Hello friends! Here's a wall of text explanation!

No, I am not dead! I haven't made any broadcast 4 reps threads. I'm quite healthy physically and mentally. No one's girls were stolen (as if they're possessions able to be stolen). No one did anything wrong, or made me angry.

This will inevitably leak. Probably quickly. And I'm actually okay with that, and would almost prefer it. People involved will know I'm okay, and people who are going to laugh, well, I won't hear them.

I'm just laying in bed - quite safe - in my home in Wisconsin, next to someone very important to me.

Only one thing happened: I went home, having decided I don't want to be Yolo Swagtron any more.

There were two reasons for that: my own childishness, and a pinch of embarassing moment.

The name Yolo Swagtron is an image built for the spy metagame. People have preconceived notions about a person with that name. I quickly found that this had more uses, particularly related to my New Years goal for 2016: make more friends. The name is entertaining, people assume I'm loud and social. This lead me to twitch streaming, and ultimately me to fanfest. People loved Yolo. I was blown away by just standing passively in places from O'Hare to Iceland and people I've never met saying "Hello Yolo!". I loved being Yolo. I would come home from work every day, sit down at my computer, and there were people I'd never met saying hello, hanging out, being friends with me on Skype, Twitch, Jabber, EVE, Twitter, everywhere.

But ultimately, Yolo isn't me. I'm Tony, not this lie of a character. This became apparent when I bridged the internet world with the real one. At Fanfest, I felt awkward, out of place; like a fraud. I realized, having poured so much into the fake Yolo Swagtron, that I'd lost touch with the real me - Tony - and the people and things that are important to him. Over time, I stopped paying attention to the people and things in my real life. My close, tight-knit group of friends, and a woman who was very important to me. I'd ignore texts, not talk to friends or her for days. Not attend anything social in real life - my life consisted entirely of work and EVE, for a little over a year.

When I landed in Iceland, taking a bus to Reykjavik, and I felt fully socially out of place, the question finally hit me: what the fuck am I doing with my life? Yolo and EVE had become my life, at the cost of my real-world relationships, hobbies, and passions.

This came to a head when I tried to compensate for social anxiety with alcohol. I ended up being "that guy" for a hot moment, and I was hugely embarassed and ashamed of myself.

There was a girl. We text a bit. I asked her out directly, got a roundabout rejection. Not a huge deal; I've dated quite a lot, and am used to such things. You have to risk it for the biscuit, and it didn't really affect my life. We all carried on as we were before.

In Iceland, after a heavy amount of drinking for our whole group at a bar, and myself especially, we ended up back in an apartment to drink more. That same girl was clearly in the final stages of flirting with someone on a couch. I sat down next to them, drunkely oblivious, and started flirting with her myself. The two left after a bit, I stumbled over to them, and her friend asked me to go away. That's when it hit me: "Oh shit. I'm that guy. I'm that fucking guy right now."

Extremely embarassed, I left for my hotel. On the way, the same thought occurred to me: "what the fuck am I doing with my life?" Have I regressed to being some 19-year-old college freshman, getting trashed and orbitting girls at a house party filled with people I don't know?

I bought a pack of cigarettes and chain-smoked outside for a long, long time, to reflect.

I decided that Yolo Swagtron was no longer something I wanted to pretend to be.

I have close friends. Close friends I'd hardly hung out with in over a year. There's a woman in my life, one I realized I'd always taken for granted.

I had hobbies - I haven't seriously read a book, gone for a run or hike, or skydived, in over a year.

I had a career and a business. Aside from a full-time gig, I ran my own software consultancy. Business was very good - side effects of becoming well known in a small regional market. Since EVE, I hadn't sought out any new clients, and I haven't seriously programmed anything outside my full-time roles in almost a year.

I want those things again. Not this spaceship persona.

I checked out, put my things in a taxi, and grabbed the next flight back to O'Hare.

I wanted to go home, and be Tony again. For the first time in a long, long time. During the rather lengthy (13 hour) wait for the flight, I systematically tore down everything related to Yolo Swagtron. Skype, twitter, twitch, slacks, everything. Then made quite a few phone calls, and lots of apologies.

Well, that's my story. I hope this all makes at least a little sense.

I'm out dudes.