Login

Jiggly_333 · 04-04-2021, 04:28 PM

Over the past year, I've been trying to wind down my time in simulation sports leagues. I've had too many bad experiences, I've started to feel uncomfortable in these places. Back when I started in sim leagues, I had just graduated high school. I knew I was going to go to community college, but I hadn't even signed up yet. I had a vague plan for the future, but no action. A guy I barely knew kept bugging me about this one league and eventually I joined. I met some great people, had a fun time. Then, eventually I started going to classes.

At the time, I was writing about soccer for what was essentially an unpaid internship; so I treated sim leagues as more of practice for getting myself to get up every week and try to write something. I was planning on going into journalism so I wanted the practice of not only doing my soccer articles, but doing the regular PTs and maybe media so I can get some creative writing practice. This did not work out.

As time went on in sim leagues, I started doing less and less PTs and started to just hang out in Discord. I realized that what I really needed at that time wasn't "writing practice" it was social interaction. The second semester of my freshman year, after I'd lost my job and realized that I was unable to make any human connections at college, I started joining more and more sim leagues, trying to fill something inside of me. But at that same time, while I was trying to do even more, I obviously let myself gain a reputation.

My entire life, I've been the "annoying kid". When I was 8 or 9, I was diagnosed with Asperger's, which since then the science community that decides these things just narrowed it down to "being on the Autism Spectrum". Most people, when they hear about "autism", they think of some quiet kid in the corner who doesn't know how to talk. They think of these TV shows where there's a genius kid who's unable to understand people's emotions. Autism Awareness Day was actually Friday, so let me just tell you a few things about my actual experience with being autistic.

I did do well on tests and placed high in academics, but I also talked way too much. I'd talk about the things that interested me at that very moment, whether it was the Civil War or the Chicago Fire. I have a terrible memory, but I've been told that I disrupted classes a lot and there were a lot of weird quirks about me. What I do remember is that I was constantly teased for picking my nose and I had a very short temper. The moment that I felt threatened by a classmate, I'd try to fight them. I never did, it always ended up just being me trying to chase them; but this was Catholic school and you're not allowed to do that shit. This was an incredibly small class that would be together from pre-school to 8th grade. So the moment you gained a reputation when you were 5 years old, it stayed until you were 15. When I was in first grade, someone made a joke about (to use my username instead of real name) "Jiggly germs". And from then on, everything I touched became unclean to everyone in the class.

By the time I moved away in 7th grade, my thoughts on that time were mixed. I felt an attachment to these people because they were the only kids I knew growing up. But at the same time, I never developed any real friendships. It was convenience because we were in the same class. I never visited anyone's house, they never visited mine. I tried making friends with the kids on the street, but eventually they start trying to beat me up. I didn't understand then why these kids didn't like me and honestly I still don't understand.

I don't understand because of that issue with autism. Autism, from my own understanding of it, is the inability to communicate properly with others. It's not about being "socially awkward", it's about there being a fundamental lack of capacity in your brain to process things the way that a normal person innately can. A "socially awkward introvert" is someone who has a massive filter between them and the world, who hesitates because they understand the rules of society almost too well. Me, I had no filter. And that's what "being autistic" means to me, that complete lack of a filter and being unable to read what other people are telling me. I was forced into classes where they gave me super super basic knowledge of "how to interact with people", but it was so basic that I still didn't get any better. I was in high school getting taught by a social worker "this boy is crying, so he's sad" when what I really needed to know was "how do I start a conversation with another person my age without making them think I'm a creep?" Because clearly my issue wasn't about outbursts in class anymore and it was more about a lack of friend-making skills.

So, I still struggle with a lot of this. I never developed any real friends that I stay in touch with. So joining sim leagues was just another chance of starting over, trying to fix myself and essentially using immersion therapy to get better at being friends with people and interacting with strangers. And, because it's the internet, you let a weird side of you come out. And, because it's me, I get really interested in things. I have a problem with being overly obsessed with whatever holds my interest at that time. And so that, combined with a self-image issue that I also developed while getting bullied as a kid, caused me to start posting gifs of cute celebrities I liked. That era of Jiggly was honestly disturbing, but still pretty damn harmless. The big issue was when I wanted to take on leadership roles and the same "inability to interact with people properly" issues came up and I continued to just be shit at drafting players, signing players, and maintaining a team.

Now, this brings me to here. If you didn't already just skip on reading this because "Oh, this is written by Jiggly," you're probably now wondering what this has to do with being draft media.

I just found out today that I went undrafted.

Look, I created Kou without any real forethought to be a "great player". She's a grinder, the kind of player you post up in front of the goal and don't think too much about. The kind of player who's not going to be making big moves, but slowly becomes a fan-favorite because of their personality. Or maybe a journeyman. I made her after interacting with new people during the New Year's Stream and decided that if I was continuing in sim leagues for a little while longer, I shouldn't let Rocky be my last player in the SHL.

I think if I had watched the draft or had even heard about it happening, I might understand everything a little better. But this time around, I didn't really do anything. I've been busy recently with a big project I'm working on that some people actually know about already. Soccer season's coming and if there's a PT I'm not interested in, I'm not going to do it. I'm fine with being a semi-active 4th line grinder, that's the player I built.

But today I found out almost 24 hours after the fact. I didn't know the draft was coming. I knew that the SMJHL season had ended, but I didn't know when the draft would be because I didn't ask. I wasn't interested. I'd wait for some teams to message me, tell them I didn't really care where I went this time around and hope that I'd go to a team that could accept me. The only interaction I had with an SHL GM for this draft wasn't a message gauging interest. It was being removed from a server that I'd spent almost 3 years in to that point. I got a DM to go along with it. In the interest of not "posting screenshots" I'm just going to copy and paste the message with their name taken out. Although, it's from an SFP GM, so you'll have to guess which one. I don't even remember who it is anymore:

"Hey Jiggly

Just wanted to let you know that a couple of the prospects we are really interested in seem to have had some bad previous experience with you and are unfortunately unwilling to share an LR with you and considering you are no longer on our team I've taken the decision to remove you from the Pride LR for the time being.

Thanks for understanding and best of luck with your new player!

Cheers,
*SFP GM*"

The only message I got about the draft was a DM telling me that a team couldn't keep me in their LR as an alumni because some prospects didn't like me.

That was all, no further information. They were completely disinterested in my player. I got this DM early last month before I started skipping some PTs. And that didn't feel good. And it feels even worse now that I know the draft happened without me ever hearing a peep. My own SMJHL team didn't say anything to me until this morning when Naosu DM'd me to say that the Knights were willing to sign me as a free agent instead of a send down.

From what I can gather, there's actually an issue at the moment with teams not having enough cap space for players and how there's this crusade against having a 4th line on teams. So active users have been going undrafted. Unlike last time around with Rocky, I'm not going to blame anyone. In a real life draft or in a draft without cap restrictions, I probably would have fallen to the 5th round or so. That's just who my player is. And I know that there is a group of people who do run teams who care about me. Actually, I don't know, but I at least know that there are people who are in charge of things who don't hate me.

But on the other hand, it sucks to be discussed in this way. I'm viewed as a "bad user". There are people who talk about me being horrible in the locker room despite how every time I've been in a locker room, no one's ever seemed to have a problem with me. So when I realized that people thought I was a bad locker room person, I left gen chat because clearly the perception of me that people were getting from gen chat was damaging. But when I left gen chat, I could no longer defend myself, so I started making posts like these to try to get people to understand. And when I make these posts, it looks like I'm just trying to pull together a pity party. And maybe I fucking am.

As I said, I've always been "the weird kid". I've always been the last picked in sports, I've always been the one left out when everyone needs to find partners in class. I was an outcast from the fucking outcasts table in the cafeteria in high school. I've always been alone. And I always feel like I need to do something to fix it. The advice I always get is "there's always going to be people who will never like you" and I get it. There's people here that I will never bring myself to forgive. But I've made it clear why I don't like those people, I've made it clear to those people why I feel that way. Here, I'm just sort of pushed aside like an NPC you don't want to deal with.

We're on the internet. We're anonymous. I guess I'm not because I'm usually pretty open about myself, but most people use that anonymity to be someone different from themselves. And for some dumb fucking reason, most of those people choose to be the worst version of themselves. To be the most vindictive, shitty person they can be. Because when you look at my anime girl pfp, you don't see a human being behind that. You just see a dumbass weeb who you find too annoying to be in your presence. You don't consider the person's emotions, the person's desire for human interaction, the person's past history with constantly being pushed away by everyone in their fucking life. You just see a stupid username and some cartoon you don't recognize.

I think I retired my last player in the ISFL in late February, I don't remember the exact day. I was told that if I truly felt unwelcome, if being in that league was truly that much of an emotional struggle, then I should just leave. So I did. I now have technically three players left. There's some player in the SCFSL that I forgot his name, but I created there and has been updated by the GM of whatever team he's on since then. I have Kaede Tachibana, a pitcher in the PBE on the Providence Crabs where I am such a fixture there in the LR that I literally have a physical Crabs hat that I wear sometimes. And then there's Kou Saotome, a player who I built on a whim because I wanted to see if maybe time had healed things here.

Turns out, it hadn't. I am, once again, out of contract. Last time I was like this with Rocky, I chose to retire. I wanted to play, but I couldn't. This time around, I realize what I'm here for. I joined this league for a reason, but got distracted by my life-long quest to improve myself. My goal of finally making friends and no longer feeling alone. Now I know that it's impossible for me to do that, it's impossible for me to actually be a part of a community that is either unable to have me or refuses to have me. The only reason left is routine. My routine of every Monday, I look up a nice gif, I post my AC, buy my training, update my player, and maybe do my PT if it's something I think I can do that week. So I will not retire. I will continue to just sit here, gain TPE, and bank it like the zombie that I am. Because maybe in a few seasons Kou can be useful to a team as a corpse, no longer burdened with personality or a human user behind it.

I don't want to hear your solutions. I don't to hear your pity. I don't want to deal with people speaking up about who they think I am. I just want you to hear my frustration, my sadness, and my acceptance. I want to be better, I want to do better, but I can't. And so I'm not better. I want you to think about the person behind that user you hate and consider how they feel. I've done it many times, actually. There are times that I chose to drop grudges because I thought about who was actually there. There's also times that I thought about the person behind those words and decided they weren't worth forgiveness, that what they've done or said to me was over the line. So I won't judge you either way. Just consider it.

Player Page||Update Page

Jamie T Wrote:But I wish I'd been a little more exceptional
And I wish I'd been a little unconventional
But I was not enough, no, I'm not enough

SlashACM · 04-04-2021, 04:48 PM

Sorry jiggly, you're a cool dude

trella · 04-04-2021, 05:31 PM

@PremierBromanov this is why we need 4th lines.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always enjoyed your music. I remember one night i was in a particularly bad place and you were playing in a VC somewhere. It helped me then, so thank you.

Thanks to @karey and @JSS for the sigs!

Former USA Fed Head, Carolina Kraken Co-GM, Tampa Bay Barracuda GM

wumaduce · 04-04-2021, 08:33 PM

Maybe don't randomly go on talking about how you spent 20 minutes drawing a boob for your rookie task in the public shl discord. That was just fucking weird and unnecessary.

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us