What an amazing journey this has been…

MY HISTORY WITH SOCIAL MEDIA 

I have been on AOL Instant Messenger, multiple forums, Facebook, IG, MySpace, LinkedIn, and most recently and frequently, Twitter and Telegram. So, at the end of the day, you can say I’ve taken a tour of all of the “social networks” at one point or another.

THE INTERNET FRIEND

The term “internet friend” carries a negative connotation to me. When I think of an internet friend, I think of television series like CatFish, To Catch A Predator, and the like, and aside from my wife whom I met on Facebook, that was a one mutual friend / love at first sight story. I have never formed a friendship with another individual online in my whole life.

After months of navigating through the Bitcoin Twittersphere and reflecting daily, I often asked myself what is my purpose here in this community and how could I be of help? After some more reflection I realized that at this time, I do not have much to offer other than screaming hopium from the rooftops. That’s when it hit me like a ton of bricks. Bitcoin and the Bitcoin community was helping me, the one who needed help.

Somehow, through typical daily BT trolling, I engaged with an individual a few times. We DM’d a bit and hit it off quite well. I was green and had some questions, and he was more than happy to lend a helping hand. As we engaged in conversation, one topic led to another and I was pouring my guts out to this guy that I had just met online a few days prior.

ME, MYSELF, AND I… AND MY BITCOIN BRO

As the years have gone on I’ve found that people change, everyone gets busy in life, some friendships remain, some dissolve. I’ve always worn my heart on my sleeve, and have openly expressed my emotions to a certain friend. That certain friend and I grew apart a bit during Covid. While there are no hard feelings, after really reflecting on the subject I realized that the outlet I had was now closed, and it hurt. I didn’t see this coming at all. All the crazy bullshit that occurred throughout the past year had some negative effect on me that was more or less bottled up. And when I found a nice guy on Twitter who was willing to listen, oh boy, did I unload.

And do you know what this bastard did?

He listened and provided sound advice, he even stuck around for some more! I honestly thought I scared him away, but instead I found a true friend. A friend to whom I can openly express myself without fear of judgment, something I’m not quite sure I’ve ever had “IRL”. 

He is kind of annoying, he kept harassing me until I took my BTC / Sats off the exchanges and onto cold storage hardware. However, he was also there each step of the way via voice messaging on telegram in the event that I ran into any issues, which I did (catastrophic to me, comical and nonexistent to him). This was something that I only delayed due to the fear of the cold storage process, and some misconceptions that I had due to my lack of experience with technology.

I have found that once a friendship develops, that wall of security that we are trained to instantly put up began to diminish. I found myself comfortably asking him questions that I would not ask publicly on Twitter, due to the fact that the Cyber Hornets will drain your phone battery with notifications when you present the opportunity.. which is half the fun.

But serious questions I had like, “Why and how does every one HODL? It seems simple to me, you buy a coin for 50k it goes to 200k and you sell, it corrects to 100 you re-buy. Now you have 1.5 or 2, opposed to 1. Is everyone selling at the top and buying at the bottom and preaching to HODL???”  

Let just say his reply was short, quickly painted a picture in my mind, and my outlook has gone from “what color Lambo I should get in December”, to “the 2024 halving is going to be excellent”.

Yes, we are both die hard Bitcoin Maxis, but the regular conversations are rarely solely about Bitcoin. Sure we get hyped up and share bullish news and dunk on others and each other from time to time. But most of the time we are talking about regular day to day stuff outside of Bitcoin with the many other similar interests we have. Nowadays its more of a, “Hey, what’s up Bro? I hope you have a blessed day!” which often spirals off topic covering much ground.

I tweeted the other day something along the lines of “I would be so fucked without Bitcoin”. I meant that from a financial, mental, and emotional point of view.

THIS IS CUTE

So why am I writing this? This past year was fucked up! If you are new to this community, welcome! I have met people within this community that have impacted my views, beliefs and actions for the better, more than I would have ever imagined.

I am completely rewired, from the difference in how I view and interact with my father (I personally find this to be huge), to the change in the way that I operate on a daily basis (thinking a bit more before acting). This is all so astonishing to me; I had no idea what I was getting into when I first hit that buy button. :)

Thank you to my Bitcoin “sponsor”, as I’ve referred to him as, you know who you are. My only hope is to pay this experience forward. I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon J.

I originally thought this was a get rich quick scheme. Never once did I think I’d find Magic Internet Money, an Internet Friend, and Internet Zen.

This whole concept of an Internet friend was foreign to me, but it’s 2021 so you can adapt or HFSP…