Ok so, I've been asked now by a few different people why Terrence and I don't hang out or talk anymore. I've mostly chalked it up to being a long story, blah blah, ect. I told somebody I would PM them what happened, but I really feel like PMing is silly because it's really easy to give a one sided account of events that way, and in this particular situation I want as much of the blame or cause or whatever to be placed on me as well, and for my words to be proven truthful, must be public. So if you're interested in knowing, read on. Wretched or Terrence, feel free to share your input as well since you two were both involved to a point as well. There will be no tl;dr, so get over it and read it if you want.
First off, I want it to be known that prior to this issue, I considered Terrence one of my best friends. Not like Roman or Wretched. No offense to you guys, you guys are hella cool and great smashers. But Terrence is more my age, and we share a lot of interests. I've told my wife several times that even if I didn't play smash, I would still be friends with Terrence. Or, had I gone to high school with him, he would've fit well in to the group of people I hung out with. Terrence is simply a really freaking cool dude.
The cause of us not being friends anymore is difficult to put a finger on though. I think a big part of it had to do with smash. I could feel this angst from him when we played, and after we played. It seemed to grow a little more after Wretched and I got in to it that one time about him picking on Nathan. I think a big part of it is because we have completely different views of the game. If you know me well, you know I am competitive to a fault. I simply cannot play the game without trying to win, 100% of the time (well sober, anyways). It has a lot to do with the way I grew up, and how much influence competitive chess has had on me. My old chess coach, probably the best man I've ever met, taught me that sandbagging (or letting people win) was just wrong and did no good for the better player and certainly not for the worse player. It's a philosophy I live by. I CANNOT sandbag. There are times where I don't take the game as serious. There are times when I try for the cool combo rather than the kill. But I am always trying to win. For Terrence, it's a lot different. He is very free spirited. Terrence does what Terrence wants. That's totally cool. When we play smash though, I can tell when he's trying and when he's not. He was at the point where his Shiek would beat my Marth probably 75% of the time when he was trying, but he would only try for a couple of games. It seemed completely to me that he would use Shiek to test himself and see if he could still beat my Marth, and after a couple of games when he realized he could, he would turn it down a few notches. It was really upsetting to me, and it was a very difficult thing to approach him on to find out why. It truthfully seemed like the reason he was doing it was so that he could beat me in a tournament. Maybe I was wrong, but that's how it felt. It's like he knows he can win, but wants me to think I could win. After those couple of matches each time we played, I would win a large majority and most of his play was patient, predictive smash, where he was playing to not lose rather than win. Again, this is from my perspective. The worst part to me is that I don't care about beating him in a tournament. Or Roman. Or Wretched. Ect. We are crew mates. And friends. And we weren't going to be meeting in grand finals with a lot of money on the line any time soon. It's just not something somebody should do. And I truly believe his method of play not only hurt him, but it was hurting me as a player as well. I could no longer test my true skill against a good Shiek player.
This went on for probably two to three months. It kept digging at me and if I tried to ask him why he was sandbagging or not trying, I would get such generic answers like "I'm not going to win anyways", or "I'm just bored of playing you so much." It got to the point where I wanted to try to avoid playing him altogether because of what it was doing to us as friends. It was a really bad time though because Wretched also hates playing me (at the time mostly would quit after a few games), and Roman was finishing up high school and had no time at all to play. Terral was working at wal-mart and had classes, and Nathan was too depressing to want to invite anymore.
Well, we eventually had a very successful May pathways, and just two days later invited the guys to my house to smash and stay the night (Wretched and Terrence). The next day I was playing Terrence and we were doing Falcon dittos. He grabbed me and did nothing. No jabs, no throw, nothing. Ok....technical error? But then he did it again. It was like a slap in the face and I was instantly irate. I was very mad, and I felt I had a reason to be. His excuse for doing it was that "It's not always smart to do the same things over and over." As if there was a legitimate mind game or reason to grab and not throw. It was his complete contempt over me as a player. I was just too mad at that point and wouldn't let it go. I egged it on far too long and then took him home. That was the last time we spoke. I can usually get over things like that pretty easy, just ask Wretched lol. We've had our share of run ins, but I think we're better friends because of it. And maybe it's because Terrrence was such a close friend and that's why I haven't talked to him. One thing that he said though that I just can't forget is when we were arguing about the grab release, he said "If I played this game like you I would NEVER play again." The way he said it, and the millions of insults packed in to one tiny sentence, have hung with me this whole time. It's a deep insult from a close friend.
Anyways, that's what happened from my point of view. Obviously as much my fault as anybody's. My competitiveness and desire to win is just something that people have to accept about me and move on. And if you can't, don't play competitive games with me.