Lately, I’ve been noticing a general trend of warmth and emotional support in my reader feedback: an overwhelming spring of compassion for my recent string of unfortunate circumstances. And I want you to know that it comes from the bottom of my heart when I say, thank you…and I love you…now cut it out.

I don’t write these stories as a well articulated outlet of self-pity. I don’t post them so I can be assured that “it’s all going to be okay” by individuals who really have no factual basis for such an assumption. You don’t know that. I could be lying paralyzed in a ditch at this very moment, as a stray dog fires a hot stream of syphilitic urine into my empty eye socket. Go ahead and try to disprove it. You can’t.

I write these stories because they’re true. And I post them because fuck me, right? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being the center of attention just as much as the next self-indulgent dick stain. But fishing for sympathy by bitching about your problems on a public forum is a cheap way to get it. If I was ever truly having a hard time in life, I can promise, that you would not be learning about it here (or at all). I may be an attention whore, but I’m a high end attention whore. I need the good shit. That pure, uncut adoration, that can only come from working hard at being awesome.

I publicize my craft, not my problems. For example, in the event that my parents die before me—which I hope they do, for the sake of their own sanity—99% of you will not hear it from me. I could lock myself in a room and write 20 tear-smudged, whiskey-stained pages, but not a word of it will see the light of day.* No, my emotions are typically vented one of two ways. The first, is a fifth of Jack and two dozen text messages to an ex-girlfriend, which will become progressively less coherent, leaving me with an overwhelming urge to kick myself in the dick. The second, is Oreos, peanut butter, and furious, animalistic crank sessions of such length and depravity that I lose all sense of human decency.**

The point is, I keep it to myself. Because I’m a man, and I have the common courtesy to be ashamed of my feelings. Pain is unavoidable. As a human being, if you’re not in some form of pain, then you’re probably on some top notch narcotics…or moments away from freezing to death. So, when I write that the lowest point of my trip (so far) was when I was sitting on my suitcase on a random Korean street corner, as the drops self-loathing streamed down my cheeks, because I had just left my wallet in a taxi…don’t feel bad. And if I tell you that the reason these blog posts fall off the map for long periods of time is because I’m prone to slip into minor existential depressions that sap all sense of motivation and self-purpose, please do not attempt to reassure me. Seriously…I’m good…and nothing will make me more uncomfortable.

Footnotes:

*Unless it’s brilliant. Then I’ll wait six months.

**Side note to all of my aunts, uncles, and friends of the family who I gave this web address to before leaving. I tried to warn you. You insisted.