cheeky 🔜 riptide!! · @laurrypants
7th Sep 2022 from TwitLonger
matt ‘elegant’
Thank you to everyone that has reached out to me since Sunday. I closed my DM‘s and I muted all of my Twitter notifications because I really couldn’t handle it. I don’t know where to start. I told Shannon that I wasn’t going to get involved because I wasn’t a part of the situation that she was talking about on her Twitter, but I feel like I need to speak up because there are more people than just myself and Shannon affected by Matt’s behavior. To Shannon, Maggie, and Kay, I am so sorry. I’m not responsible for his actions but I feel like I am because I could have said something early on. I admire you all for talking about it.
Please bear with me through this twitlonger as a lot of my thoughts are going to be scattered and not entirely in order. I won’t be going into every single detail - it’s not necessary. I’m doing my best to remember things that I would rather not. I’m not trying to put a huge highlight on anything bad in my relationship with him when we were dating, but obviously that has a lot to do with what i’m going to talk about. And it feeds into our current friendship. I’m not trying to name drop anyone in this either. If you were there feel free to comment. You know who you are.
If any of my friends are reading this and don’t know some of this information, I’m sorry I’ve always been too embarrassed to share as much as I’ve been through with him.
I am going to try to be as transparent as possible and I know that my story might not match up to whatever he has to say if he decides to say anything, but I am no saint and I will not claim to be one either.
For those of you who don’t know me, Matt and I dated from January 2018 to early April 2020 and had been involved off and on until early 2022.
Matt and I’s relationship was toxic for most of it and even right now our friendship feels toxic. Matt and I became friends in 2017 and started dating in January 2018 and we had a comfortable relationship up until about mid 2019 when things got pretty bad. Matt has always had anger issues in and out of the game but he was always inherently a nice person.
EVO 2019
EVO 2019 was the tournament that kind of changed everything in the dynamic of our relationship. My best friend from high school and I along with Matt went to Evo in 2019 and stayed at a hotel down the street from the venue. It was a pretty rundown hotel and it wasn’t the best but it’s what we booked and it was just the three of us there. This was the first ultimate EVO and as we know a lot of us dislike the ruleset. Matt was having a lot of stress during that tournament because he wanted to do well but he was also upset with the fact that best-of-five didn’t start until finals. The night that he got knocked out of bracket a friend of mine invited my room to her Airbnb for some casual hang out and drinking. A lot of people that Matt and I knew were there and a lot of them were from SoCal and Vegas as well as some other regions but we pretty much knew everyone who was there. My best friend went along with us but he didn’t stay the entire time - he took an Uber back to the hotel that night. We were in the hot tub and it was a couple of us; I think it was around eight of us or so and someone had edibles. Matt has always been distinct that he does not do well with weed in any manner. But this night he decided to go ahead and try an edible. We were drinking in the hot tub and each of us took an edible. As the night went on things started to get a little bit more hazy for him and I could tell that he was having a bad time. He left the pool claiming that I was making him uncomfortable because someone else in the pool was checking me out, and I went out with him and tried to talk to him. He started getting mad at me about bracket saying that me being there was causing stress for his loss and that I was hitting on people in the hot tub which I was not. I knew that he was extremely cross faded and I told him that we should probably head out soon because some people were talking about rumors of noise complaints. Matt grew very upset and we went outside in the front yard where he then yelled at me telling me that he didn’t love me and didn’t know why he was dating me. While we were outside he punched the back of a car and shook his fists in my face. he tried to get an Uber just for himself and didn’t want to let me get in with him to get back to the hotel but I was able to get a ride along with him. The following day I became very sick. My best friend had left during the day since he had a flight. Matt and I were staying there until Super Smash Con which was the following weekend and we were flying directly from Vegas. Matt was gone from the room the entire day and I had no idea where he was. I had a fever. I don’t know how bad it was but I knew that I was on and off sleeping the entire day there was a point in the day where the power went out in the hotel and my phone was dead. I was stuck alone in the room with a fever and I felt like I couldn’t move I thought that I was going to fall unconscious. I woke up to a knock at the door and when I opened it I found flowers in a vase. Alongside that was a note that read “I’m sorry I love you” from Matt. I brought the flowers in and went back to sleep in the heat and waited for Matt to come back since I had no way of contacting him. when he did come back he brought McDonald’s. The power came back on and we didn’t talk about this until SSC.
SSC 2019
Following the week of Evo 2019, we went to super smash con. I was still feeling very sick and I was sick on the flight there and for about two days of the event. Some friends gave me medicine but I did my best to keep distant from basically everyone. During this event Matt took it upon himself to tell me that his performance at Evo and at super smash con was all my fault. He refused to acknowledge me telling him the way that he talked to me outside of the Airbnb the previous weekend and didn’t think that he would ever tell me that he didn’t love me. The previous day he told me that he would watch me in the smash sisters crew battle, and ended up not going to “get back at me” for apparently ruining his bracket. He came home with me to visit my family and celebrate my friend’s birthday.
Home visit August 2019
Directly after super smash con 2019 Matt came to visit my family at my house and to celebrate my best friends birthday. We went to a bar where we drank, played pool, and sang karaoke. We were comfortably getting drinks but Matt was under age (20) so he was drinking our drinks as well. He ended up getting drunk and screaming extremely loud inside the bar and making people uncomfortable. We decided it would be time to leave since we didn’t want anyone to call the cops on us and know that he was under age drinking. We got back to my house where Matt was still being extremely loud and I didn’t want my parents to wake up to him being rude to my sister and I. I begged with him to please calm down and get in the bed so that he could go to sleep and he told me that he hated me and that I was being mean and got so upset that he shook his fists in my face and punched my wall. I was crying pretty loudly and my sister came in to make sure that everything was OK. She had also brought Matt some water. I ended up leaving and sleeping with my sister in her bedroom.
TGC 7 2019
This particular tournament was supposed to be a comeback for an old tournament series from smash 4. An old tournament organizer was hosting this and made the rule set extremely jank. Norfair was legal. Matt lost on the stage to … I think a Palutena. He didn’t win the event. That night the lot of us went back to the OCM house in Houston, known for its smash fests on Mondays and a common place for OOR to stay. Naturally we decided to drink that night because we were upset about the tournament sucking so bad. We were drinking pretty steadily and everyone was having a good time but Matt was easily the most drunk of all of us. There came a point in the night where he had to go to the bathroom, so he went to the half bath underneath the stairs in the house. He was in there for about 20 or 30 minutes before I decided that I should check on him. I knocked on the door to find that it was unlocked and I opened it to see him asleep sitting down on the toilet with his shorts and underwear down. I tried to get his attention and he wouldn’t listen to me or respond. He was extremely drunk and I knew that I had to get his shorts back on and take him to bed and make sure that he was hydrated. I waited for a bit and I was coaxing him to come out of the bathroom but he was ignoring me or pushing me away with his hands saying that he still had to use the bathroom so I was trying to give him time. I decided to give him some space since he started responding to me so I waited outside the bathroom with the door closed to give him privacy. He ended up locking the door and I became worried because after I started knocking for about 10 minutes he wouldn’t answer. I asked everyone in the house to please help me pick the lock so that we could get him out of the bathroom as he had been in there for about an hour. Residents in the house were quick to help me unlock the bathroom door. When I opened it Matt looked up and began vomiting where he was sitting. He vomited into his shorts and on his shirt. At this point I knew that I wouldn’t be able to take him out of the bathroom with those clothes on and have him lay down so I asked someone who lived in the house to get me a sheet that I could wrap around him to make sure that he was safe and clean. Once they brought me the sheet I went into the bathroom where he was and held it in front of him and asked him to stand and walk into it so that I could give him a hug. He started to say no and then began coughing and then he started peeing all over the sheet that I had in front of me. If the sheet had not been there he would have been peeing on me. After he stopped he fell onto the floor into his own vomit. I started yelling and crying for my friends to help me get him out of the bathroom because I was so frustrated and embarrassed at what was happening. While I was doing that, Matt bolted out of the bathroom without bottoms on and jumped onto the sofa where another friend of ours was already sleeping and he also jumped out of the sofa once Matt got there. I was glad that Matt was at least out of the bathroom and my friends and I were able to get the clothes that he had left in there and send them through the washer as they were covered in vomit. I was so distraught and frustrated after that night and the next morning we told Matt to take a shower. He was confused and couldn’t remember anything. We couldn’t find his phone and I realized that I had sent it through the washer on accident along with his clothes. He was extremely mad and we went to the mall that day so that he could replace it.
Genesis 7 (2020)
Matt and I always saw Genesis as a way to celebrate our anniversary since we started dating shortly after Genesis 5. This tournament was always good for us since we were always in good spirits. The final night before we were slated to leave the next day was when things got bad. We were drinking in our room with a couple of our friends and Matt was being extremely touchy with me in front of people which made me very uncomfortable. I asked him to stop a couple of times since it was inappropriate and eventually I went into the bathroom to avoid him. I was crying in the bathroom because I couldn’t believe that he was trying to be sexual with me in front of people. While I was in the bathroom one of my friends came to say goodbye to me and Matt took it as his opportunity to come into the bathroom alongside me. He was extremely drunk and started getting upset with me for not letting him touch me. I tried to explain to him why it was making me uncomfortable and in turn he ended up telling me that he didn’t love me and that he didn’t want to be with me anymore and that I was a terrible person. He reiterated that so many times while we were in the bathroom. After about an hour of being in the bathroom he asked me why I was crying. I told him that what he was telling me hurt my feelings and he didn’t remember a single thing that he said. He gave me a hug and left. I sat there because I didn’t know what to say or do and eventually I went to bed. The next day I reminded him of what happened the previous night and he told me that he didn’t remember any of it and that I was making things up. I told him what happened and that people had seen him trying to touch me and he said that if nobody else was going to say anything that I was probably lying. I never revisited the topic.
March 2020-October/November 2020
During this time I had moved to Washington state and decided to break up with Matt in March. he was upset about it but I knew that it was for the best. In around August or so he found out that I had been talking to/involved with someone while he and I weren’t dating and got upset with me calling me names like pig and whore. He tried to blackmail me into being with him again saying that he would never talk to me again if I didn’t date him knowing that friendships and relationships mean a lot to me. Throughout this summer he was off and on drinking at his house.
June 2021 - September 2021
Throughout this time Matt and I were trying to mend things between us. It was a very toxic situation but we were really trying to make it work because we ‘loved’ each other. I was under the impression that he and I were working to fix things and so I wasn’t interested in anyone else. In July, he told me that he was talking to Kay (JetShadow) and was going to go visit her in San Antonio. I was really taken aback at him saying this - he had told me that he was interested in her. After we talked about it he agreed that he and I were trying to fix things and that he wasn’t interested romantically but he still went to see her. He lied to me about where they stayed (together at an airbnb) and when I figured it out he started blaming things on me and saying that he didn’t owe me an explanation for anything and that I was being insecure. After his time there had concluded he continued to tell me that I was being stupid and insecure about the entire situation even though he had lied to me. I was unaware of anything else that happened as was shown in Kay‘s twit longer.
Low Tide City (2021)
At low tide city I took Matt from Dallas in my car to Austin. We were rooming together with a couple of our friends and there were four of us in the room. The tournament was stressful because Matt had a huge issue with my best friend, but eventually they were able to work it out and we all went to karaoke on the second to last day. We had pregamed before. We were drinking inside of the karaoke room and Matt was moping because he was nervous about singing. I was able to cheer him up and decided on some songs for him to sing even though he was kind of shy and once he got into it he wouldn’t stop singing. Since we were drinking, things got a little bit out of control and it got to the point where he wouldn’t let anybody sing a song solo because he had to be singing along with them - including me. He made the entire room uncomfortable by being loud and blocking the TV with the lyrics. Eventually the person that booked the room asked us all if we could Venmo them to cover the room charge for the night. My best friend didn’t have Venmo at the time, so we were coordinating him paying me so that I could pay the person that booked the room. It was at this point when Matt got in both of our faces and yelled at me asking what we were talking about. I didn’t reply and he yelled at me again asking the same question in front of my face. The entire room was quiet and he was standing in front of me. I didn’t reply to him and instead I ended up leaving the room crying. My best friend followed me and we drove around and to CVS to kill time before we had to go back to the hotel. I had gone back to pick up Matt and another friend of mine so that we could take them back to the hotel the rest of our friends are waiting for an Uber. The entire car ride was silent but when we got back to the parking lot and got out of the car Matt was stumbling around and didn’t know where we were. As we walked to the sidewalk outside of the Kalahari Matt was trying a random car door multiple times and saying that it was the Uber. My friend and I were confused but we lead him inside with the fourth person that we were with. From there I went back to my room with him where he glared at me the entire time I took off of my make up and contacts and I ended up going to a different room with friends who had space because I didn’t want to sleep next to him. The next day he denied anything that happened and it wasn’t until other people told him what happened that he believed what I was telling him. He then apologized to the lot of us while we were watching top 32.
Dallas November 2021
Matt came to visit me for his birthday in November. We had a pretty good visit but the thing that stuck out to me at this point was us going to the Freaks Richardson tournament here in DFW. Matt lost in bracket and was being very emotional and distant with everyone - but before this he was being extremely rude to everyone that he played and he ended up going outside and sitting on the curb after he lost. I didn’t realize what was happening at the time but I did see a lot of people from my region complaining that he was being less than kind to them. Minimal alcohol was involved. Back then I felt the need to defend him and I tried to but it didn’t matter because apparently the region had already disliked him for other instances of him being there. Dallas people can speak more to this.
January/February 2022
After November I had told Matt that I wasn’t interested in him the way that I used to be and we agreed to just be friends but things were very tense. We would rarely talk and when we did it would end in an argument. It wasn’t until I started dating my recent ex-boyfriend that Matt had to cut me off entirely. During this time he was trying to make me jealous by telling me that he was going out on dates with people and he was giving me a horrible attitude about it when I told him that I was happy for him. In January I told him that I was finally getting help for my mental health and he told me that I should be “strong enough to do things on my own without therapy or help from my friends”. He and I stopped talking around this time and agreed that we shouldn’t be friends.
Genesis 8 (2022)
I knew Genesis 8 was going to be awkward since I was staffing the event and he was going to be there in attendance so I’d have to be seeing him quite a bit. The first day was fine but the after party was crazy. Matt was extremely drunk and yelling at people and was very close and even in the same circle that I was. We shared a lot of mutual friends so I wasn’t entirely surprised but he was so drunk and he was stomping around on the floor and yelling at people and he was doing it directly in front of me and staring at me. My best friend help me take my mind off of it so I wrote it off but the next day at the after party I talked to him. We talked about our feelings and how things abruptly ended and we were able to work out that we wanted to become friends again. It was a really emotional conversation but I think that it had to happen between us. I can’t speak for him but I definitely felt more closure after. He was calm that night despite being drunk.
Low Tide City (2022)
At low tide city Matt and I had been talking again as friends and I knew that he was going to be attending with some people that he knew. The first night we were drinking in a room with some of our common friends. He was extremely verbally aggressive and harsh with everyone that he was speaking to especially me. I made a joke about him losing to maister multiple times and he took it so personally that the next day he held a grudge against me. He told me that he money matched my friend and beat him and that he fucking sucked. I apologized to him and he said that it wasn’t enough. I apologized to him in person and he said that it wasn’t enough. I offered to take him to target to replace his headphones that he had lost and he finally forgave me. That entire weekend was pretty confusing as I do know that Matt was drinking but I wasn’t around him necessarily. A lot of that can be found in Maggie‘s tweet. After that event concluded Matt and I remained friends.
Dallas A-Kon (2022)
Matt came to Dallas to visit a girl that he was into and invited me over to their Airbnb and I made sure that it was OK with her first. Her and a lot of her friends were there for A-kon and they were having a huge get together with alcohol. I went and I was kind of nervous because I didn’t really know anyone, but everyone was super nice to me and Matt was drinking with them. He started fine but overnight he grew more and more aggressive. This was true for both nights that they were there at the Airbnb. At one point I asked to see his gloves and gave them back to him and he called me an idiot for not trying them on but asking to see them and that I was stupid. He was also yelling at us for trying to get him to take water shots. When the girl he liked wasn’t in the room he was pissed off asking where she was. He commandeered the music and only played songs he liked. It was awkward when we were casually playing Smash and he told my friend and I that we were “fucking ass at the game”.
On the last day I ended up meeting them at free play arcade in Richardson and everyone left and Matt asked me if I could take him back to a different Airbnb once we were done talking and hanging out. I agreed and throughout this time we were talking and catching up with each other on life. The topic of therapy came up again and he once again told me that he didn’t believe in therapy and that I should be strong enough to think for myself and be happy. I asked him if he thought that he had a drinking problem and he admitted yes and I told him that therapy could help with that and he carefully agreed. Afterwards I was able to take him back to the Airbnb but in the car he would not let me forget how we stopped talking to each other and I moved on, saying that he was still hurt in the process. I told him that I couldn’t do anything else but apologize.
Super Smash Con 2022
It had been a while since I saw Matt but we were talking often on over text and we played Valorant a couple of times and things seemed fine. At super smash con I gave him a hug and we walked around the artist alley and things were pretty normal on day one. We came up to a rug booth where the people there recognized him and he said hi to them. One of the people at the booth complemented his gold watch to which he turned to me and said “YOU didn’t compliment my gold watch because you’re a bitch”and gave me the finger. I awkwardly laughed and looked at the booth people who were just staring at us. After this Matt and I were walking around with one of his friends and eventually we lost him so I got on with the event. On the last day I went to sit with Matt in the crowd and we talked for a little bit before I told him that I wanted to get up and walk around. He said OK and I ended up walking back to where I was sitting before to ask my friend to walk with me and Matt texted me saying “I thought you said you were going to walk around why are you with your friends”. It was extremely controlling and I told him that I was just asking them to walk with me and he said “you could just tell me that you don’t want to sit with me” and I said “well I did want to sit with you that’s why I sat over there”. He kept asking me for apologies even after I had already done so and we left it at that. This was on my birthday.
While my whole recollection isn’t all just Matt being drunk, some of it does cover his behavior around others that people find unappealing. He didn’t used to be like that and I don’t know when he got so aggressive and abrasive even when he wasn’t drinking. I don’t know if he thinks that it’s funny but it really does make other people uncomfortable and he refuses to see that unless multiple people tell him. There have been accounts of it on Twitter already and he refuses to believe it and people defend him.
I was not trying to be vague through any of this explanation but I can see how anyone might think that. This was a lot for me to write and recollect as it’s something that I’ve been to therapy for. Matt is a very verbally abusive individual - not just to his friends. He has a serious drinking problem that he has only recently started to acknowledge and even when he says that he’s doing better he’s really not. He is extremely performative on Twitter in the way that he speaks about himself and to others and it is not a good reflection of his character in person.
There are other smaller instances that have happened when Matt has been drinking but these are just some of the big ones that I can highlight.
I’ve lost sleep over many of these situations even after therapy for my PTSD and severe anxiety/depression. I always asked myself why my close friends would remain friends with him after they knew everything that he had done to me. I still don’t know the answer to that question. What I do know is that he needs help but the sad part is that it took so much for us to get to this point. I don’t know if it’s my fault for not saying anything in the first place, but I never felt like I could because I’ve always been afraid of being in his shadow and people idolizing him. I’ve been bullied for as long as I can remember for dating him - whether it was on Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, or Twitch. I wasn’t going to speak on this topic but I hope that me coming out about it gives other people the courage to come out and hold their friends and partners accountable for their actions. Not everything has to be handled publicly but this is definitely something that should be since it has gotten to this point and multiple people have experienced it.
I hope that Matt gets the help that he needs and that the situations are handled accordingly until he does get that help.
Thanks for reading.
Lauren