19 Years Old Upon setting up my new laptop, I immediately installed all of my WoW disks. I logged onto my account and took a look at all of my characters that I hadn't touched for a year and a half. Right when I logged onto my main character, I was contacted by James, and he invited me to join an online group with him, Steve, and Mark. They all gave me a warm welcome back. And there I was, stuck in the void of hopelessness once again; in the exact same position as I had been when I was fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and seventeen. For all the efforts I made to improve my life during my eighteenth year, I had nothing to show for it. No friends, no girls, no life. I started going to James's house a lot more, since I was now able to drive and the two of us could play WoW together again. Seeing James was always pleasant in its own way. He was my comrade in virginity, for he too didn't get any attention from girls, and I'm sure he suffered from it, but not as much as I did. I was very perplexed as to why he didn't feel any anger towards girls for denying him s**. He should be just as angry as I am. I supposed he didn't have a very high s** drive, or he was just a generally weak person. To be angry about the injustices one faces is a sign of strength. It is a sign that one has the will to fight back against those injustices, rather than bowing down and accepting it as fate. Both my friends James and Philip seem to be the weak, accepting type; whereas I am the fighter. I will never stand to be insulted, and I will eventually have my revenge against all those who insult me, no matter how long it takes. For the rest of the summer, I took it easy and played WoW with James, Steve, and Mark; just like old times. I also started reading a new book series called A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R.R. Martin. This medieval fantasy series was spectacular. The first book of the series was A Game of Thrones, and once I read the first chapter I just couldn't put it down. It was like nothing I had ever read before, with a huge array of complex characters, a few of whom I could relate to. I found out that it was going to be adapted into an HBO television series, and I became very excited for that. Delving into fantasy stories like WoW and Game of Thrones didn't make me forget about all of my troubles in life, but they did give me a temporary and relieving sense of escape, which I need from time to time. Life would be impossible to handle without those temporary respites. Rob Lemelson suggested to my mother that I join the karate cla** he practices in. Rob was an expert black-belt, and James was also taking the same cla** with him. They met up every Tuesday and Friday night, and I agreed to go on Fridays. Every Friday, I began the routine of driving up to James's house, and then the two of us would go in James's car to the karate cla** in Santa Monica. James got his first car a few months after I got mine, though his car was a lot older and worn out. Rob thought that starting karate would be healthy for me, as it is meant to increase confidence and build character. I was eager to see if I could benefit from it. The cla** was pleasant. It gave me a good work out and a sense of invigoration. There were usually six or seven other students, and I was particularly annoyed with this one twelve year old kid who seemed to think he was better than me because he was a brown belt and I was a novice white belt. I bet he thought he could beat me in a fight because of it... Hah! No chance in that. It was annoying, but I was amused at the same time. After the karate cla**, Rob would take us out to a nice restaurant for dinner if he had time. If Rob was busy that night, James and I would go to our usual dinner place in the palisades, and then we would go back to his house to hang out for a while. My new semester at Moorpark College began. I only managed to sign up for one cla**, but I promised my mother that I would do at least three cla**es in the next semester. Both of my grandma's offered to send me some money to help me out with living expenses, and I wisely saved every check I received from them. One of my priorities was to start building up my money savings in case my life became too drastic. The cla** I started was a political science cla**. I figured I would gain some useful knowledge by taking it, though I disliked the teacher because he had the tendency to randomly call on me to answer questions. I was still terrified of speaking in front of the cla**, even if it was for one sentence. My social anxiety has always made my life so difficult, and no one ever understood it. I hated how everyone else seemed to have no anxiety at all. I was like a cripple compared to them. Their lives must be so much easier. Thankfully, there were no couples in this cla**, but I still had to see them when I walked through the school. The only thing I could do was keep my head down and pretend they didn't exist. I still cried on the drive home every day. Grandma Jinx came to visit the United States in October, where she stayed at father's house. This presented a difficult situation. She of course wanted to see me, her eldest grandson, but I wasn't on speaking terms with my father and Soumaya. I was very resentful of my father for the way he treated me during that last incident, and I will never forgive him for it. My father effectively abandoned me at one of my most crucial points in my life. Though in fact, he was never really present in my life to abandon me in the first place. When I think about it, he was always absent from my life. When my whole world took a downward spiral into darkness after I hit puberty, he never made any effort to save me. He just didn't care. I would never let what happened to me happen to a son of mine, if I had a son... though from the way things have been going, I'll never have a chance to have a son, because girls don't want to have s** me. I would make such a better father than my own father. Grandma Jinx pushed the both of us to reconcile. She insisted that I meet her and father at father's house, where the three of us would set out to have lunch somewhere. I showed up and gave my grandma a hug. Father didn't say a word to me, nor I to him. We went to our local Japanese restaurant. Father sat in silence while Grandma Jinx asked me lots of questions about my life. Eventually we got around to the subject that was hanging in the air. If it weren't for my grandma, the conversation would have gotten nowhere. Father and I went back and forth at each other with accusations. Grandma Jinx persuaded the two of us to drop our grudges and move on. For her sake, we acquiesced. I shook hands with father as we agreed to put the past behind us. I went on a walk with Grandma Jinx after we returned to father's house. I took her up to my old contemplation spot, the hilltop that overlooks father's neighborhood, which I always called the Overlook. That place is one of the most special places in my life. I have memories of it stretching back all the way to when I was a joyful ten-year-old. I remember going up there to skateboard all the way down; I rode my bicycle up there during my middle school years; I hiked up there with Max when he was staying at father's house as an exchange student; I languished there in despair when I went on my lonely walks at the age of seventeen and eighteen; and now I was showing it to my grandma. When the two of us reached the top, every memory came back to me, and I felt a bittersweet sense of nostalgia. After the walk, I didn't want to enter father's house. Soumaya was in there, and I hadn't seen her since that dreadful day when she made father throw me out. Once again, my grandma forced the issue, and I agreed to go in for a talk. We all sat down at the kitchen table and agreed that arguing would get us nowhere. Father and Soumaya were willing to start over, and I agreed to give our relationship another chance. Before my grandma departed back to England, she made us promise to keep up the positive relations, and made sure that they would invite me over for dinner frequently. I soon went to one of those dinners at father's house. It was an awkward experience, to have dinner with the two of them after all of that tension. We didn't raise any issues and talked about pleasant things. It was nice to see my brother Jazz again. I was shocked by how much he had grown in the past several months. He was no longer a baby, but a five-year-old boy who was turning six soon. I could actually have full conversations with him. He was a very social boy, and quite boisterous... and that started to worry me. He could well turn into one of the people I have despised and envied so much. I felt a hint of jealousy that my five-year-old brother was so well versed in social sk**s at such a young age. I always suffered from shyness and social anxiety, but Jazz didn't seem to have that problem. I put that worry at the back of my mind. He was my brother, and he really looked up to me. He was one of the few people who treated me the way I want to be treated, with respect and adoration. I enjoyed spending time with the boy. As I got more used to having a car of my own to drive, I frequently went on what I called “night drives” around my mother's neighborhood. They almost replaced the long walks I used to take in the afternoons. Staying in my room all the time only increased my depression. It was suffocating. To ease this suffocation, I frequently got in my car at night, turned on the radio, and went on a drive with no particular destination. The song “Two Is Better Than One” always played on the radio when I went on those night drives. It made me feel sad, though it was soothing at the same time. That song will always remind me of the loneliness I felt during those experiences. I soon learned the hard way to not go on night drives on Fridays and Saturdays. That was when teenagers were out and about. Even in the peaceful residential neighborhood that my mother lived in, I frequently saw bands of teenagers roaming the streets. They were high schoolers, younger than me; mostly skateboarder punks or football jocks who had pretty girls beside them. The sight of them enraged me to no end. It reminded me of the life I missed out on. They were probably on their way to some house party, where they will get drunk and have s** and do all sorts of fun pleasurable things that I've never had the chance to do. Damn them all! My Autumn semester at Moorpark College flashed by like a subtle lightning bolt. It was as if it didn't even exist in my life. Moorpark College was supposed to be a place of hope for me, but it turned into a place of despair, just like everything else. I was invisible there. Nobody knew I existed or cared who I was. At least this time I finished a cla**. The day of my final exam was December 7th, which was also the day the new expansion to World of Warcraft was released, called Cataclysm. I completed my final exam with ease, and thus I completed my first college cla**, in which I received the grade of a B. Afterwards, I rushed to Best Buy to purchase the new game. With new WoW expansions, some of those old feelings that I felt when I first played the game came back to me, and I wanted that feeling again. It was comforting, and the sense comfort was something I needed to cushion myself with. I also knew that I would beat James, Steve, and Mark to the next high level cap. I supposed it would provide a small sense of competitive satisfaction. Getting a character to the highest level the fastest was the only part of the game that I was truly good at, but I suppose that was due to the ma**ive amounts of free time I had at my disposal. Since my college cla** was over and it was winter break, I could literally play the game for every waking minute. And so I did. My last stint in the World of Warcraft was an intense one. I reached the new level cap in less than two days, and once I was there I repeatedly took pleasure in k**ing James's, Steve's, and Mark's characters as they tried to level up, as a petty form of revenge for them leaving me out of their group meetings years ago, and because I was jealous that Steve and Mark were more sk**ed at the game than I was. Being a higher level for those few days gave me the advantage I needed to even the score. But I digress. After two weeks of playing World of Warcraft nonstop, I once again came to the abrupt decision to quit. The new expansion was a major disappointment. Blizzard Entertainment, the creators of the game, made changes that I believe ruined everything that was fun about it. I won't get into the details, as most of the people reading this won't understand complicated video game terms anyway. But that was only a small part of the reason why I quit. The main reason was the disturbing new player-base. The game got bigger with every new expansion that was released, and as it got bigger, it brought in a vast amount of new players. I noticed that more and more “normal” people who had active and pleasurable social lives were starting to play the game, as the new changes catered to such a crowd. WoW no longer became a sanctuary where I could hide from the evils of the world, because the evils of the world had now followed me there. I saw people bragging online about their s**ual experiences with girls... and they used the term “virgin” as an insult to people who were more immersed in the game than them. The insult stung, because it was true. Us virgins did tend to get more immersed in such things, because our real lives were lacking. I couldn't stand to play WoW knowing that my enemies, the people I hate and envy so much for having s**ual lives, were now playing the same game as me. There was no point anymore. I realized what a terrible mistake I made to turn my back on the world again. The world is brutal, and I need to fight for my place in it. My life was at a crucial turning point, and I couldn't waste any more precious time. At the Lemelson's Christmas party, I told James that I was quitting WoW again, and he told me he suspected I would very soon. It was just a matter of time. Even through playing with me over the internet, he could detect my anger and rage towards the world seeping through the computer screen. I questioned him about why he himself could go on living without feeling any sort of anger or resentment about his circumstances, which were similar to mine. He was, after all, a nineteen year old virgin just like I was. He just casually told me that didn't pay attention to it, and focused on his strengths. What strengths do I have to focus on? I wondered. The world views me as a weakling. Perhaps I needed to prove the world wrong. On Christmas Day, father held a huge Christmas party at his house. I was invited, since I was back on speaking terms with them. I got a few new shirts for Christmas, so I decided to wear one for the occasion. I hadn't seen any of father's friends for a while, and it was nice to reunite with them. The Bubenheim's weren't there; father had recently got into a fight with Alex, abruptly ending their friendship. I suppose it was for the best. If Leo was at that party, I would have probably gotten into a nasty fight with him. My hatred of Leo was so volatile that I wanted to confront him. I wanted to hurt him. I couldn't let him get away with the insults he dealt towards me in the past. A few family friends complimented my appearance, and that made me feel a bit better about myself. It is so peculiar how a simple smile or a compliment can completely change how I feel about the world for a few moments. During the remaining days of 2010, I joined my mother and sister at Jack's beach house in Malibu to spend a few nights. They arrived there a few hours before me, and by the time I reached the house they had already invited a few guests for an afternoon get-together. To my outrage, I saw that mother had invited Maddy and her boyfriend. I was looking forward to having another respite at the beautiful Malibu mansion where I can indulge myself in opulence and forget about my depressing loneliness. Having a young couple lurking around only reminded me of my insignificance. I was extremely upset with my mother for inviting them. She should have been more considerate. If only I had a girlfriend of my own to take to that place. That beach house is the perfect place to take a girlfriend to. It had a swimming pool and a Jacuzzi, it was located on a private beach where we could walk arm in arm, and it even had a private movie theatre. Such an opportunity wasted, all because no girl would give me a chance. Instead, I was all alone, and I had to see another couple watch movies together in that very theatre. Thankfully, that couple only stayed for a few hours. Mother invited a few more guests, and we ordered our dinner to be delivered from a local restaurant. By the time dinner arrived, I had already consumed three gla**es of wine, and I had a fourth gla** with the meal. Everything's better with some wine in the belly, as a famous character from Game of Thrones would say. I was left out of most of the conversations, like I always was, so I just sat there quietly, sipping my wine as I had to bear listening to Maddy talk about how awesome her life was. I excused myself as soon as I finished eating, and boy did I stuff myself on that meal. I then walked outside onto the beach. The wine had long since gone to my head, making me feel a sense of dizzy invigoration. I started walking along the shore, taking in the magnificence of the gentle, moonlit ocean. It was so... romantic. I kept walking and walking with no destination in mind. The romance of it all filled me with despair and longing. I wanted a girlfriend to experience that moment with me, but no girl wanted to be my girlfriend. The only thing I could do was imagine how heavenly it would be to have a beautiful girl by my side. It is such a shameful tragedy. I ended up walking for two hours, and at the end of it I was crying to myself because I felt so sad. When I returned to the house, Maddy and her boyfriend had left, and so did most of the guests. The only guests who remained were my mother's friends Alan and Rebecca, and their sons, as they were spending the nights there with us. I spent the rest of my time there relaxing and watching movies in the theatre. We watched the entire Jura**ic Park trilogy, which brought back fond memories of my childhood. I went on a few more walks on the beach during the daytime. That beach was always quiet and peaceful, since the only people who visited it were those who lived in homes on the beach. I took full advantage of this. I've always found beaches to be truly beautiful, but I could never go to public beaches because they are full of young couples walking around in their revealing bathing suits, the sight of which fills me with envious rage. On the private beach, I could enjoy the serenity of the environment without having to worry about young couples making me jealous. There were no young couples, only a few families and old couples here and there. I did, however, pa** by one young girl, and she was like a goddess who came down from heaven. She was walking alone, in her bathing suit, with her luscious blonde hair blowing in the wind. I couldn't help but slyly admire her beauty as we pa**ed by each other. I was scared. I was scared that she might view me as nothing but an inferior insect who's presence ruins her atmosphere. Her beauty was intoxicating! And then, just as we pa**ed each other, she actually looked at me. She looked at me and smiled. Most girls never even deigned to look at me, and this one actually looked at me and smiled. I had never felt so euphoric in my life. One smile. One smile was all it took to brighten my entire day. The power that beautiful women have is unbelievable. They can temporarily turn a desperate boy's whole world around just by smiling. That smile put me in a good, healthy mood for the rest of that walk, but it soon faded away as I realized that I could never actually have a girl as beautiful as that. She probably only smiled out of politeness. She would never go for me. And what is the point to life if I can't have a girl of such beauty? Some men get to have beautiful girlfriends like that, and some don't. I am among those who are denied such a pleasure, and that is why I hate life. After spending three days at the Malibu beach house, I was sad to leave it. I had a feeling I would never see the place again, and it was true. That was the last time I ever went there. Mother ended her relationship with Jack sometime within the following months, though she would never tell me directly about it. I spent New Year's Eve alone and miserable, just like the previous year. And the year before that, for that matter. It was the last day my WoW account was active, and I logged onto WoW just for that occasion. I angrily had arguments with random people online who I saw bragging about their girlfriends. I spewed out all of my hatred towards them, but they were only amused. It was a very aggravating experience, and it made me glad that I cancelled my WoW account. There was nowhere I could hide anymore. Time was ticking, and a New Year was just beginning. I concluded that I had to put more effort into making better use of my time. I made a vow on New Year's Day that I wouldn't masturbate until I did something to successfully get one step further in life. Having a high s** drive, I usually masturbated at least every other day. I always fantasized about s**... and the fact that I was unable to have s** made me even more obsessed with it. To stop masturbating for more than three days was a big deal. I lasted seven days. On the seventh day my s**ual urges became too overwhelming. My whole body was enveloped in it. I thought about girls every single second, and not having a girl to have s** with was unbearable. I could not even function anymore, so I had to break my commitment. The masturbation session I had after that seven-day dry spell was astounding. I did my usual fantasizing about having s** with a beautiful, tall blonde-haired girl; but this time I intensified it a lot, and made up a whole story in my mind just to make the experience seem more real. If only it could be real. Some men get to live that fantasy, whereas I could only dream of it. Life is not fair. I finished the fourth book of the Song of Ice and Fire series. The television adaptation, Game of Thrones was coming out in just a few months, and I was really looking forward to that. I was also looking forward to the fifth book of the series, which had a release date of July 12th. After finishing all four books, I had become a huge fan of the series. It depicted a much more exciting world than the one I lived in, with a large array of complex characters, a few of whom I could really relate to. As I was reading up about the release date for the fifth book, I found an online countdown that showed each day, hour, minute, and second that remained until July 12th. Since July 12th was so close to my 20th birthday, I used this countdown as the official countdown of my last days as a teenager. I made it my internet homepage, and hoped that it would motivate me to do everything I can to change my life during this crucial period. Since I was back in father's good graces, my mother agreed to meet with him and me to talk about my life situation. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, where we had a long talk about what I was doing in my life, and what my college plans were. My mother and father both agreed that in order to change my life, I needed to remove myself from my current environment and start anew. Living at my mother's apartment was becoming unhealthy, and they thought that things would improve if I had my own place. It was at this moment that we began to form the Santa Barbara plan, in which I would go to college in Santa Barbara and live amongst the students there. The Santa Barbara plan was formed on that night, but its roots stretch all the way back to when I just turned eighteen. It was all because I watched that movie Alpha Dog. The movie had a profound effect on me, because it depicted lots of good looking young people enjoying pleasurable s** lives. I thought about it for many months afterward, and I constantly read about the story online. I found out that it took place in Santa Barbara, which prompted me to read about college life in Santa Barbara. I found out about Isla Vista, the small town adjacent to UCSB where all of the college students live and have parties. When I found out about all this, I had the desperate hope that if I moved to that town I would be able to live that life too. That was the life I wanted. A life of pleasure and s**. I talked to my mother about the prospect of going to college in Santa Barbara a few times during my eighteenth year. She thought it was a good idea; it would certainly free her of the burden of living with me, but we never seriously considered it. Until that day. My mother proposed the plan to father, and father became very enthusiastic about it. We laid down the groundwork right then and there. Father was still suffering from his financial crisis, but he agreed to pay for my tuition and contribute five hundred dollars a month towards my living expenses, while my mother would pay for my apartment rent and continue to provide me with the car. I was to do one more semester at Moorpark for the time being, and then transfer to Santa Barbara City College in the summer. This was a very astonishing turn of events. I didn't expect this, and I had no idea how to react. I was completely dumbfounded. I thought it was just going to be a casual dinner meeting where we would simply talk about my life, and we ended up making plans to drastically change my life. At that period of my life, I was on the verge of giving up all hope that I would ever live the life I want, but this changed everything. I now had the opportunity to start fresh, in a beautiful new town, at a new college, with my own living place. Of course, I would have to share an apartment with other college students, but that was part of the experience. It would give me more social credibility than living with my mother, that's for sure. Deep down, I always wanted an opportunity like this; and now I had one, just at the time when I was about to give up on everything completely. It was very overwhelming, and I needed a few days to meditate and take it all in. It was such an unbelievable turn of events that I dismissed it from my mind in the following two months. It was still five months before I would start college in Santa Barbara, so I decided not to worry about it for the time being. At the present, I had to worry about my new semester at Moorpark that was just beginning. I was registered to take three cla**es for the Spring semester at Moorpark. The first was an early morning history cla**, followed by sociology and then psychology. They were all just as disastrous as I expected them to be. I had to drop the sociology cla** right on the first day, because there was this extremely hot blonde girl who took the cla** with her brute of a boyfriend. I couldn't stand looking at them sitting together. I left the cla** mid-session because I couldn't take it anymore. Dropping my sociology cla** left me with a huge gap of time in between my history and psychology cla**es. During this time I usually went to a quiet, secluded spot that had a few tables overlooking the view of the mountains. I spent a lot of time here, writing in my diary and contemplating my place in the world. My two remaining cla**es were not much better. In my history cla**, I had a crush on a really pretty girl, only to find out that she had a boyfriend, and in my psychology cla** there was this group of popular kids who acted obnoxious the whole time. One of them was a very pretty blonde girl, and she actually enjoyed a**ociating with the obnoxious boys in her clique. The injustice! I hated them all. Everyone treated me like I was invisible. No one reached out to me, no one knew I existed. I was a ghost. It was agony, but I couldn't drop all of my cla**es... I already felt guilty about dropping one of them, and I was afraid that my parents would somehow find out. I skipped cla** a lot, only going in for important lectures and tests, and spent a lot of time at my usual secluded area at the college. As I spent a lot of time contemplating, I realized that my life was repeating itself in a vicious circle of torment and injustice. Each new semester of college yielded the same lonely celibate life, devoid of girls or any social interaction. It was as if there was a curse of misfortune placed upon me. I wondered what the point was in attempting to start a new life in Santa Barbara. Hadn't I done the same at Moorpark? I thought, with a shiver of dread running up my spine, about how horrible it would be if the same thing ends up happening after I make the big move to Santa Barbara. I didn't even want to imagine how much of an epic defeat that would be. I wisely shut away all thoughts about it, and focused with intense determination on how I can change my life right at the current moment. My father gave me a book called The Secret after I had dinner at his house in February. He said it will help me develop a positive attitude. The book explained the fundamentals of a concept known as the Law of Attraction. I had never heard or read anything quite like this before, and I was intrigued. The theory stated that one's thoughts were connected to a universal force that can shape the future of reality. Being one who always loved fantasy and magic, and who always wished that such things were real, I was swept up in a temporary wave of enthusiasm over this book. The prospect that I could change my future just by visualizing in my mind the life I wanted filled me with a surge of hope that my life could turn out happy. The idea was ridiculous, of course, but the world is such a ridiculous place already that I figured I might as well give it a try. In addition, I was so desperate for something to live for that I wanted to believe in the Law of Attraction, even if it was proven to me that it wasn't real. Once I finished reading it, I drove all the way to Point Dume in Malibu and climbed out to the cliffs at the very edge. It was a windy day, and I could see the ocean roiling below me. As night fell, I looked out to the stars and proclaimed to the universe everything I wanted in life. I proclaimed how I wanted to be a millionaire, so I could live a luxurious life and finally be able to attract the beautiful girls I covet so much. I wished to make up for the years of youth that I wasted in bleak loneliness, and by doing so I would get revenge on everyone who thought they were better than me, just by becoming better than them through the accumulation of wealth. I believed that the only way for me to attain this wealth at the time was to win the Lottery, and that is what I visualized doing. I then descended the clifftop on Point Dume and walked along the Malibu ocean, just like I did a couple of months previously at the beach house. I saw a couple walking along the shore ahead of me; the man looked to be in his late 20's or early 30's, and the girl he was walking with looked like a supermodel. I a**umed he was very rich and owned a nice house in Malibu. The two of them were walking hand in hand, and I saw him subtly place his hand on her a** every now and then. He was living the life. He was in heaven. I was envious, but since the man was older than me, it also gave me a twinge of hope, especially after my proclamation to the universe at the clifftop. If I become a multi-millionaire, I would be able to walk on the beach with a beautiful girlfriend too, and my life would be complete. That was what I wanted. That was what I wished for in my future. As I've always believed, I am destined for great things. Becoming a multi-millionaire at a young age is what I am meant for. My faith was soon broken, as I bought a few Megamillions Lottery tickets and visualized myself being the winner. I usually visualized it by meditating on the rooftop of my mother's apartment right at the time of the drawing. A part of me knew it was impossible to will the universe to make me the winner just by wishing for it on a rooftop, but I was so desperate that I wanted to believe I could. I wanted to believe I had the POWER to do it. After failing to win when the jackpot reset because someone else won, I lost all faith in that book, and I almost ripped it apart in frustration. I desperately pondered if there was some other way I could make millions of dollars at my age, but I came up with nothing. I realized that my miserable, lonely virgin life was going to continue, and my only hope was to give Santa Barbara a try. I was still attending Karate cla** with James and Rob Lemelson every week. Most of the time, Rob couldn't make it because he was busy with something, so it was mostly just James and I going together. It was a pleasant Friday night tradition that had lasted for the last several months, and I enjoyed the chance it gave to hang out with James and have some form of social interaction. But lately, things were starting to get tense. I was constantly annoyed at how I wasn't getting better at my karate moves in the cla**, and that one little kid still treated me with disrespect because I was still a white belt, and he was a brown belt. I was also frustrated at how James was so much physically stronger than I was, and how he was so much more sk**ed at karate than me. During sparring sessions, the deep anger inside me that had accumulated over a life of pain and injustice would sometimes come out, and I used my anger to give me an advantage when I sparred with James and the other students. The karate teachers didn't like this, and I was criticized. I found the anger to be quite euphoric when I used it to fight, and I enjoyed it in a bittersweet way. After our karate session, when me and James went to a restaurant in the Palisades to have dinner, I sometimes got very angry when I saw a group of teenagers, or a teenage couple. I constantly talked to James with vehement rage about my envy and anger at such people. I told him about how I wished I could make them all suffer. We had a lot of conversations about what we would do if we had all the power in the world, and I told him about all of the torturous acts of revenge I would carry out against all those who have insulted me or lived a better life than me. I thought that James would relate to me, since he was also a virgin who had no girls in his life, but some of the things I said began to disturb him. One night, he told me, with a lot of distress, that enough was enough. He didn't want to hear it anymore. That was also the night that I decided to quit the karate cla**. I didn't speak to James until the two of us attended Rob Lemelson's birthday party in late Spring. It was celebrated at a very upper cla** restaurant in Los Angeles, and the Lemelson family rented a private room with seven tables for the occasion. The food was absolutely delicious, and the wine was exquisite. Each bottle was from 1985, and probably worth over a thousand dollars each. I was seated next to James at the “young person's table”, and at that table I ran into none other than Julian Ritz-Barr! I hadn't seen him since we were hanging out together with Charlie, John Jo, and Elijah... That was seven years ago. The oaf didn't even remember who I was. I found out that his father was good friends with Rob. When I mentioned him earlier in the story, I talked about how much I would envy him, and this was the night when that happened. There were a few girls at our table, daughters of Rob's friends. One of them was pretty, I believe she was the daughter of Pietro Scalia, a renowned film editor; she had very s**y eyes, and she was tall... I always had a thing for tall girls, and this one was almost taller than me. I had to suffer watching Julian sweet-talk all of the girls. He acted so confidently, and the way the pretty girl looked at him with those s**y eyes of hers... that was a look that no girl ever gave to me. I could tell that she was attracted to him. I became more enraged with each second I had to suffer through this. The girls treated me like I was invisible, but they all paid attention to Julian. What made it even worse was that Julian was a year younger than me, and he acted like an obnoxious prick, but the girls liked it! The more enraged I became, the more wine I drank. James was probably worried about how angry I was getting, and he tried to strike up random conversations with me to distract me from Julian. It was very hard to help myself from getting up and dumping my wine all over Julian's stupid head. Perhaps I would have... if the birthday cake wasn't presented so early. Everyone stood up to sing happy birthday to Rob, and then the meal was over. Some of the guests left, and James and I switched to a different table. By the time the party was over, I had consumed eight gla**es of that 1985 wine. I was underage, but no one seemed to notice me drinking. I was literally stumbling out of the restaurant. I saw James again a couple of weeks later, and that would be the last time I see him for quite a while. It was at another dinner party of Rob's that he held at his house in the Palisades, though for no special occasion. This time, another person who was a target of my extreme jealousy was there; his name was Roy, an Indonesian boy who was the son of Rob's housemaid. He was four years younger than me and James, and he took pleasure in bragging to us about his success with girls. He kept showing us pictures of his supposed texting conversations with girls. James didn't seem to mind it, to my outraged surprise. I, on the other hand, could barely tolerate the insolent little worm. At the party, James and I frequently went outside to have conversations about our fantasies. I wisely refrained from getting too extreme in what I said, but we came up with some interesting scenarios. For instance, we talked about what we would do if we discovered that we had certain magical powers, and it would escalate to us coming up with our own stories of the glory we would attain in such a situation. I talked about how I would use my powers to rule the world and set everything right, and James had similar ideas as well. We seemed to be getting along quite well, but after that night James would refuse to contact me for a couple of months. The first episode of my favorite television series of all time, Game of Thrones, was released in April. I watched it with profound excitement. Being a fan of the books, this was a very anticipated event for me. Seeing all of the characters that I knew so well on the television screen was spectacular. The show exceeded all of my expectations. Each week I looked forward to the next episode, and each episode gave me a small hint of joy in my otherwise bleak life. Towards the end of my Spring semester at Moorpark, I was so frustrated with my lonely status at the college that I refused to even drive up there in the last few weeks. I left my home in the mornings, pretending to my mother that I was going to college, but instead I went to Barnes & Noble and sat there until my mother left for work, and then I would go back home. I made sure to stay at Barnes & Noble for at least two hours, just in case my mother left later than usual. I have always ever been meticulously careful at everything I've done. On the last day, I went to my cla**es, quickly took my final exams, and left. When my cla**es lined up for the final exams, everyone had a group to socialize with while I stood on the side, alone. Everyone must have thought I was a complete loser. Thank goodness it was the last day. The people in those cla**es angered me to no end. That was the last time I would ever see that college. On the drive home, I cried to myself as I listened to music on the radio, as I always did. I failed to get the life I wanted at Moorpark. I had nothing going for me in my life, except for the prospect of starting a new life in Santa Barbara. That was my only hope, and it seemed very bleak. From the way things went at Moorpark, I feared the worst for how things might turn out in Santa Barbara, but I had to give it a try. I was desperate to have the life I know I deserve; a life of being wanted by attractive girls, a life of s** and love. Other men are able to have such a life... so why not me? I deserve it! I am magnificent, no matter how much the world treated me otherwise. I am destined for great things. At the end of Spring I had to commence with my summoning to jury service. I received the summons in the mail a few months prior, but I postponed it until May because I was too anguished to deal with such trivial matters at the time. The Courthouse was all the way in Santa Monica. As I sat in the waiting room before my interview with the judge, I saw a very pretty girl who looked about the same age as I was. She had a face that melted my heart. What I would give to hold her in my arms and kiss that pretty face of hers... I wanted to talk to her, but I just couldn't. I felt too insecure. I was afraid she would think of me as a creep, as all other girls did. To my fury, another guy came in and struck up a conversation with her. They started talking comfortably, and he even made her laugh! I had to watch it all, and it broke my heart. I wanted to get out of there as soon as I could. I hoped that I could make an excuse to avoid having to do jury service. When I was called in for the interview, I requested to be excused due to the fact that I was moving to Santa Barbara soon. To my relief, the judge told me I can go and wished me good luck. As I drove out of the Courthouse parking lot, I saw the same pretty girl. She must have been excused as well. Again, I wished I could have said something to her. She would have made the perfect girlfriend for me, but she was probably already attracted to that other guy who sweet-talked her in the waiting room. Damn him! I felt so sad on the drive home. When I pa**ed by the Palisades, I stopped by at a park that I used to play at with James when the two of us were little. I walked around for a bit and took a ride on the swing, reminiscing about happier times. At the very end of May, my mother gave me an unpleasant surprise by telling me that I had to move to Santa Barbara on June 4th, which was just in a few days. I wasn't prepared to move so soon. I thought I would go there towards the end of June, right before I start my summer cla**. I wanted more time to emotionally and mentally prepare for such a huge undertaking. And it was a huge undertaking. For the first time in my life, I was moving out of my parent's house; and on top of that, I had to move into an apartment with other college students. I had no idea what to expect, and of course I was very nervous. My mother and I found two apartment complexes in Isla Vista that I could potentially move into. I went with my mother and father on a day trip to Santa Barbara to take a look at them. We first had lunch at a restaurant on Cliff Drive, and while there I admired how beautiful Santa Barbara truly was. I found it to be like a mixture of Malibu and Santa Monica, depending on what part of it I was in. I was astounded when we toured through Isla Vista. It was a whole town of college students living together, right next to UCSB, and right next to the beach. I had never seen anything like it in my life. When I read about it online I thought it was too good to be true, but there it was. It was exactly as I expected it to be. There were hot blonde girls walking around everywhere. I always theorized that one of the main hindrances to me living the life I desire was my situation of living in my mother's apartment. I thought to myself, as we explored more of this college town, that if I lived there, then there was no way I would have trouble getting a social life and losing my virginity. It was the perfect environment to do so. If I can't get laid there, then there is no hope for me at all. The first apartment building we looked at was pleasant, but they only had shared rooms, and I wanted my own room. The second apartment building was called Capri Apartments, and they had a setup of many two-bedroom apartments shared between three college students, in which one occupies the single room and the other two occupy the shared room. The single rooms cost more, of course, but it wasn't much. My parents and I sat down at a café to talk about it. We agreed that Capri Apartments was the best choice. My mother went back to their office to arrange a lease deal. Capri was a very popular apartment complex, so it was hard to get a spot there so late in the year. They didn't have any Autumn semester apartment units ready until July, so it was arranged that I would stay in a temporary apartment unit for the first month, and then move to a permanent one in July once it was ready. The lease was signed and the deal was set. I was going to move to Santa Barbara on June 4th. My mother was very adamant that I move on that particular date. She said it was because she wanted me to go there and settle in before college started, but I knew the real reason. She always wanted me out of her house because she hated having to deal with me. The Santa Barbara plan would free her of me, and she wanted that so badly that she was willing to pay $900 a month for my apartment room rent. Basically, she was paying money to get rid of me. I realized that once I moved out, there was no going back. It will set a precedent, and the threshold will be crossed. My mother will never welcome me back to live with her permanently ever again. In the remaining days I had at my mother's apartment, I spent a lot of time meditating about how I would deal with this huge change. I had to prepare myself as much as possible, so I did a lot of introspecting and evaluated myself in great detail. This move to Santa Barbara was the only chance I had of attaining the life I desire. I had to do my best to make this work, proclaiming to myself that this time, I will not fail. I exercised in the gym for many hours to boost my confidence as much as possible, and I went to the mall to shop for clothes. Last Christmas I got a few gift cards for Macy's, and I spent them all on a few shirts that I thought I would look good in, as well as new shoes. After doing everything I could do to physically boost my confidence and appearance, I was ready. And so ends another era of my extraordinary and tragic life. I call it the era of Hope and Hopelessness, where I drifted and languished in lonely despair while I lived at my mother's apartment and attended two colleges. At various intervals, something happened to give me a new hope for my life, only to have it shattered later on. My life had been moving in that same pattern for a long time now, and I was sick and tired of it. All while I was suffering this lonely existence, other boys my age lived their happy lives of pleasure and s**. I can never forgive such an injustice, and it was my bid to overcompensate for it in the future. I had to make up for all the years I lost in loneliness and isolation, through no fault of my own! It was society's fault for rejecting me. It was women's fault for refusing to have s** with me. The move to Santa Barbara is the endgame, the ultimate climax of everything. I saw it as a new chance that was given to me to finally have the things I want in life: love, s**, friends, fun, acceptance, a sense of belonging. But I could never forgive the world for denying me such things in the past. I was already turning twenty soon. I had already lost many years of my life. I deserve better than that. I am an intelligent gentleman, and I deserve the love of girls more than the other obnoxious boys of my age, and yet they get girls and I don't. That is a crime that can never be forgotten, nor can it be forgiven. I always wanted to exact my revenge on humanity for forcing me to live such a life, but I've also always had the hope that if I can do things in life to make up for all my suffering, then that in itself would be a form of peaceful revenge. In truth, the move Santa Barbara was actually a chance that I was giving to the world, not the other way around! I was giving the world one last chance to give me the life that I know I'm entitled to, the life that other boys are able to live with ease. If I still have to suffer the same rejection and injustice even after I move to Santa Barbara, then that will be the last straw. I will have my vengeance.