I started playing Pokémon games about ten years ago, starting with Red. My version was seriously glitchy, almost to the point of defective, but I liked it even more for that. I had battles once in a while with my neighbour, Scott*, who's about a year and a half older than I am, and was my best friend at the time. We were both complete idiots when it came to Pokémon (I distinctly remember him saying that Bubblebeam was a great move). After a while, I got Silver and started being even more of an idiot (I ran away from Ho-oh and Lugia, lol). A few years later, I got Sapphire when it came out, and Scott got Ruby. I was still an idiot (I used my only Master Ball on Kyogre, and watched Scott catch Groudon in a regular Poké ball) though I was getting better. We would have battles every now and then, and we were about equal. I decided I wanted to be better, so I turned to the internet for advice. A Google search brought me to Serebii and I found out about the competitive Pokémon community (well, Serebii's community, anyway). I learned a lot from the Pokémon of the Week section, and visited the forum, though I never bothered signing up, and I still don't have an account there.
One day, when I was reading the Pokémon of the Week, I saw a mention of Smogon. I had no idea what it was, and I didn't think anything of it. But then he mentioned Smogon again, and again, and I realized that I had to find out what it was. That brought me here. For some reason, I didn't bother making an account here either, but I was reading the forum and studied the Pokémon analyses thouroughly. Essentially, (though I wasn't thinking of it at the time) I've been lurking since the days of R/S.
I downloaded Netbattle after I read about it everywhere, and started kicking ass. I actually came up with what I still consider to be a pretty strong team, consisting of Skarmory, Umbreon, Blissey, Suicune, Celebi, and Breloom, which happen to be some of my favourite Pokes. (Well, not SkarmBliss, but who wasn't using them in ADV?)
When D/P came out, I was quick to get a copy. It's pretty great, and I actually started EV training for the first time. My current in-game team is something like Empoleon, Infernape, Azelf, Garchomp, Swampert, and Sceptile, though I don't own Battle Revolution or anything, so I won't be using it competitively.
I'm staying here to improve my skills further. I'm always looking to improve and I know I won't get that from anywhere else. I also love this community, some of the people here are simply awesome and it's about time that I became a part of it. Lately, I decided that if I'm going to come here, I need to get to know every aspect of it, so I started lurking on the IRC. I've probably lurked enough everywhere else to make up for it, but whatever. It's complicated. There's a pretty fine line between not lurking enough and not contributing enough. I've just seen so many people get mocked (or worse, get their topics moved to Trou) that I'm always reluctant to post. At the same time though, that seems to show that the mods here have an amazing sense of humour.
Sorry for posting my life story, lol.
Edit: I agree with cyberzero here. CAP is the main reason I come to Smogon every day. I'm always looking forward to the next stage in the process, or maybe my next battle on the ladder. I'm fairly well-known there, and I tend to battle quite a bit better in CAP than in Standard.
Bitches need to try out Doug's CAP server sometime.