Quite a long story for me- as I'd spent years looking at furry sites without even knowing what a furry was, then after I did find out what it is, all I was told about was the bad stuff.
Though, like what is most likely like most people reading this- it is something that's been with me most of my life. I've always preferred cartoons and things with animals in rather than people- I've always identified with them better for some reason- I still do. I know I was big on both Sonic the Hedgehog and Farthing Wood during my childhood, amongst others- but they were certainly my favourites. Imagining myself as an animal cartoon character has also been there since I was a kid. And it's something that never went away as I grew up- even in my early teens I was still discovering new "animal" cartoons- CatDog, The Angry Beavers, Cow & Chicken and The Foxbusters would have been my favourites at the time. I first came up with what is now my fursona when I was 14- nearly 9 years ago now! I'm still not sure why I'm a dog, as I've never been a massive fan of them, and even if I did know at the time, I've long since forgotten about it now. But it felt right then, it feels right now- and no other animal does. Though I spent years keeping it to myself- anyone I know would just laugh at me, and I'd never have thought for a second that there was a whole community of people out there who feel like I do!
I believe the first time I came accross a "furry" site would have been around 2001/2002- I've already mentioned the Foxbusters. I was (and still am) a big fan of that cartoon, and I came across a fan site for the show. One day I looked beyond the fansite and onto bits of the owners personal site. While there I discovered that he had his own cartoon animal character- a Fox called Jaff- and also had drawn pictures of him (something I'd never be able to do, as my art skills are hopeless!), though I never looked into it enough to discover the fandom, it was the first time I realised that I wasn't the only one who thought of myself that way. A couple of years later, the Foxbusters fan site was sadly shut down, and when he did, he put a link up to his DA gallery, and I looked at both his gallery (and have, on and off, been following his art ever since) and discovered several other galleries- and discovered even more people who drew cartoon animal versions of themselves. Yet again though, I never looked into it enough to discover the fandom. I don't really know why to be honest- and looking back, it seems quite bizarre how I could have missed it all! But I think I had other things going off in my life at the time to really think too much about such things.
The first time, I think, that I heard the word "furry" and became sort-of aware of the fandom would have been in late 2005/early 2006 when on a forum I used there was a discussion about these "furries" who, according to them, were basically a bunch of pervs who have sex with animals while dressed in costumes. And a few months later when someone on there posted a link to a quite vile comic (even worse than your average "yiff" stuff) and basically made out that stuff is what the fandom was all about. Seeing this sort of stuff certainly didn't make me want to find out any more about it. It was over the following couple of years I heard more and more about the fandom which made me think that maybe this stuff I'd heard was exaggerated, and it was last June when I started to properly read up on it all and realised that, maybe, I was actually a furry after all.
Still though, although I'd told some people on the internet I was a furry (sadly many of which have a very stereotypical view of the fandom, and hardly made me feel much better about it), I felt quite nervous and edgy about how to get involved. So I spent months reading various furry websites and thinking maybe I'll sign up to one- but never actually did anything about it because I was very nervous, and also worried about being rejected.
Then, in February, on one site I came across a name- one which was used by a person whose website I'd used to help out on years earlier, by contributing material and moderating on the forums there. I did a quick google search to find out if it was the same person- and it was! The website itself had nothing to do with cartoon animals, but I've since found out the person in question had been in the fandom since 2003 (so had been another case of me being completely ignorant of the fandom, despite looking right at it!), not that he ever mentioned it, but it was around that time he started using that name to sign himself, and though I wondered about the name, I didn't think enough of it to ask. The forums on the site closed down in 2005, and we lost contact after that, but I decided to give him an email, then we started chatting on MSN and after a couple of months I picked up enough courage to sign up to the UKFur forums, then to go to my first meet in Sheffield a couple of weeks ago. If it wasn't for that I'd probably still be sitting there thinking about joining a site, and would definatly have been far too nervous to even think about a meet. But the meet was brilliant and I have no worries about going to any others, or to Confuzzled.
So that's my story! A bit long winded I know, but still!
