I always felt like the Outsider my entire life, never fitting in with groups whose approval I secretly craved (but always being stubborn enough that I had to be accepted by them on MY terms, not theirs) in a town where people are by nature exclusive, parochial and cliquish toward those they consider not good enough to hang around in their company. At least now I am aware of the fact I had an even greater handicap to belonging with such people. Scarred for life by my failures and unable to forget them, I now sit here alone unable to change my circumstances, unable to get any job I could enjoy, unable to make any connection with any woman that might (on the slimmest of chances) be attracted to me. The older I get, the pickier I get about women, but with age comes the growing unsuitability in their eyes and more limited options I will not settle for as the world expects me to. Despite being a 44-year-old virgin (honesty, dear reader, are you surprised by this fact), I am expected to accept some human female with far greater romantic baggage than I have ever accumulated - the single never-been-married but still got knocked up by some other man mothers, the divorced mother or single women, the widows who will always say their dead husbands are far superior to someone like me, and other assorted picture postcards I am unwilling to buy off the rack.
If most of my posts here sound bitter, I cannot fake being happy-go-lucky. If I am dissatisfied, I will either keep it to myself where the emotion quietly festers into an impenetrable blackness, or will passive-aggressively whine and complain. I wish I had the swagger of some entertainment industry mavericks - the kind of men like, for example, actors Charlie Sheen or Jack Nickolson - who don't give a f**k who they offend with their outrageous behavior. That's what I wanted the John X. Grey persona to have just a tiny amount of so I could approach the world with the slightest of self-confidence I do not actually possess. I wanted not to be thought of as an asshole, but just someone who doesn't take crap from most people and smile with a crap-eating grin. However, in the Sight of God, that sort of personal behavior is unacceptable even in tiny doses, and it must explain why He seems to curse all my professional endeavors with chronic mistakes on my part and a clear ineptitude toward breaking into the pubishing industry. Few people if any read my novels, fewer than that even care to. I might as well never have bothered to write one novel or short story starting back in 1999. I started too late in life to succeed at this labor before becoming too old to enjoy any success it might enjoy.
Of course, and some who know me (if they do at all) might agree, the main reason I'm an Outsider forever looking in at the lavish banquet I will never be invited to in this world or the fabulous party where everyone is enjoying themselves is - I'm no fun to be around (in case the previous paragraphs did not adequately convey the darkness that is my personality). The very people I wanted to be friends with that rejected me in the past obviously observed or sensed that about me and shunned my presence around theirs accordingly. As with other factors in life, I wanted acceptance on MY TERMS, not theirs, even though clearly a beggar at their doorsteps seeking approval from folks I couldn't stand based on their personalities and interests. The only way I could've gotten into their rarified soclal circles would have been to literally be a different, better person overall especially in terms of personal charisma, or literally possessed the supernatural ability to control the minds and reactions of others for gaining their acceptance as their friend.
I now conclude this bitter tirade few if any will ever read, the painful memories even now knotting in my intestines to never go away and preventing me from ever having a happy life in this rotten, fallen sinful world. My death would be a welcome release from a life in which I seem incapable of serving God, my fellow humans, anyone or anything else. I am a broken person God seems unwilling to fix even though He has the power.