I grew up in rural Indiana. I was born to some poor folk with little more than a dirt floor. I have never been social. My aunt got the internet ’96 and I instantly fell in love. It was place where many people could come together and enjoy each other’s company anonymously. No one knew me or judged me. I was not poor or abused then, just a screen name.

In 2006 I join the U.S. army as an electrical engineer. In 2008 I was a civilian again and could finally afford my own internet. I found it full of myspace and social media. I have long since stopped measuring myself to other men but, social media dictate that I be measured. I have great distaste of such things. Just as in life, I retreated and became a recluse even on the internet.

I kept quiet and enjoyed many online games. A ragdoll fighting game was what I was looking for but I found something much more, Toribash. I enjoyed a couple months offline before going online. I played a lot online, never really saying much. Then I met Daniel Mosier. I don’t know what it was about him, maybe his automatic acceptance of me, maybe it’s because he called me “good”, but he grabbed my attention. We quickly became friends and he introduced me to some amazing people. He said he wanted me to join his clan. He opened my heart and showed me how to love Toribash. Then my world came crashing down.

My local economy crashed, I lost my job and I could not beat the flood of other unemployed veterans to my nearby towns. Me, my wife and my new-born son had just lost everything. I moved back to that dirt floor with my father and went to college. I decided to study computer programming, security and networking with a few business classes sprinkled in. I was utterly unprepared for the amount social requirements of it. I dropped out.

I’ve never had a great education to begin with; my spelling is terrible. However, I am a man that has made himself. I am proud of that. I have taught myself most of what I know. From reading to math I have always been an autodidact. I have decided to devote my life video games and I am teaching myself how to make this great art. It is a long, arduous road.

Being in need of a way to relax and of stable personal economy, local tech support, I once again return to Toribash. My old friends are long since gone and my place with them disappeared with them, but not their memory. I have a love for Toribash and they are a part of it. I want to honor that memory. I want to be a part of this community. I want to help grow it into something that they would have been proud of.

That is a large goal, larger still for someone as anti-social as me. I care not. I will persist as I have persisted. No amount of abuse could make me part, nor would I shame myself by disgracing Toribash or its memory. I hope to find some place for me in the community. I want to find friends. I want a good place where I may better do my part to serve and better this community. Toribash is fun, but it is nothing without good friends to share it with.