Look at my joindate. 2001. I was 12 years old when I joined this forum. Back then I just wanted to talk about FF1 because it was the only one I'd ever played. I'd heard of the other games but never played any of them. At first I was just a scared little kid only hanging out in the FF forums (yeah can you believe that), and I wasn't too too active. But over time I just kept coming back and I ventured into the upper forums and chat, and I joined some spinoff boards where I really got to know some members of EoFF a lot better. Then there was LJ where all my friends were from EoFF. I had some kind of real-life social life during high school, but I only really hung out with those people at school or at school events (sports etc). They were just acquaintances, really. EoFF is where I made a lot of my formative friendships during my teenage years. EoFF was my link between high school and college; I wasn't very outgoing so I was slow to make friends, and EoFF helped me through that. Even when I was an idiot and left EoFF for a few years, I still thought about this place. Now I'm back, I've reconnected with a bunch of old friends and made many new ones, including my girlfriend.

How important is EoFF in my life? I don't know who I'd be without it.