Goodness, it's been probably 9 years now. I was only 12 but my older cousin introduced me to the awesome world of Neopets. He helped me create a profile and got me set up. One day as I was browsing around I saw the forums pages and decided to browse through. I peeked through each one, kind of mulling over what was going on in there. It was when I got to the Roleplaying Forum did I really get interested. To me, at the time, it was like writing a book with a bunch of other people! I loved it, I was on there almost every day creating roleplays, joining them. My first roleplay I ever joined was about Gifted children. 

Not too long after that I discovered Gaia online and did more of my roleplaying there since you had a lot more room to be creative and didn't have to worry about your board being deleted, your account being suspended or disabled. But I'll never forget my Neopets days. Lol.