When did you start playing chess

Eleven years ago

Sox months ago

i*

8-9 years ago

December 2020

You should change the question to "When did you start playing chess seriously?".

yeah that's much better

Or you could say, “Seriously!? When did you start playing chess?” 

(Many years ago, but I’m still a beginner.)

Hmm... what experience have you gained from that which is unique? I'm intrigued now.

Ha! Now that made me laugh.

I learned how to play in 2017 but have only started to play seriously in January of 2020.

2 years ago

9 months

around 7-8 years ago

I learned the rules of chess in elementary school when one of my friends wanted someone to play chess with. They taught me the rules (probably didn't even know en passant and other subtle points like that back then, but we did know castling) and I won the game against them

I played very little afterwards though; chess was literally just another board game and I didn't even know chess tournaments or grandmasters existed. I'd play chess maybe just a few times a year and probably several years I didn't play at all. 

This went on through 8th grade and then I changed schools to high school (my elementary school stopped at 8th grade) and had no friends who were into chess. I didn't play at all in high school and it was only about the time I started college (university) that I remembered chess from many years ago and was curious to see how good I actually was. 

I created my chess.com account and that same day was the day I took up chess as more of a challenge for myself. That was just over 4 years ago and I've played OTB events for a little over one full year now.

wut. 

Account was created this year, yes. You've played many games on chess.com already though; by "now" do you perhaps mean "this year?"

I started playing chess 7 years ago but I started playing chess seriously 2 years ago.