion/society/etc. Drug Discussion taught me to think for myself, to question things, and not to take everything at face value. I learnt to start thinking for myself. And then I picked up marijuana. The day I smoked my first joint and had my first high, I [b]knew[/b] my life was going to improve significantly. No, not that I would just get high when I felt like shit, but just finding that perfect means of achieving a new perception on myself and on life, it basically cured all the apparent mental issues I had within myself. I was depressed for 3 years. I would go through every day, hating myself, hating everyone around me, thinking that this was just how it was going to be and that one day I might find someone or something that'd make me feel better. But that wasn't good enough. There was something inherently wrong within me that needed to be brought out, and I can say with 100% confidence that I was able to do just that through my use of marijuana. I recently received an email from myself (through one of those email capsule websites), written a year ago whilst experiencing one of my early highs. It basically contains all of the lessons I learnt about myself and the world around me, which I still hold as my own fundamental beliefs and values today. It ends with, "Everything you did from writing this to reading this, will change your life completely." It's completely true. I look back on the person I was one, two, three years ago, and I can't believe that that was actually me. I've matured immensely, and I've learned so much over the years. I got chills all over my body when I read that email, having completely forgotten writing it. I ended up finding my first girlfriend soon after (which didn't end too well as the LA regulars would know, but we're happily friends now and I'm glad it all happened). I continued to frequent Love Advice during all of this, doing my best to dispense my newfound knowledge onto others who, just a couple of years prior, I would have easily related with. The same can be said for most of the other regulars on Love Advice. Quite clearly, someone like Maverick has a decent reputation for knowing his shit, so why would he be frequenting an online forum called Love Advice? Because him, like I and many others, want to give back to help the people that we once were. And besides all that, Love Advice became my online home. It was a tight-knit community which we were all happy with. For some reason, we all cared about the lives of each other, even to a slight degree. It sounds pretty fucking cheesy but that's just how it was. It was there for comfort and support through my entire story. I wrote quite a substantial guide on how to deal with breakups, having suffered quite a painful ordeal with this girl, and posted it on Love Advice solely for the purpose of helping others avoid similar heartbreak. Fortunately I had it saved to a Word document so it could be added to the Relationship thread, but how likely is it that someone looking for break up advice will stumble into the fucking chat forum, find the relationship advice thread, then read the relevant advice tacked onto the bottom of that? This isn't a bid to bring back Love Advice. I don't expect Garry to realize how fucking retarded his decision was, and the fact that perhaps 1% of the forum agree with him. I love Love Advice, and it'll always be my favourite online community. But it's served its purpose, for me at least. It's just a shame that it won't be around anymore to change the life of some other lost kid. So all in all, yes I know there are a lot of people here that will be thinking, oh get over it it's just a fucking online forum. And you're right, it is just an online forum, but it certainly isn't the same forum that I knew. It just so happens that those two Custom Forums were there, in the right place at the right time, for me to stumble across and to become a huge part of the person I am today. Thanks for reading <3.

We need a 'Social' forum which Love Advice could fit into, as-well as general social problems and Facepunch meetups.

[QUOTE=B-hazard;28341716]We need a 'Social' forum which Love Advice could fit into, as-well as general social problems and Facepunch meetups.[/QUOTE] [url]http://www.facepunch.com/forums/387-Chat-Threads[/url]

Wow, I never expected LA to do such a service as to actually help somebody get a girlfriend other than suggesting to rape her.

That was pretty interesting. It's great to hear such things.

You proved the statement Smoke weed get bitches erry day.

Good read, I'm glad everything's worked out for you. I myself was a massive lurker to LA occasionally posting there and I learned a lot just by reading the problems and solutions posted by other members there. It's sad to see that LA (and other subforums like drug discussion) are dying out now. I thought LA would stay up for a long time helping out different people such as yourself in big ways or just offering great tips like what I've now picked up. If there was a way to give back to the community I'd do it.

[QUOTE=B-hazard;28341716]We need a 'Social' forum which Love Advice could fit into, as-well as general social problems and Facepunch meetups.[/QUOTE] This.

[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;28341783][url]http://www.facepunch.com/forums/387-Chat-Threads[/url] As for me, I had a look round Love Advice once or twice and wasn't impressed. It was full of the kind of whiny pubescent bullshit that cluttered up GD, so at the very least it served the purpose of siphoning the unwanted ballast away from GD, like Fast Threads and the OIFY (not so much the OIFY anymore, but when t was on the frontpage definitely) do. Drug Discussion, meh, never really had the interest, though I've got nothing against it. Posting standard is similar to LA, e.g not great. I also disagree with your statement that Love Advice was friendlier than the other sections of FP. I've never found FP to be particularly unfriendly, and the few who are unfriendly without a reason can generally be marked as bad posters and ignored. [/QUOTE] Shutup. You're always so negative. Glad LA helped you OP.

I think that a social forum will fit well here to give this forum a more rounded feel to it.

That was my idea B-hazard, and MaverikIB, despite being an utter twat sometimes, is pretty helpful, and the get tough attitude definitely spurs you to make a move.

i love the durgs discussion <3 :D :350: Love advice is awesome too, but i dont frequent it as much

[QUOTE=Mort and Charon;28342791]That was my idea B-hazard, and MaverikIB, despite being an utter twat sometimes, is pretty helpful, and the get tough attitude definitely spurs you to make a move.[/QUOTE] Maverick isn't an utter twat, he tells things as they are. Like OP said, he knows his shit. Also I'm very sad LA was deleted I loved everyone in there :3:

Who needs a girlfriend when you have facepunch?

[QUOTE=Generic.Monk;28341783][As for me, I had a look round Love Advice once or twice and wasn't impressed. It was full of the kind of whiny pubescent bullshit that cluttered up GD, so at the very least it served the purpose of siphoning the unwanted ballast away from GD, like Fast Threads and the OIFY (not so much the OIFY anymore, but when t was on the frontpage definitely) do. Drug Discussion, meh, never really had the interest, though I've got nothing against it. [B]Posting standard is similar to LA, e.g not great. [/B]I also disagree with your statement that Love Advice was friendlier than the other sections of FP. I've never found FP to be particularly unfriendly, and the few who are unfriendly without a reason can generally be marked as bad posters and ignored.[/QUOTE] He says, writing a post in General discussion.

I don't think a quick drop in to LA was enough to be able to fairly judge it. LA resided at the bottom of the forums, practically hidden away. Because of that, we didn't get the most traffic in the world. Strangely enough, LA traffic would surge every time someone posted a thread in GD that was moved to LA. It created this cycle of meaningful activity and shooting the shit. Whenever we'd get a surge, there'd be tons of new threads and tons of people would ask for/receive advice. It was at these moments where LA truly shined, we did a damn good job most of the time. However, the rest of the time consisted of us practically waiting for another surge. We just talked about bullshit in a general chat thread and crap like that. If you dropped in while we were in that phase of the cycle, of course LA was going to look utterly useless. If LA was visible and its existence was well-known, we would have had so much traffic that there'd never be a period of us just fucking around. The only reason why LA developed into a niche-like community is because it was placed in a back corner of the forums. If you put a bunch of people on an island, of course they're going to develop a community on the island. Sitting there expecting them to interact with the rest of the world is just stupid.

I think a forum has the power to change peoples' lives, sure. Or, more accurately, it has the power to make themselves look at their lives in a new perspective. Facepunch itself isn't solely responsible for molding me into the person I am today, but having an environment where I can get together with other people from all over the planet and just talk about things has done wonders to widen my perception of the world. I've never been much of an antisocial and I'm not very good at blending into the crowd. I have this weird way of attracting attention pretty much anywhere I go (and it's not always [or usually] [i]good[/i] attention, as pretty much any of my old high school teachers could tell you), so I don't know that I can identify with you on everything you've written about, but some of the things you're saying ring deep and true for me. Not long ago I was a very small-minded, angry, and self-righteous person. Facepunch was a major influence in helping me grow out of that. This website and the people on it made me realize that my perception of the world wasn't necessarily the right one. Seeing so many people from so many backgrounds with so many different priorities and ideas and opinions on the state of the world and life itself made it perfectly clear to me that nothing was so black-and-white as I'd thought. I started to question my convictions and learned a lot about myself and about what kind of person I truly wanted to be. I try not to take things at face value anymore, and I constantly reevaluate my view of the world as I learn more about it. I think that's something everybody should do, and an environment like Facepunch is a great place to do it. Here you can see the world through the eyes of a thousand different people on any given subject on any given day. I dig these forums for the things they've helped me to realize and to learn. Mostly I come here to shoot the shit with a fun bunch of people, but oftentimes I don't even post; I just watch and read and think about the things I'm seeing.

ITT: facepunch.com or how it changed my life forever

[QUOTE=brianosaur;28344194]ITT: facepunch.com or how it changed my life forever[/QUOTE] Sure, and why not? What better tool is there for broadening your horizons than an online community with thousands of active members from all across the planet? Close friends and family can help to define your core, but it's strangers who inject the unfamiliar aspects of the world into your life, and that new information can wind its roots into your foundation. A man who's never seen the sun would find his perception of the world shaken to its core if he walked outside at noon.

it seems as if Facepunch has saved the lives of many.

[QUOTE=tedfinly;28342627]Shutup. You're always so negative. [/QUOTE] Uh, thanks. Let's disregard the word 'opinion' entirely. Though I will edit the post, I feel my whining about post quality is better suited to some other thread rather than an uplifting story thread like this one.

This is scarily the same to the story of the past few years of my life. So similar (Even including the same lifestyle forums) :unsmith:

Reading LA sure as hell changed my life. Last year, Maverick's advice convinced me to just man the fuck up and get over this girl I was really infatuated with that had a boyfriend that she was practically obsessed with (also, her boyfriend had threatened suicide when she had tried to break up with him before and she was too gullible to see that he was bullshitting). In a matter of weeks I basically changed from an insecure, depressed little pussy that cared way too much about the opinions of others (even others that I didn't ever speak to or like) into a confident (well, comparatively confident. I've still got a long way to go) person that barely gave a fuck what anyone thought (barring the opinions of my closest friends). From depressed to constantly happy and full of energy, I changed in a matter of weeks. LA has helped so many people and it's just fucking stupid to move it into some forum where it will never be seen by new people.

Decent read. Common knowledge, relaxed behaviour and free time can make you think differently; clearer.

facepunch just made me more angry really [editline]28th February 2011[/editline] hasn't really changed me much maybe i'm not working hard enough

Yeah man, DD and Love advice helped me ALOT. DD really opened my eyes on why weed isn't bad, at all. And Love advice helped me put into perspective what a real relationship is. I wish the lifestyle sub forus weren't deleted... [editline]28th February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=Faren;28347288]Reading LA sure as hell changed my life. Last year, Maverick's advice convinced me to just man the fuck up and get over this girl I was really infatuated with that had a boyfriend that she was practically obsessed with (also, her boyfriend had threatened suicide when she had tried to break up with him before and she was too gullible to see that he was bullshitting). In a matter of weeks I basically changed from an insecure, depressed little pussy that cared way too much about the opinions of others (even others that I didn't ever speak to or like) into a confident (well, comparatively confident. I've still got a long way to go) person that barely gave a fuck what anyone thought (barring the opinions of my closest friends). From depressed to constantly happy and full of energy, I changed in a matter of weeks. LA has helped so many people and it's just fucking stupid to move it into some forum where it will never be seen by new people.[/QUOTE] Same here, brother. :love:

The net result of facepunch on my life has been slightly negative yet I wouldn't have it any other way

That's really awesome dude. LA changed me a tiny bit too, but not as much. It really is a shame its gone...

Facepunch made me a 20 year old (8 days short) who doesn't give a shit about anything, who can do almost anything in photoshop, made me learn almost every media related program and lots of principles/basics, taught me some drawing, color theory, trolling, made me burst out lauging more times than imaginable; I was there when LMAO pics started, I'm pretty confident I've only missed 1 or 2 of them; in social life I'm considered smart, often a smart-ass because It's sometimes too hard to withhold criticism, sometimes witty and generally a nice guy to hang around. I have a nicely paying job that doesn't require me to get out of the comfort of my home. I'm about to start snowboarding again. This is just what's on top of my head, I have a much wider and deeper skill set but the rest is not thanks to fp. Looks not-so bad now, does it? I have pimples on my ass from sitting on a chair all day. I can't make myself do any significant piece of work and am probably about to lose my job because of that. I feel frustrated with myself, then forget everything and read lmao pics and absorb the huge stream of useless information which facepunch is there to provide. I don't want anything in life. I have no goal. My parents don't work and seeing me in front of the pc all day makes them (namely my dad, my mom is almost in the same boat as me actually) extremely frustrated. My dad keeps saying that if I don't get to life it'll get to me. I know it's true, eventually I'll have to move out and do things to survive. I see no reason to do anything. I know that in the global scale I don't matter at all, nothing I will ever do will matter, etc, but that doesn't really make me sad or anything, it doesn't kill the motivation either because I have no motivation to begin with. I am truly apathetic. I don't know if this is depression or burnt out frontal lobes. I don't feel pity for myself either, really, I'm not fishing for hearts or sympathy, I don't need that. This is just a sort of a random confession in hopes that someone was in the same boat and knows what do. v:geno:v

I miss LA. I liked to think I was helpful (as well as helped) there. :smith: