Now noticing that I joined 2+ years ago, only played (and massively sucked at) that latter end of OU DPPt and the beginning of OU BW, mostly keeping my 1100 posts to some 4th Gen OU discussion (with guest appearances in some 5th gen discussion), League of Legends, and the NFL threads. #dafuq? That's a lot of posts for such a small area of talk.
I resented pretty much every badged user and respected nobody. (Hell, I think i'd still hate on the "old" smogon if it were alive today. The community is a lot better now imo). I joined around the the time where DPPt had hit its peak, and even after constant laddering on shoddy I still "didn't get" the OU metagame. I turned to DPP UU, and I was a little better at that but still terrible on average. I'd get into fights with a ton of users. Synre, Jabba, etc. I don't think I was in the right in a single one of those arguments, but I still argued because I had nothing better to do you know?
It was only after I got on IRC and met some good people that I got... better. (after getting a wake up call on IRC. Gotta thank Jabba/Aldaron for that, if it wasn't for them i'd still be the same loser nobody from before). I'm still a little to the person I was before, but i've definitely grown up from before.
THE SIMILAR BEGINNING AND CONTRASTING ENDING ENTERTAINS ME GREATLY.
I never resented people, but I argued and more often then not, took everything with a grain of salt and demanded explanations (Bitches still mad that I questioned their criticism and suggestions on an RMT) all the time and I think it really came off that way. I even had Aeolus call me an awful user who was toxic to metagame discussion because of how often I questioned people and their logical conclusions.
Problem is, I've always done this throughout my entire life, and while people find it abrasive and very off-putting, they eventually come to realize that my intention is to better my understanding, and it's not meant to be toxic or anything like that. So since my joining I have changed literally zilch. I may show my craziness and light heartedness a bit more (I definitely do on the League IRC), but I'm still the same. But in the same vein, I like to think I gained at least the understanding, if not the respect, of those who noticed that I'm genuine in intent and don't mean to be as abrasive as I come off. So I think I'm perceived as a better user than I was before, despite really not changing all that much.
tl;dr I grow on people like a bad fungus. (OR SO I THINK. I COULD BE WRONG.)