"[Story] Despite it all, thanks Pokemon GO"

#PokemonGO: I've wanted to say something like this for a while, but I think today finally cemented it for me. I'm a college student in Cedar Rapids, IA, and because of some health issues (depression-related) I had to take time off for a while to recover, and because of it I became somewhat of a recluse.Then Pokemon GO starts up, and while I'm excited, I've got no one to play with because I ended up pushing everyone around me away and not interacting much with people. I started to interact with people more, but not on the levels I used to.Fast-forward a few months--I go out by myself with my bearded dragon nearly every day for walks and to catch some pokemon, and I happen to come across a small group of people from my campus. Turns out they run a small campus discord/Facebook chat for GO, and one of them invites me to it.I was really shy at first--didn't talk to anyone, didn't interact with anyone, mostly kept to myself. The core group of students (4 Mystics and 2 Instincts) started inviting me to do things with them that wasn't GO related, and I slowly began to become more accustomed to interacting with people again.Which brings me to today: I'm finally back to feeling like the person I wanted to be many years ago, before any of this happened, I've made a whole new group of friends with people who I would probably have never talked to--we go out raiding together, we run all over our city catching pokemon and just having a good time. My bearded dragon has become our raid mascot and he comes with me when we go out during the day :)What I'm trying to say is pretty similar to what many other people have been saying before: despite all the bugs and disappointment there is a silver lining to the game that many people (at least around me) seem to forget about: this is bringing people together and encouraging people to have fun with one another, and I think that's amazing.(hopefully the screenshot shows up, but it's a few of us after we ran madly for a few blocks to find an Unown that had spawned, and it paid off)So, yeah, despite it all, thanks Pokemon Go. via /r/pokemongo http://ift.tt/2y771sp