1. Women and relationships. If I start to really explain this, I will go on for pages and pages. Let's just say I've been turned down, slapped down, ignored, stood up, lied to, lied about, laughed at, and made into the butt of a number of extremely unfunny practical jokes extending all the way back to sixth grade.
Affection? Companionship? I've never known one single solitary goddamned molecule of either, thank you very much. I kept getting told there was someone for me, and it would all work out in the end, so I kept trying. Try though I might, it kept not happening. And it wasn't just that the good stuff didn't happen, the pile of bad stuff just got higher and higher.
I wrote off the possibility a long time ago and have not even considered approaching a woman for I guess I'm up to twelve years now. I don't know what experiences I was supposed to have with women, or how I was supposed to feel, but "interminable desolation that makes me want to write really shitty poetry" surely wasn't it.
2. Myself. Yep, I can admit it. Despite excellent academic history, I work a shift job because I don't have any serious aspirations. I didn't graduate college. I'm overweight, out of shape, undisciplined, have crooked teeth, the list goes on. Oh, I have virtues, but not enough. I sit at home and play video games because I don't have the personality for friendship or romance. My existence is largely empty, devoid of genuine satisfaction. This isn't what I thought I'd be when I was a kid.
3. People. Yeah, I know, "people suck," how original, but there it is. I'm astonished at people's willingness to shut their minds, mortgage their honesty, blame their self-inflicted problems on anything or anyone except themselves, crap on anyone who isn't the same as they are, screw over anything and anyone for marginal advantage, and all those other wonderful things. When you're little you look up to grownups like minor deities. Then you grow up and discover they aren't anywhere near as awesome as you thought.
4. College. I had a categorically miserable time in high school. People told me college was different. I hung on with the hope of a bright future and was *SO* excited when I got there. This was where smart kids would be! Intelligence would be an asset! Everything was going to be better in every way! Of course every adult I knew actively encouraged this delusion.
Within a week I discovered the only changes: There was more alcohol, more drugs, more money, and more cars (none of which I had). With those exceptions, college was exactly fucking like high school: same cliques still deciding I wasn't fit to join, same clowny dumbasses clogging up the works, same vindictive fuckheads making people like me miserable, same unattainable women........That disappointment was the biggest reason I didn't graduate. I had held on so hard, and been let down so far, the string in my back got cut and I just fell to the floor and refused to move.
.........Okay, that's enough of that. I'm getting out of this thread before I shoot myself. =P