Facebook and Facing Up…

Self-loathing, meet Ken.

Ken, meet self-loathing.

Oh, you don’t need to introduce us. We’re well acquainted…

So, I’m getting my emails this morning and there’s a friend request from Facebook. If you’re not on Facebook, you should be. If, however, you want to remain undisturbed by the nightmares of your past, you shouldn’t be… really…

So, this person says to me, “You were the coolest guy I knew in high school.”

The coolest guy? Was this person on drugs?

On top of that, I have no idea who he is – so I don’t know what kind of person would send such a thing, would say such a thing, because I’m not cool – I never was! I’m an abject failure who never lived up to all of the…

Whoops.

All of these thoughts poured out of my head, just sitting there in front of the email.

Hate yourself much, Ken?

Is it possible not to hate yourself but just to hate how you turned out? If so, that’s me. And I can’t look at this email without thinking, “Liar.” This guy’s adulation looks to me more like accusation, like mockery, like the worst insult you could possibly pay. It’s like he’s saying, “You thought you were so cool back then but look at you now. You’re nothing.” And he’d be right.

So, what am I going to do? Ignore this guy, just like I’ve ignored the other people from high school who have found me over the past twenty-or-so odd years… and hope he goes away…

I don’t know. They say you have to be really tough to take all the rejection a writer’s life brings you but I’ll tell you the truth. After twenty-five years of almost constant rejection, living on unemployment checks and my wife’s good will, nothing more than a phantom of the person people expected me to be, I just want to crawl into a hole…