This barista is so beautiful it's not even funny. How can I win her heart?!?

[krogothwolf]

Oh man, you're leaving? Now I'm gonna cry

You better make us a goodbye poem, or else I'll hunt you down and force you to write one!

[Magic_Marker]

See ya Solid.

Stay...Solid.

I'm motivational as FUCK!

[tacticslion]

Go thy way in peace, and be aware that ye are welcome back here!

[Liquid Snake]

Originally Posted by Invisible Queen

To be fair I've never tried to hide the fact that I'm an imaginary person, I just don't call much attention to it. I think Snake was just surprised to learn people you know and love may put on Internet personas. And with what Bob said I don't think it's my fault at all really.

It's not "your fault" at all and I don't think anything I said during our conversation should have given you that impression.
Really if this message accomplishes one thing it'll be that it'll stress unequivocally that the circumstances behind my departure are entirely my fault and there's no one to blame but myself.

Originally Posted by Bob the Mercenary

He's just doing what I did a long time ago. Taking a little time off because he's been wasting too much time here and not on his love life and/or career. Trust me, it had nothing to do with the badgering. He kinda hinted at that while we were at the bar. He said he needed a hiatus and may or may not return and he had been planning on doing that for a while.

He'll be back.

Pretty much.

The mere incident of deceit on the interwebs, while certainly discouraging, wasn't a big enough issue to merit me reacting like a douchebag and leaving. I can understand why a few people got that impression, (but that was just because I did in fact act like a douchebag, in part because I was grasping for straws to find a "legitimate reason" to depart.)

The real issue was that those events essentially revealed that I had reached a point where I was so "addicted" to the NPF community (for lack of a better way to put it) that I was treating conversations with you all as substitutes for IRL opportunities.

I'm all for developing online friendships and I like a heck of a lot of you too much to believe otherwise, but the bottom line is it's healthy so long as it's casual. I'm also all for spending time writing up fun little projects on NPF so long as they're diversions and not taking up too much time (and not impacting IRL responsibilities.)

The minute you start treating online friendships with an implicit degree of trust and you start to "care" too much for online personalities, and the minute you start investing time in an online community at the expense of pursuing friendships "in the real world" or even fulfilling basic career / academic obligations, that's when you have to take a step back. The most frightening thing about IQ's "deception" wasn't anything she did, but moreso that my reaction was as if I had lost a good friend, and I really under no circumstances should have put myself in a position where I believed IQ was a good friend.

And around that time I realized that folks like NonCon and BobTheMercenary were literally people I would have placed on a "Top Ten Friends List" and yet I had never even met them in person (that did change when I saw Bob at the bar recently, although that wasn't true when I left.) A similar list of "Top Ten Most Attractive Female Personalities I Know" would have included NPF "ladies" and I have no proof they're not all forty-five year old male computer technicians. I was waking up in the morning in a mood where I was more excited to update the History topic on NPF and/or exchange the next PM with Mauve Mage / IQ / Bob / Nikose / etc. than to accomplish tasks for the firm I'm interning with, involve myself in a local church community or interact with close friends or family I've known for years. That's just not quite right. (To put things in perspective, each of the two updates in the History topic took about six hours total to research and write, and that's just way too much time to spend on trivial stuff like that.)

I can understand why you might read this and think I'm attacking your credibility, but I'm not: I'm much more concerned with my own priorities. Most of you are good people, and NPF is a great place to hang out, but I can't reach a point where I've invested so much into NPF that revelations that "people online aren't who they seem to be" legitimately upset me. I can't become complacent enough to rely on conversing with NonCon and Bob online and acting as if their friendships are meaningful substitutes for finding friends in the "real world." When I'm not sacrificing other opportunities you guys are great friends to have, but when I am spending obsessive amounts of time on NPF at the expense of fulfilling other obligations, I'm setting myself up for crashing and burning.

The best solution from my perspective appeared to be to take a hiatus from the forums, find new social opportunities now that I've moved back to DC, recommit myself to my summer internship obligations and rely on AIM to keep in touch with a few NPF personalities I "knew I could trust" while avoiding the kinds of time-drains that led me to invest too much time and thoughts here.
Then I could (theoretically) come back a few months later with a better head on my shoulders and treat NPF as more the fun, light, commitment-free diversion it should be.

Originally Posted by Mauve Mage

He could've said goodbye; I was getting worried when I saw him delete all his camwhore pics and user information.

This is more or less what I did wrong; I had the right reasons for leaving but handled the process inappropriately and melodramatically.
I think I subconsciously wanted to blow up the IQ issue into a melodramatic reason for leaving because I didn't entirely trust myself to actually leave NPF otherwise. Like, if I just started a "Goodbye" thread and explained myself rationally and "left" on "good terms," I'm not sure if I actually would have left. I'd probably have felt compelled to stay after wasting another several hours typing away in the "goodbye" topic. You and NonCon and Bob and others would have all typed something to the effect of "We'll miss you" or something and that would've broken my resolve.

I mean basically I had been telling myself that I needed to take a hiatus for at least a week before the IQ incident but I kept delaying it because I was having too much fun. And instead of actually finding the right moment to cut back, I kept investing more and more into new ideas (like the NPF History topic) and I invested more and more into the community (posting the pics into the Camwhore thread, et al.)

In that sense, highlighting the (mostly nonexistent) terror of deceit on the interwebs was a way to make absolutely certain I'd do what was best for me. It also, however, offended at least a few people and was a stupid, irrational and immature way to handle the situation. All I can do in that regard is apologize.

I guess that's kind of the TL;DR version of this: I don't regret the fact that I am going on hiatus, because my priorities were skewed and I need to take some time to rebalance my life. But I do regret the way I've handled this insofar as I've likely offended or upset a couple people and/or lost a couple friendships. I'm sure I'll come back in some capacity in the next few months and hopefully by then this will have all blown over and I'll go back to only making occasional political insights in Discussion threads as I always have.

Anyway, I'll stay on today for a couple more hours to answer any questions y'all have and/or apologize to specific people who feel slighted because you all deserve a proper farewell before I jump back down into the abyss.

...Oh! And the Barista Girl. Yeah, Nikose summed that one up. I manned up and asked her out on a date a couple weeks back or so, after I had ordered a coffee from her and while she was in the process of making said expresso drink. She was very courteous at the time but she said "No, thank you." (In fact, she was so courteous and beaming a smile while she made the drink that I initially thought she had actually just said "Thank you" and had accepted my offer. But as she handed me the drink she said "Thanks anyway, and I hope you have a nice day," or something similar, and at that point I realized I lost out.)

I found out two days later (when I returned to said coffeehouse in an attempt to ensure she didn't think I was devastated over the rejection or anything) from a male coworker who happened to overhear the exchange that she's in a serious relationship with a boyfriend. So, she's probably just a pleasant, thoroughly likable person who wasn't the least bit offended (and possibly even a bit flattered) by my gesture but who's already found that special someone. (At least that's what I'm telling myself, anyway.)

It hurt for a few days, but I've gotten over it.

EDIT: Oh man, how fitting is it that I've left a WALL OF TEXT as a goodbye message? I can think of nothing more quintessentially "Solid Snake"-esque than that!

[Amake]

Well, thanks for the good times and all. I've enjoyed your walls of text and our riveting conversations.

And it's good you're not leaving with any hardSOLID feelings.

[krogothwolf]

You know what you need Snake? a Kid! If you can't make one, adopt one. That way you'll have IRL interaction to go with Interwebs fun! Then that kid can take your nice Blackberry, shove it in their mouth when you aren't paying attention then vomit all over it and look at you with this big goofy smile on her face and then giggle likes its funny she just ruined the phone.

Poor phone

[RickZarber]

Well, Snake, good luck sorting things out in the interim. I got all set to do the same thing a few years back, but I somehow lucked out and my life got back on track before I actually went through with leaving.

But hey, since you're back in DC, if you ever feel like grabbing a drink some night, let me know. (I can be reached via my screen name at gmail.)

[bluestarultor]

Well, goodbye for now and good luck, Snake.

Also, you know you can do a password reset, right? I'm pretty sure you can just reset your password and pick up the temp from your email, if the address associated with the account still exists.

[Bob The Mercenary]

May I be the first to do this?

Snake? Snake?! Snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake!

[Krylo]

Snake: Get the hell out of here before you end up fucking up this whole hiatus thing and sticking around like you were afraid of in the first place. I'll look forward to seeing you again, IN A FEW MONTHS.

Later, pal.

Krogo: No one else needs a child. We get all the doting father posts we can handle from you, already, thanks.

Edit 1: Good job on the manning up. Sorry it didn't work out with the hottie.

Edit 2: Someone explain this IQ shit to me. Probably in private or whatever to limit dramaz, but I'd still like to know 'cause if she's a fake person it would actually be a relief to me.