18 Years Old
I was 18, a high school graduate, and summer was nearing its end. I had to think about continuing my education. I was eager to be as productive with my time as I could be. College represented a hope for me. I would be starting a new kind of school where there are lots of people and opportunities. I might possibly make friends, have interactions with girls, maybe even get a girlfriend! The thought filled me with enthusiasm.
And so I enrolled at Pierce College, the first of a few colleges I would jump to in my many desperate attempts to find a desirable life. Pierce College is a large community college in Woodland Hills, not far from both my mother's and father's houses. When I looked through the list of cla**es, I saw that most of them were already full. The only cla** I was able to get was a computer cla**, and I settled with that. I could always spend time at the college even while not in cla**, I concluded. Having only one cla** would help me ease into college at a milder pace. I hadn't been in a normal school system for three years. I feared I might get nervous. But then, after thinking about everything I had been through in the last few months, I knew I had the strength and courage to tackle it.
My mother made the decision to move to a new apartment near Calabasas. She took me and my sister there to show it to us beforehand. The room that I would get would be smaller, and it wouldn't have its own bathroom, but the apartment was located in a much better area. It was walking distance from my father's house, the Mulholland shopping center, and the Calabasas Commons. I ended up persuading my mother to move there, as it would be much more convenient.
On the first day at the new place, I took a long stroll around the nearby areas. Of course, those areas weren't unfamiliar to me, as I had walked around there many times during father's week. But this was the first time I went on a long walk since my breakdown, and it made me feel more confident.
I met up with Philip Bloeser after not seeing him for two years. The last time I saw him was during the summer I turned 16. My mother dropped me off at this house, and I wasn't surprised to find that he was still the exact same person; mature, reserved, a little awkward, and prone to random bouts of hyper energy. Jeffrey was also there, and he was still as wild and boisterous as ever, though he had changed a lot in appearance, no longer being the little kid I was so used to seeing him as.
Philip already had his driver's license, so the two of us went out in his car to meet Addison Altendorf, who had just moved back to the U.S. and was living with his mother in an apartment in Malibu. Philip and Addison have always been very close friends with each other, and the two of them go everywhere together. I hadn't seen Addison since Topanga Elementary. At first glance, I didn't know what to make of him. It was like meeting a whole new person. He had changed tremendously. With his mustache and hairstyle, he looked older than he was, cultivating a refined and sophisticated personality and wearing an elegant blazer coat.
As I spent time with Addison that day, I started to enjoy talking to him about politics and the world. He was very intelligent and more informed than other people our age.
I bought my first Lottery ticket when I went out shopping with my mother one day. We stopped at Ralph's where I noticed the Lottery machine. I didn't know anything about the Lottery, so I asked my mother about it. She told me how it works and taught me how to buy a ticket. Each ticket provides a very small chance of winning millions of dollars, and the jackpot could rise to the hundreds of millions. I couldn't believe it. I didn't know such a thing existed! After buying my ticket, I felt thrilled with the prospect of having a chance to become a multi-millionaire. That ticket, of course, didn't win. And neither would any of the tickets I buy after it, but they would give me hope.
I never thought nor cared about money before I turned 18, because I was still living like a child, with my parents handling the money and giving me the things I needed. However, the more older I grew, the more I realized how important money was, and the more obsessed I would become about getting rich. This obsession, which was barely taking root at the time, sparked a long relationship the Lottery that would only end in disappointment and despair.
At father's house, we watched the movie Alpha Dog after dinner one night. This movie depicts a lot of teenagers and young people partying and having s** with beautiful girls, living the life that I've desired for so long. The main character is a fifteen year old kid who has s** with two hot girls in a swimming pool. I was so envious that I delighted in his d**h at the end. I remember thinking that I would rather live his life than mine, even though he died. He had s** and I didn't. The movie deeply affected me emotionally, and I would think about it for some time afterwards.
I started my new semester at Pierce College. I still hadn't obtained my driver's license yet, so I was forced to take the public bus to school. This was an extremely unpleasant experience, but I was willing to bear with it just so I could go to college and improve my life.
On my first day, I couldn't help but feel nervous. The place reminded me of Taft, though the people seemed nicer and the environment was less intimidating. When I settled down into my cla**, I felt that things will turn out ok.
Soumaya returned from Morocco, and she was very angry with me due to the way I acted while I was there. She effectively kicked me out of father's house, and because I was eighteen, she was allowed to. Father didn't do anything to stop her, being the weak man that he is. This is how it has always been. Father has always given Soumaya free reign to impose her rules on the household. He gave her all the power.
This act officially ended the one week-one week arrangement, and mother's house became my permanent living place.
Not only did she kick me out of father's house, but she forbade me to go there even for a short visit. And still, father didn't do anything about it. Father kept saying that the house is her house as much as his, and that she has the right to kick me out. No! I am the eldest son! The house should be MY house before hers! This caused any respect I still had for my father to fade away completely. It was such a betrayal, to put his second wife before his eldest son. What kind of father would do that? The b**h must be really good to him in bed, I figured. What a weak man.
Every day, I tried to make some effort to go out looking for ways to improve my life. I felt that staying in my room was a waste of time. I knew what I wanted, but I had no idea how to get it. I frequently went on walks around my mother's neighborhood in the desperate hope that someone would befriend me or a girl would talk to me. Nothing of the sort ever happened.
Sometimes I walked all the way up to the Overlook, as my mother's apartment was just around the other side of it; And sometimes I walked to the Calabasas Commons, where I would hang out at Barnes & Noble, reading books, always with the hope that some young people would reach out and befriend me, but no one ever did.
I kept hoping and hoping and hoping. Hope is what kept me alive.
I continued seeing Philip and Addison, my only other social interaction besides James. I talked to Addison about my old political views, debating with him about what an ideal world would look like. I found out that he had some fascist views of his own, and it was nice to have a discussion with someone about things that would make most normal people run a mile.
I frequently messaged Addison on Facebook, hoping to start up conversations when I felt lonely. He told me he was just starting his Twelfth Grade year at Malibu High School, and his goal was to fit in with the popular kids. Fitting in with popular kids at Malibu High School? I didn't expect Addison to be successful in such a venture.
Addison invited me to his birthday party. It was a small get-together on the beach in Point Dume, Malibu. I had a very hard time socializing with people, so I ended up drinking too much alcohol. Before Philip drove me home, I vomited outside Addison's apartment, in front of his mother and everyone else. It was highly embarra**ing and I put a lot of effort to block it from my mind afterwards.
James came to my mother's new apartment for a sleepover. We walked to the Calabasas Commons together. It was nice to show him all of my favorite spots there, like the window at Barnes & Noble that overlooks the whole area, and turtle ponds next to King's restaurant. It was a great place to talk and contemplate. We had some deep conversations about our fantasies and our hopes for the future.
When I was a child, Halloween used to be a fun and exciting experience, but ever since the last time I went trick-or-treating Halloween has been a time when I spent the whole night in my room while other teenagers were out having fun partying.
On this Halloween, I was desperate to do something social. I just couldn't sit in my room on such a night. I found out from stalking random people on Facebook that there was going to be a huge house party in West Hills. I decided to take a big leap forward and attend this house party, even though I wouldn't know anybody there. I had nothing to lose, and it would give me more of a chance of meeting girls than if I stayed in my room all night. Because I couldn't drive, I had to walk all the way there, and it took 45 minutes. When I got there, I was overcome by anxiety, but I couldn't back out at that point. I paid the entry fee of $5 and walked right in. To my dismay, the party was smaller than I expected. All of the kids were smoking marijuana, and they all seemed to know each other. It would only be a matter of time before they detected that I was an outcast. I stood around awkwardly for a few minutes before giving up and walking home.
On the way home, just as I was about to reach my mother's house, a group of four young thugs drove by me in a pick-up truck and proceeded to throw eggs at me, laughing while they did it. They seemed intoxicated, and they missed me. I picked up one of the shells and threw it right back into their car. I was no longer a weak little kid who would take a hit without fighting back. I was stronger now. They got out of their car and tried to attack me, and they would have beaten me bloody if I didn't pull out my trusty pocket knife, which I usually carried when I walked alone by myself. Thankfully, the thugs backed away and drove off. Perhaps it was the knife, or the look of extreme hatred in my eyes. I quickly ran home, terrified. It was an unsuccessful and misfortunate night.
For a few days after Halloween, I kept thinking about that incident with the horrible thugs who almost attacked me. They must have seen me as a weakling who they could bully for their amusement. I didn't want the world to view me as weak.
This led to my new commitment to start exercising and lifting weights. I began working out at the gym in my mother's apartment complex every other day. I hoped it would increase my confidence and make me appear a bit stronger. Maybe if I built muscles, girls will be attracted to me, I hopefully proclaimed to myself. I had never worked out or lifted weights in my life, so my body has always been very frail and delicate. This was a new experience, and it made me feel more productive.
Soumaya's grudge against me lessened after a couple of months, and she allowed me to go to father's house for dinner occasionally. I was very angry with father, but I hid my anger. I still needed him.
Father began teaching me how to drive once I received my driver's permit, which was quite hard to get. I had to take a written test with many questions, and I failed it on my first try. On the second attempt, I managed to pa**.
My first experience driving was very scary. I've played a few racing video games in my life, but driving a car for real was much more intimidating. At first, I could barely even drive around my father's quiet neighborhood. I was overcome by the fear that I will never be able to drive. I soon got more used to it during the next few sessions. Soon enough, I was able to drive a short distance up Topanga Canyon with ease. I still didn't feel prepared to take my official driver's test, though.
Despite my attempts to improve my life, I was still feeling frustrated and angry. I was getting nothing out of my efforts. I still hadn't made any friends at Pierce College, and I didn't interact with any girls.
My days at Pierce College grew more and more mundane and depressing. I went to my cla** on Tuesdays and Thursdays, taking the bus to the AMC and walking the rest of the way. In the cla**room, I had a hard time socializing with anyone. Making friends seemed impossible.
My mother was casually dating a very wealthy man named Jack at the time, though I wouldn't find out they were dating until much later. When she first mentioned him, I thought he was just a friend. Jack gave mother the keys to his Malibu beach house, and we went to stay there for a few nights, though Jack wasn't there. The house was a beautiful, white-colored mansion located right on a private beach. The backyard had a swimming pool and a hot tub, with a gate leading right onto the shoreline.
Mother had a small get-together at the beach house, and she invited James and his family, along with some other friends. James didn't show up, but his father Arte did. To my surprise, Maddy Humpreys and her mother came over. Seeing Maddy for the first time in six years was a very peculiar experience. The last time we saw each other, we were just kids. Now, she was a fully-grown teenage girl, and from looking through her Facebook pictures, I knew she was popular. She was a typical pretty girl who had lots of pretty friends. She was one of them, one of the popular kids. My first friend in America, someone I played with innocently as a child, had grown up to represent the type of people who have caused me so much pain in my life. I was very nervous talking to her, as I had no experience with talking to young girls, but I had to make the effort. She seemed weirded-out by my awkwardness. It was cringe-worthy.
While staying at the beach house, I invited Philip and Addison over to hang out, as they were always in Malibu together. They came to pick me up, and while I was in the car with them, Addison kept talking about how successful he has been at mingling with the popular kids at Malibu High School. He kept talking about all of the parties he's been to, and all of the pretty girls he has met. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Addison actually did it. He succeeded in becoming popular at his school. In such a short time, he was able to accomplish what I've been trying to do my whole life. I was extremely jealous. And that was not the worst of it.
As I spent more time with them that night, I noticed that Addison's new status amongst the popular Malibu crowd had changed his attitude. It made him very co*ky and arrogant. He treated ME like a loser the whole time. Later that night, he ditched me and Philip to go to a party with some girls that he knew from Malibu. I was seething with rage.
We then went to the Santa Monica pier with Philip's friend Lenny, and I saw young couples everywhere. I used to love going to the Santa Monica pier as a child, but now it was a place of vileness. After putting up with Addison's insulting behavior, this was too much. I became so upset that I tried my first cigarette. I would end up smoking a few times after that, though I would quit within a few weeks due to it having no effect on me.
When Philip dropped me back to the beach house, I walked to the beach in the middle of the night and yelled out my anguish to the roiling ocean.
After that last experience with Philip and Addison, my attitude changed. My newfound optimism about life subsided, and I began feeling intense anger and hatred towards the world again. The way Addison treated me made me realize what the world thinks of me. If I was one of those popular kids, Addison would have treated me with deference and respect, but I wasn't. I was a complete loser in his eyes, and everyone else's. No effort I made in the last few months changed the way the world saw me. The world still viewed me as a weak and undesirable loser, even though I changed my wardrobe and started working out. What was the point anymore? I asked myself. I couldn't help but feel anger and hatred. Life was too unfair to me.
I continued going on walks around mother's house in the desperate hope that I might possibly cross paths with some pretty girl who would be attracted to me. I would have been satisfied with that.
Sometimes I spent two or three hours wandering around the neighborhood. It was all I could do. I never met any girl. Each walk left me bitterly disappointed, and eventually I stopped doing it altogether.
My time at Pierce College became more miserable each day I went there. I despised having to take the bus. It was embarra**ing and stressful, and it s**ed all of the pride out of me. And for what? To go to one cla** where I didn't talk to anyone? There was no point in it anymore. I couldn't stand the feeling of loneliness I had there. No one wanted to be my friend. It just wasn't worth the trouble. I decided to drop my cla**.
My mother got very angry that I dropped my cla** at Pierce, even though I thoroughly explained to her the reasons. This was when she started pressuring me to get a job. Getting a job is something I never thought about before in my life, and I soon realized that the older I became, the more it was expected of me if I didn't go to college. To placate my mother, I started searching for jobs online every day, but I wasn't able to find one that was suitable for me.
I felt hatred and dissatisfaction with the world and society, but I didn't want to hide away from it anymore. I needed to be as productive with my time as possible, and I had a lot of free time at this point. The best way to make use of this time, I concluded, was to spend it self-educating myself. Knowledge is power.
I began a daily routine of walking to Barnes & Noble in Calabasas every day, where I would spend hours reading books that ranged from biographies of powerful leaders, histories of significant periods, self-help books, philosophy and psychology texts, and historical fiction novels. I sometimes even spent entire days there, from the time it opened to the time it closed. In the afternoons, to my extreme rage, I sometimes saw young couples strolling through the store. Sometimes they would even sit on the reading chairs, kissing and fondling each other. Whenever I saw this, I got so overcome by envy and heartbreak that I went to the bathroom to cry. The occasional couples didn't stop me from going there, however, because it was the most beneficial thing for me to do at that moment.
I still met up with Philip and Addison occasionally, even though I hated Addison. They provided me with a sense of a social life, and a way for me to vent about my troubles. Addison treated me like a lowlife every time I hung out with them, and he kept bragging about the girls he met at parties in Malibu. I indignantly accused him of lying, as that was what I wanted to believe. He was only amused by my envy. I then found that Addison deleted me from his Facebook friends list out of the blue. This was the last slight I would bear from him, and I subsequently sent him a hateful Facebook message in response. I then viewed Addison as a bitter enemy of mine. He truly was a disgusting and treacherous little ba*tard.
Addison was once in the same position as I, but right when he succeeded in integrating with the popular kids, he betrayed me and treated me the same way the popular kids treated me, as if I'm lowlife scum. The world truly is a brutal place, where a man must fight a bitter struggle against all other men to reach the top. Humans are nothing but vicious beasts in a jungle.
I delved more into learning as much as I could from books at Barnes & Noble. I expanded on the political and philosophical ideals I concocted when I was seventeen, and I soon became even more radical about them than I ever was before. It was all fueled by my wish to punish everyone who is s**ually active, because I concluded that it wasn't fair that other people were able to experience s** while I have been denied it all my life. I started to have the desire to create a world where no one is allowed to have s** or relationships. I again saw that as the perfect, fair world. Reproduction can be accomplished without s**, through artificial insemination. Sex is evil, as it gives too much pleasure to those who don't deserve it.
I shaped all of these ideals through learning and self-educating myself for hours every day. My personality became even more rigid, and I started to dress in very conservative attire.
I went with my mother to the yearly Christmas party at the Lemelson's. I spent most of the time with James, discussing with him further about my ideals. We also played a lot of video games with Noah and his friends. Noah was really interested in Nintendo games, and he had a lot of them. Playing games with them reminded me of a time, long ago in my past, when I played Nintendo 64 as a child, blissfully living life in a world that I thought was good. I longed to be a child again, to be in a bright place away from the cruel darkness of reality. I will always treasure those memories.
I had to go Christmas shopping, and I decided to do it at the Calabasas Commons. I was always going there anyway. While walking around, I ran into Maddy, who was there with her boyfriend. For some strange reason, I have never had any s**ual attraction towards Maddy, despite the fact that she's a blonde girl and I'm obsessed with blondes. Perhaps it was because she used to be my friend when we were children, I don't know. Because I wasn't attracted to her, I didn't find myself feeling as much jealousy as one might think I would in such a situation. It was still very awkward. I just said hello to her quickly and walked away.
On New Year's Eve of 2010, the day that marked the end of the decade, I caught a terrible illness and had to stay in bed for the whole afternoon as well as the next day. My mother was going to go to one of her friend's houses, but she felt sorry for me and stayed at home. I spent the whole time lying in my bed, brooding about my life. I don't know what was worse, the physical pain I felt from the sickness, or the emotional pain and rage I had towards the world. I would say the latter.
When the illness had pa**ed on the following afternoon, I thought about how it caused me to waste my New Year's holiday in my room, but then I mused that I would have done the same thing anyway, whether I was sick or not, because I had no friends to celebrate New Year's with.
I checked Addison's Facebook profile with one of my stalking accounts, and I saw that he went to a huge New Year's party at a mansion with his popular Malibu friends. He took lots of pictures of himself posing with various girls. I hated him so much when I saw that. The level of hatred I felt was unreal. He was doing everything I wanted to do! Why him and not me? I cursed at the world. What was seen can never be unseen, and I will never forget it, nor will I forgive it.
My hope that I will one day have a beautiful girlfriend and live the life I desire slowly faded away. I was in the same dark and miserable place I had been a year previously; lonely, unwanted, miserable, and seething with rage at the world. I kept thinking about how some boys were easily able to get girlfriends straight after they went through puberty. I couldn't fathom how they did it, and I hated and despised them for it.
I kept thinking about Leo Bubenheim, and how he kissed that girl Nicole at the Sagebrush Cantina when he was only twelve. Twelve! He was able to have an intimate experience with a girl when he was only twelve; and there I was at eighteen, still a kissless virgin. My envy of Leo became an obsession. I kept asking my sister for information about him, but she refused to tell me anything. I frightfully wondered if he had lost his virginity already, and he most likely had. He was a popular kid, and girls desired him. Leo was happily living his heavenly life with the knowledge that he's worth something to the world, while I had to wallow in my misery and loneliness.
Life is not fair. One can either accept that fact, keeling over in defeat; or one can harness the strength to fight against it. My destiny was to fight against the unfairness of the world.
My mother carried on pressuring me to get a job, and she would never leave me alone about it. She was a bit frustrated that I wasn't getting one. The two of us had a lot of arguments, and living with my mother became an extreme ha**le.
After signing me up to a program in the regional center, my mother found a life coach to counsel me and help me find a job. This life coach's name was Tony, a boisterous 40 year old man who came to meet me every other week. I was open to going along with this. I had plenty of free time, and I was so lonely that any social interaction was welcome. For our meetings, Tony usually took me out to lunch somewhere in the Valley, where he gave me advice on socializing and self-improvement.
I continued searching for a job, but I still wasn't able to find one. I refused all of the jobs that Tony suggested to me. The problem was that most of the jobs that were available to me at the time were jobs I considered to be beneath me. My mother wanted me to get a simple retail job, and the thought of myself doing that was mortifying. It would be completely against my character. I am an intellectual who is destined for greatness. I would never perform a low-cla** service job.
My father told me that I could work for his friend Karl Champley for a few weeks, to help him build a staircase in his new house. I knew Karl quite well, for he used to come over to father's for dinner occasionally. Karl was just finishing up building his new house in Woodland Hills, just a few minutes away from father's house, and he offered to hire me to help with the staircase.
I agreed to take this job. Sure, construction work was lowly and laborious, but this was different. This was more like a**isting a friend, and it would be in a private environment. It was the perfect temporary job opportunity, and it would most definitely get my mother off my back. I still wasn't able to drive, so I rode my bicycle there from mother's house every morning. The trip on the bicycle took 30 minutes. It was grueling to ride a bicycle up that steep winding road every day, but it provided good exercise, which I was in need of. I worked with Karl every weekday for about three weeks. It turned out to be quite a pleasant experience. Karl was very friendly and I enjoyed working with him. When we finished the staircase, which was a spiral staircase that led up to his roof-deck, we took a moment to admire the work we did.
On my last day working for Karl, I decided to stop by at father's house to have a drink. I was quite parched from the bicycle ride. I entered the house without knocking because I believed I had the right to. As the eldest son, the house should be my house after my father. Soumaya was surprised to see me, and she got angry that I didn't knock. To teach me a lesson, she ordered me to go back outside and knock. I refused, telling her that she has no right to order me around anymore. I then helped myself to a gla** of water. Soumaya knocked the gla** of water out of my hand and it shattered on the floor. Father clamored angrily up the stairs from his office demanding to know what was going on. The three of us had a heated argument, and of course father took Soumaya's side. They both kicked me out of the house, telling me that I'm not to return. I felt betrayed and humiliated as I furiously made my way back to mother's house. At that very moment, I hated both of them, and I wouldn't see either of them for many months. For those months, my father was dead to me. My mother was all I had left in this bleak world.
During that same week, I had a climactic meeting with Philip and Addison where my noxious feud with Addison Altendorf reached a boiling point. We went on an outing to the Griffith Park Observatory, as we usually did when we got together. This time, my arguments with Addison were very intense. I tried to insult him as much as I could, in a petty attempt to get revenge at him for all the insults and slights he dealt to me. We went back and forth at each other for the whole evening, to the chagrin of poor Philip who had to put up with it. By the end of the night, Addison said something to me that was so offensive it will haunt me forever, and it rang true: “No girl in this whole world will ever want to f** you.”
I already felt that no girl in the world wanted to f** me. I was a kissless virgin after all. That was the sole reason why I was suffering. But to hear it come from someone else, someone like Addison, really caused it to sink into core of my mentality and emotions.
That whole night made for a very vile and wicked experience. I decided not to see Philip and Addison for a long time.
Because I was no longer seeing Philip and Addison, James was once again my only friend. I frequently talked to him over Skype. Sometimes I would go over to his house, where the two of us went on our traditional walks around the Palisades town center. James still played WoW, and he was trying to get me back into it. I was quite tempted. After everything I had been through in the last few months, I did feel the urge to delve back into that void. Facing the world was tough, and it took its toll on me, especially since I've seen no results. I was still in the same position I had always been: Lonely, unwanted, and miserable.
I found out that my mother was actually dating Jack, the wealthy man who owned the Malibu beach house. I always thought he was only her friend. My mother never told me or my sister about any men that she dated. She always kept that strictly private. I hadn't even met Jack yet. He was worth well over $500 million, and he owned other mansions in Bel Air and Beverly Hills.
When I found out about this, I started to harbor the hope that my mother will get married to this man, and I will be part of a rich family. That will definitely be a way out of my miserable and insignificant life. Money would solve everything. I started to frequently ask my mother to seek marriage with this man, or any wealthy man for that matter. She always adamantly refused, and demanded that I stopped talking about it. She told me that she never wanted to get married again after her experience with my father. I told her that she should sacrifice her well-being for the sake of my happiness, but this only offended her further.
At the beginning of summer, I finally received my driver's license. I had to take the driving test twice before I pa**ed it. The first time, I took it at the Winnetka DMV, and I made a few mistakes at the end which caused me to fail it. After taking some lessons that my mother arranged for me, I gave the driving test another try at the Thousand Oaks DMV. This area was much easier to navigate around, so I managed to closely pa** the test.
Once my official driver's license came in the mail, my mother told me some good news. She received a new car from Jack, which meant she could give her older car to me. I now had a car of my own to drive. To be able to drive to any place I wanted to go provided me with a new sense of freedom that I never felt before. I felt more like an adult rather than a kid. I realized that I could start college again, now that I had the ability to drive there.
I registered for a summer cla** at Moorpark College. I read about Moorpark College online and found that it was a much better option than Pierce College. My mother and I drove up there to take a look. The campus was smaller in scale, and more aesthetically pleasing. It was located in the town of Moorpark, in a gorgeous mountain area near Thousand Oaks. I also saw a lot more beautiful girls there than I ever saw at Pierce. Everywhere I looked I saw beautiful blonde girls walking around. This college was just right for me.
In the days leading up to my first day at Moorpark, I felt a renewed sense of hope. A new college provided a new start, and this college looked perfect in every way. I had the hope that I could make it there; that I could make friends, meet some girls, and eventually find a pretty girl to be my girlfriend. I pictured her in my mind all the time; her cascading blonde hair, her beautiful face, her sensual body... Everything. I imagined us walking hand in hand through the college, looking at the magnificent view of the mountains in the distance as the sun sets behind them. That would be heaven. That was what I wanted in life. Every single hate-fueled ideal, world-view, and philosophy I created in the past was a result of not being able to do that.
I was very optimistic on the first day. When I walked onto the campus I breathed in the fresh mountain air and admired my surroundings. I was in a new environment with lots of new possibilities. The cla** I took was a world history cla**, and it began on a good note. The cla** was well-structured and the teacher was entertaining. After the cla** ended, I walked around the college for an hour to explore and ponder over how I can set my life right. Once again, I dared to hope that there could be a good future for me.
My renewed hope gave me solace for a few days, but it did not last. Moorpark soon became a place of loneliness and despair, just like any other place I've attempted to thrive in. The breaking point was when I saw good looking couples walking along the area where I dreamed of walking with a girlfriend. To watch another boy experience it, with a beautiful girl who should be mine, was a living hell. I constantly asked myself what I did wrong in life, to be unable to have a beautiful girlfriend.
It was no better inside the cla**room. There was this one obnoxious jock with a buzz-cut who was taking the cla** with his gorgeous girlfriend. They always sat next to each other, talking and touching each other with affection. Every day I had to see this, and my envy grew and grew. I constantly glared at them with raw hatred. What did I do wrong that he did right? I yelled out to the universe on the way home. Why does he deserve the love of a beautiful girl, and not me? Why do girls hate me so? Questions and questions. All I could do was question why I was suffering so much injustice in life.
My mother one day told me that I should become a writer, because I had some talent in writing. That was strange to hear. For my whole life I was never talented at anything I tried. I was too physically weak to play sports with other boys when I was little; I never became professional at skateboarding no matter how much I practiced; and I was never that sk**ed at any video games I played... even World of Warcraft. Steve and Mark were able to play their characters more sk**fully that I ever did, and they started the game much later than me. Deep down, I've always known that I had no talents, and I've always tried not to think about it.
Indeed, it was strange to hear my mother say that I could become a talented writer, but it did give me an idea. I started to wonder if I actually could become a writer. I could write an epic fantasy story that will be made into a movie, and I will become rich from it. Being rich will definitely make me attractive enough to have a beautiful girlfriend. It was not impossible, and working towards it would give me something to live for. I mulled it over in my mind for a while.
We went to Jack's beach house in Malibu to spend a couple of nights again. My mother called me on the phone to tell me the plan while I was at college. It was a lonely and depressing day at school, and I was glad to be able to have some respite at the lovely beach house. I immediately drove there from Moorpark after my cla** was finished.
Mother had a few of her friends over, and she bought a lot of delicious food. After stuffing myself with portions from every dish and drinking multiple gla**es of wine, I went on a long and peaceful walk on the beach, wishing that I had a girlfriend to walk beside me. Before I went to bed, I thought a lot more about the possibility of becoming rich. If I was a millionaire and owned a house like the one I was spending that night in, I could have any girl I want. Being in that position would make up for all of the misery I've had to go through in the past... and making up for it is my most important goal in life. My one wish is to feel satisfied for the way my life is.
I seriously started to consider working towards writing an epic story. I was always creating stories in my mind to fuel my fantasies. Usually those stories depicted someone like myself rising to power after a life of being treated unfairly by the world. I mentally examined all of the stories I had developed, and focused on the few that I thought would become bestsellers. If I could get one of them made into a movie, I would definitely be a millionaire. It was the only solution to my problems. I saw myself as a highly intelligent and magnificent person who is meant for great things. This could be one of them.
I spent the next couple of weeks focusing on writing for myself instead of working on my schoolwork. The cla** didn't give much homework to do anyway. I wrote summaries for three different stories, and I think I showed two of them to my mother. She seemed to think that they would make good movies, and that increased my confidence. I either wanted to write a novel first, or go straight to making it a screenplay.
I spent every afternoon for two weeks working on this goal. My time at college was miserable. I often cried on the way home because I was envious of so many couples walking around. I poured all of my energy into coming up with a way to make this goal work.
My faith that I could write an epic story that would make me rich soon collapsed. I read so many articles online of the chances that a screenplay would be made into a movie. I also saw that most writers of even the highest budget films didn't make as much as I thought they did... Definitely not enough to live on for the rest of their life. I also thought, with a lot of despair, of the time that it would take to achieve such a goal. Most bestselling authors or screenwriters didn't become millionaires until they were well into their forties or fifties. I didn't want to wait until I was forty years old to lose my virginity! The thought of spending the next twenty years working hard every day for a chance to make a million or two filled me with revulsion. By the time I'd become a millionaire from doing that, I wouldn't even be able to get hot young girls because I'd be too old. I decided that writing was not my path to salvation, and I abandoned the idea completely. Of course, I would become tantalized with the idea a few more times in the future, but that would be due to the desperate, false hope that I often create for myself.
I couldn't stand seeing that damnable couple in my cla** anymore. I never understood what that pretty girl saw in her brute of a boyfriend. That guy was able to experience his college life with his beautiful girlfriend by his side, while I was all alone. It made me feel so inferior. I had to watch them together, every single day. The torture was unbearable. When I got home from college one day, I dropped my cla** in a rage.
I didn't think about how my mother would react to me dropping the cla**. I knew she would be very disappointed, and I couldn't afford to have her be disappointed in me. I was relying on her for everything. What she gave to me, she could easily take away. I panicked and resolved to get a job in order to placate her.
After asking Tony, my social sk**s counsellor, if I could get a job through the regional center, he called me back and told me that there was a job available for me. I didn't get much information about it, but I decided to sign up for it right there and then. After this was secure, I was comfortable enough to tell my mother that I dropped my cla** at Moorpark. I could have lied to her and told her that I never dropped the cla**, but at that time I was too scared to lie to her.
I started a day of working at this new job. It was located in an office building that was connected to an Airport in Los Angeles. To my horror and humiliation, the job turned out to be a menial custodial job, and I had to clean offices and even the bathrooms. There was no way I would ever degrade myself to such a level. I felt like utter sh** from even considering working at such a place. I only worked for a few hours while I thought about how to handle this foul situation... and on the next day I called to announce that I was quitting. That was the second and last “job” I would ever have. I only worked there for less than a day.
After I quit, I fell into an even worse state of panic than I was in after I dropped my Moorpark cla**. I rapidly pestered myself with the ultimate question: What am I to do now? I called up Karl Champley to see if he had another job for me at his house, but he told me that his house was almost finished and there was literally no work for me to do there. I was doomed. I thought that if my mother found out that I quit, she would kick me out of her household.
My mother was taking a vacation in Hawaii with my sister during this time. I had a few days by myself to relax and plot my next move. I concluded that going to college and enduring the sight of couples walking around was better than having to resort to working a low-cla** job somewhere, and I had to pick one of the two in order to placate my mother. College was also more beneficial because I could learn and educate myself through it.
I called up my mother and cried to her on the phone, explaining to her why I quit the job that I signed up for, and asked her if she would give me another chance. I told her I will register for more cla**es at Moorpark and pour all of my energy into studying hard. I also told her that I will continue with working on my writing. To my relief, she was very understanding, and she told me she would continue to support me if I did this.
The temporary pressure I had to face that summer was eased, but after thinking about it, I supposed it was insignificant compared to the overall pressure that's been on my shoulders ever since I hit puberty: My struggle against a society that looks down upon me... against the female gender for denying me s** and love. Addison Altendorf's hurtful words kept haunting me all throughout the summer. I saw my future and I saw only more bleak loneliness. I will never have s**. I will never have love. Girls deem me unworthy of it, I thought to myself over and over again. I cried every day when I imagined how much fun and pleasure other teenagers were having as I languished in despair.
My 19th birthday pa**ed by sullenly, and it caused me to feel even more defeated. Nineteen and still a virgin, I miserably proclaimed on that day. My father didn't even deign to give me a phone call. Instead, he sent me a letter wishing me happy birthday and telling me that he wanted me to apologize to Soumaya, which of course I refused to do.
The laptop I received on my 17th birthday had become infected with viruses, so my mother bought me a new, even better laptop on my 19th birthday. I chose one that can handle video games very well, because I had just made the decision to start playing World of Warcraft again. I just couldn't handle the anguish in my life anymore, and I needed a break, no matter how unhealthy and time-consuming WoW would be for me.