Hey Stephanie,
this is me, Austin. I don't want to bother you at all, so I decided just to write about it. I want to tell you about me, so you know me just a little bit more. As I've told you, I've been to a lot of places. I always had issues making friends. I had to learn really quickly, and the easiest way of making friends was being the cool kid. So I played sports, and got good at them. I was a wrestler, quarterback, pitcher, midfielder in soccer, a singer, a dancer, I wore skinny jeans for fuck's sake. I enjoyed it for awhile. I finally moved to Iowa in 2010. I hated it here, I was from big cities and I didn't want to be in the country. I never thought I'd make any friends, but through wrestling I made my first best friend, Caleb. Caleb and I were very similar to each other so it was easy to hang out with him and his cousin, Nathan. We'd play Call of Duty and Halo almost everyday. I started getting better than them at games, so they quit playing with me, and I was the strongest, most athletic kid, so they quit hanging out with me and began to bully me. This caught on and soon enough I was bullied by everyone in the school. There was another kid who had the same thing happen to him by Nathan. His name is Matthew. He has been my best friend since I was in 4th grade. We used to do everything together. Video games, parkour, music, airsoft, wrestling, baseball, football. I never had that good of a friend before. He was there for me when shit got rough. I was physically attacked almost every single day of my life, and this is where my anger came from. I started to fight back. I was banned from my local pool, suspended multiple times, have a massive amount of referrals, and had been arrested. This caused more issues because people had leverage on me. I ended up being seen as the gay kid because of my city-styled clothing. I would make YouTube videos of us doing Parkour and singing. No matter how cringe it was. It made me happy, but I quit doing everything because of the ridicule I endured. I began to smoke weed, and drink almost daily. Even Matt didn't know about this until recently. I attempted suicide, and etcetera. I hated myself and the people around me. I quit hanging out with my friends and put all my time into video games. I used it as an escape, and it made me happy and for a long time stopped my depression. I turned to a certain age where dating was normal, and began dating people. I hurt a lot of people by hiding my feelings. I went through some dumb shit. My first serious relationship caused a lot of pain and caused me to return to depression, and suicidal thoughts. I used Parkour and games to cover it up, I used Matt as a crutch for my sadness. To get my mind off of things. I quit doing marijuana and drinking at this time. I went into high school with my newest girlfriend that I swore I'd be happy with. I met Chairity, and for the longest time I faked being happy hoping it would make me happy for real, that all my problems would go away, but this never happened. I made a lot of mistakes, and stayed with her even though I wasn't there for her. I hurt her and myself in the process. We fought, and had nothing in common. This caused me to get back into drinking, and it got really bad. I went through a lot during that relationship. I attempted suicide multiple times, but knew that things would get better later on in life. I spent two years of my life unhappy and depressed with her, and it ruined my life. I'll be honest, Anime Iowa sucked this year until I met you. I was so attracted to you. You were beautiful, and so enjoyable to be around. You were funny, you were nice, you bullied me. You made me smile. Chairity yelled at me for talking to you, and was so mad at me for "flirting" with you which at the time I didn't notice, but now that I'm looking back, I was flirting subconsciously. I really liked talking to you. Chairity ended up breaking up with me, and yes it hurt, but it also got a lot of stress off my chest. At this point, I didn't know I liked you. I wanted to play games with you and learn League of Legends. I started to like you and wanted to get to know you. I started hinting that I liked you, and I couldn't read how you felt about me, I still don't know what you feel. Then yesterday, I was so happy to hang out with you that I was up until 4 am trying on clothes, and taking a long shower, using a charcoal face mask and toothpaste to clean up. I tried my best to be formal, and plan what I was going to do. I had thought about adventure land, but I didn't know if you'd enjoy that. I wanted to do something that would make you happy. I was at the mall for 30 minutes waiting for you, anticipating to see you. I was so ready to see you come in the door. I smiled when I saw you, you looked gorgeous. You always do. You looked so happy to see me, and I felt so awkward that I had to have my mom drop me off. I was just happy. I haven't been happy in a long time, and have been looking for the piece of the puzzle that made me whole, and I believe that is you. Even after today, I want you to be by my side, I want to be your crutch. I know what it feels like to be in a bad relationship, to be hurt, to be scared. I have been through it. I want you to understand that I can be the one to help you, and that you are the final piece to my puzzle. I want to be with you, and if that means as friends, okay. It might hurt a little bit, but I just want to be with you, around you. I love seeing you be happy. I'm here for you. Don't think your past will scare me, don't think I won't want to be friends with you because of it. I didn't want to tell you my past because I thought it would scare you away, but once I learned more about you, I noticed we are the same. I hope later on we can be more than friends. I hope we can go to conventions, concerts, and just have fun being teenagers together. I'm sorry for making this so long. I just think I needed to tell you the truth for you to really know me. I'd love to get to know the real you, without you hiding your past like me.
Thanks for everything Stephanie.
Austin Cupples
