Wow, my first post and I'm already asking for help, what an achievement. Perhaps I should start lower... I am LostAgain, a human who would not call himself a brony. I found that, however infinitely amusing, I feel embarrassed to watch MLP:FiM. I try to watch it as much I can, but every time I do, I fall deeper into spiralling depression. I love the show and have shown it to friends, but this makes me feel worse. I am not typically a possitive person in the first place, and it feels terrible to have this inside boilling in my emotions. I seek knowledge of a being who experienced similar feelings, and yes, I have read the “Five Stages of Brony Development” post, so I know there has to be an answer. You'll see me again, LostAgain P.S.: I appolagize for any and all grammatical errors, I am running on a VERY low-tech computer, thus there is no spell-check, and it cannot handle a dictionary and a forum at once.
I don't know if this is what you're asking for, but as far as a sad situation goes, I do have one. Short story- My parents don't know i'm a brony, but they know one of my friends is. They think there is something seriously wrong with him. Moral of the story- Not everyone will exactly be "comforatable" with MLP:FiM, but it's all about you. How do you truely feel? Is it worth it to you? My Advice- Follow your heart, follow the wind, and try to smile! This is a world for smiles!
Thanks Due to some positive replies, I feel slightly better. I realize that the fan community of FiM is full of people who openly discuss their liking to the show, and I very much respect that. Unlike most people, I feel I live in a world of dignity, and if I share my liking to the show, I will lose the little dignity and self respect I have. Every time a hear “Friendship is Magic”, I feel a deep emptiness inside me, and I feel the need to back away from whoever said it, whether it be a friend or otherwise. Thanks for the replies, I hope I can remember them in the long run. You'll see me again, LostAgain
Hmm, I do hope you feel better. It'd be great if you stayed here on he forums, we'd love to have you. This is practically the friendliest place on the internet, so feel free to chat with us. See you around!
Hi Lost! I'm Harley! It's a pleasure to meet you and I really hope you can feel better about watching MLP: FiM. Personally, I just don't care what people think about me liking the show! I know I have a solid friendbase filled with bronies and that's all I need! I can't really say I went through the 5 stages of Brony-ism... I was fairly open to accepting MLP after going "No! I don't want to cause I KNOW I'll like it!" but I caved and watched all the episodes in 3 days. I'm not really much for help on this subject, I'm sorry! D: But anyway! ^-^ It's a pleasure to meet you *glomps!* I hope you enjoy your stay! *hugs!* And feel free to stop by EPR chat and if I'm around I'd love to talk to you some more!!
I think we've all been through what you have at some point. Can't really say anything that hasn't already been said by someone else. Just try not to worry yourself too much about it. Anyway--welcome to Everypony, new member! Hope you enjoy yourself around here. <3
I have not got to this phase yet, since i havent been a brony to long, but remember you will feel better.
simply, if you like the show, you like it. You shouldn't feel down because of. Yes, some people will be close minded about it but you'd be surprised how much people just don't care what show you like or don't like. Know that you're not alone, and that everything is ok with you. You just like (love) show that A LOT of people love. *hugs tightly*
The show attracts all types of people. I'm still surprised that I keep finding makes outnumbering females on many brony sites! I think it's wonderful that men can enjoy the show, too.
Thanks everyone, although I don't think y'all understand completely. In my social life, word gets around almost instantly. And I'm really not the friendliest person, so half the people in school HATE me. Plus, everyone in my current school is homophobic, and I know it's not gay AT ALL to watch FiM, but they don't. This is probably the nicest community on the 'net, but where I reside, people call you gay for tying your shoes. Thanks gang, glad I made the decision to join.
Let me make this easy for you; Disregard jerks, acquire ponies. Honestly, listening to your description of these people, they aren’t the kind of people who you should even CARE about! They’re just ignorant fools, so their opinions simply don’t matter!
Thanks everyone, I actually feel good for the first time in 9 months. That is truly an accomplishment, saying I have been a sad, forgotten person for a long while. However, this is only temporary. I will never be truly happy. I hope none of you challenge this, it is a lost cause. In other news, I may not watch FiM for a long time, for my computer has exploded, and my parents are blaming me. I will be on the forums, saying my crappy computer will continue to function. Thanks, this the closest I've come to making new friends for 3 months. Happy to be here, LostAgain.
Really? Is that so. Well, how about I won't challenge that, What if I challenge the logic of non challenging it? Hmm? Happiness, it is relative, As are many other things; Wealth, Sanity, Relativity, etc. That means, Happiness cannot be defined As Happy or not Happy. There are shades in between, Ranging from being content to amused and a lot more. Perhaps you may never be the happiest of people out there, That doesn't mean you can't be content. Why do I know that? Because you say you are forgotten; You are no longer forgotten my friend. Let me derail this to elaborate, Welcome to Everypony LostAgain, The forum where people actually care. And with that, Enjoy thy stay. PS. If you want, just talk to me about your computer, I could help diagnose and provide a possible solution If you so wish.
My friend, Your theory of relativity is quite complex, but let me make myself completely clear: I seek feeling content, and to have contentedness as my default expression. The above cannot be achieved without inspiration. I am easily inspired, but cannot remain that way for more than 2 hours. I am not a content person, and I think smiling is inappropriate in public, thus contentedness is not possible without changing of thought. You'll find I'm a coldhearted, stubborn person. It is a lost cause. There, anything else?
There's always something LostAgain, There's always something. Stubborn? I'm also stubborn, Very much so. Cold hearted? 3 Years ago, I did not comprehend The concept of empathy. I broke through though. Anywho; I live on Toronto, Smile in public and everyone around You will think you're crazy. Unless you're with friends. Everything is lost if you're not will to find it.
Oh Stare, Let me introduce you to the factions of my middle school: The “*squee!*s”: Rejects. People avoid them at all costs; smallest faction. The Lords: Rulers. Often full of themselves, you piss off a lord and rumors spread. The Nerds: Smart rejects. People who are smart, but are 'bags about it. Small faction, hated. I am a former member. The Used: Tools. Usually people who give out answers in exchange for safety. Medium size; I am currently most well known of them. And finally, the Masked: People who have secret lives, such as gamers disguised as prissy girls. I was a member, a poet disguised as a bored student. Aced English, my poetry was submitted for Reflections and I had a reccomendation to Honors. No one knew me.
No longer. Nothing such is forevermore. With that I bid thee goodnight. I have sleep to attempt to get. Insomnia doesn't help.
Hi, LostAgain. First off, let me welcome you to Everypony! I'm glad you've decided to join. Next, I'm sorry you feel that way. I've experienced similar feelings (sans the depression part). I remember when I first found out about MLP:FiM and bronies. I was very incredulous. I figured, "How can adult men enjoy this show?" At first I didn't want to try it, but then I figured I'd give it a try. I bet myself that I wouldn't like it. Obviously, I lost that bet since I'm here. I enjoyed the show rather quickly. I was interested almost immediately and was hooked by episode 3 or 4. I watched the entire first season in about 3 days. After that, I wanted more, but I started feeling strange feelings. I'm a 25 year old male that was watching My Little Pony. It didn't settle well with me at first. I got to a point when I wanted to stop even thinking about ponies because it made me feel very strange. I wasn't depressed, but maybe I was embarrassed. I knew I'd never be able to tell people I knew IRL about it. You've already done something that I haven't done, and that's showing it to your friends. How did they react to that, by the way? If you don't mind me asking. Even to this day I'm very secretive about it. I'm the kind of guy that you could call mysterious IRL, I suppose. I never reveal anything about myself unless I'm asked. So, essentially, very few people know anything about me. So, nobody IRL knows about my interest in FiM. I've never told anyone nor have I purchased any merchandise. I tried persuading a friend to look up "bronies" on Google once after we watched The Colbert Report and saw Stephen's shout-out to bronies. I pretended to not know what bronies were entirely by wording myself in such a way to make it seem like I just happened to look into it for research purposes (which is partly true, until I became one). He seemed shocked as I was when I first found out, but he didn't say anything negative. Unfortunately, I don't think he ever looked into it. I'm not the type to shove my interests into others' faces, so I dropped it. I did manage to use some pony-related phrases in real life to see if anyone noticed, but they all failed. I tried using the expression "fancy mathematics" a few times. I also said another thing in a class when we were asked to name random numbers, I said "244" right after someone else said "34" (I wonder what they were thinking, hmm? lol). I was even able to use "10 seconds flat" once because that was the exact time it took for a process to take place in an experiment I did in a lab. None of them worked. I tried keeping an eye out to see if I could spot a brony shirt on someone somewhere, but that didn't work either. So, after being a brony for 4 months, I still have no merchandise or IRL brony friends, but, to be honest, that doesn't depress me really. As you have already mentioned, people can be very judgmental about very stupid things. We already have accusations that we're all gay (I'm bi myself, but that's besides the point, we have members of all sexualities among us), pedophiles, have been abused as children or some other nonsense like that. Other people may jump upon the brony-hate bandwagon just because of these false accusations. This is my main reason for hiding it. I'm not ashamed to be a brony at all, but I understand that there are people that actually believe this. However, as I mentioned, despite my secrecy, I'm not ashamed to be a brony. Some people make the connection that if you're secretive, you must be ashamed. This is not an accurate assumption. I said I was secretive for 2 main reasons: 1) I'm not really an open person to begin with and 2) It's so people don't make false assumptions about me. That's really all it is. So, don't be ashamed or feel weird about liking MLP:FiM. There is no reason for it. Just don't tell the other ignorant fools about it. You aren't required to share your interests, you know. If you think there will be negative results from doing so, then just don't do it. A lot of us here are "closet bronies." There is no shame in it. We all have our own reasons for it. You will encounter some that will say you should have no shame in revealing your bronydom. This is true, you "should" have no shame, but, as you and many of us know, it isn't really all that practical or beneficial to make it known publically. Especially when you consider that some of the false assumptions can result in physical harm depending on the type of community you reside in. We have a member on here that was attacked because he was wearing a Rainbow Dash shirt. Why was he attacked? Not because he was a brony, but because the guys that attacked him thought he was gay due to the rainbow colors on his shirt. This is an extreme example, and is not the norm, but I'm using it to point out that hiding it isn't always a bad thing and is completely understandable depending on the circumstances. You said you are in middle school. Middle school is full of immature kids that'll use any little thing to falsely label you or physically harm you. So, in your case, hiding it isn't bad at all. Your surrounded by people that probably don't have the maturity to handle it. What am I talking about? Heck, there are many adults that don't have the maturity to handle it. It's just much more prevalent in the environment that you're in. Back when I was in elementary and middle school, I was teased as well. I was labeled as the "nerdy" kid. I was a loner. It used to bother me at first, and bullies took advantage of that. I was never harmed physically, only verbally. After a while, I just decided to ignore the jerks, and pretended it didn't bother me. To my surprise, this worked amazingly well. They didn't get the thrill out of it they used to and just left me alone for the most part. In high school, people started to mature more and in time many of them started come to me for answers and started to become friendly with me. The tables sure turned. The once rejected nerd became a person to look up to, which surprised me and bothered me too (I won't get into that, it has to do with my own psychoanalysis of myself and I won't bore you with that). The main point here is, don't let the fools get to you, and try your best to ignore them. They'll grow up hopefully eventually, and this is not just pertaining to the acceptance of FiM, but other things in general. I apologize for how long this post is. If you skipped over it, I can understand. I just felt I'd share my enormous two bits here and provide some personal experiences I've had that may be relevant to your situation. I wish you all the best, and once again, welcome to the site. I hope you enjoy your stay here with us. We are a supportive community and will try to help you out the best we can. ^_^
