the unkissed man (2-1) the school
What was your social life like when you were growing up? Were you bullied in high school? What was it about you that made the other kids dislike you?
I did have some friends, but I still got beat up and teased and
on a regular basis because of how I looked. I was such an easy target. I was this rail-thin nerd whose left eye was
up and who
cardboard in his shoes to make himself look taller. As if that weren't enough I had crooked teeth,
all over his face and really bad BO. It was like I was asking for it. Also, I was always exhausted. I was afraid to sleep when my father was
so I'd sit on my bed until I heard him snore and knew it was safe to go to sleep. One time I
asleep sitting up and hit my eye on a knob on the bedpost. That's how I hurt my left eye. I had to walk around with my head
for about a month. That didn't help my
, as you can probably guess. One more thing for the kids to make fun of.
What did you do when you left school? Did you enrol in college right away?
I had a really hard time finding work after high school. I don’t have the kind of face that
people want to hire me, or trust me. I would show up for a job interview, I would
get a word out and and they were already
of me. I could tell just by the way they were looking at each other. So I ended up living with my grandmother up until I was about 30. I felt trapped with no way out. I got a job as a telemarketer but I soon figured out it was a
and I quit. Then I waited tables and washed dishes for a while, but I didn't want to be
doing that for the rest of my life,
. So finally I went to college to study computer programming when I was 32.
So you were a 32-year-old college student? What was campus life like? Did you fit in? Did you make any friends?
It was hell. I mean, it wasn't as bad as high school, but it still
. I felt like a total freak. Everyone was dating and hitting on each other and switching partners and I might as well have been invisible. If I got attracted to a woman and tried to
her up, my mind would just go
and I couldn’t think of anything interesting to say. I tried really hard to fit in and make friends, but I just kept getting brushed off or overlooked. I don't think anyone missed me when I finally
out.