Every now and then I’m reminded that I don’t have the suckiest life in existence, and there are worst things in this world than being a virginal weenie tot who can’t get a girl to pay attention to him for more than .25 seconds.

The latest reminder came when a friend of mine told me about an old buddy of his who was currently going through a rough patch. Apparently the dude was a few years younger than me, had a wife in her late twenties and a 12 month old kid. In her unmitigated brilliance, the wife decided that a 45 year old hairy ape of a man (unemployed by the way) was somehow more appealing to her than a stable, loyal husband, so she ups and runs away with him.

Naturally, the husband’s a little upset about this. He works in a leadership position at a church, and eventually confided in his senior pastor about his embarrassing marital problem. The pastor (along with the church) did what any loving, caring, modern day Christian church would do when presented with a brother in Christ who was clearly in a lot of pain and grief.

They fired him.

After all, having somebody wailing in the pews like that is just bad publicity for the church, which no doubt needed to maintain its seeker sensitive image of sunshine and happiness and lollipop happy dappy joy joy joyness, lest they should start to lose members (and their tithes.)

It’s nothing personal you know, just business.

By the time my friend caught up with him he was drowning his sorrows in a pool of alcohol at some local bar.

Ahhhh, women and churches. Two of the greatest evils to ever bedevil the days of man. Yeah yeah, I know I’m painting with a widey ass brush there, but dammit, it’s what I do, sugar bear.

On a somewhat more sobering note though, there’s a verse in Scripture I keep getting reminded of whenever I ponder over the misery of my nonexistent dating life (and the plight of the churches today):

“Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many will wax cold.” - Matthew 24:12

Even though I’ve been fixated on the appalling lack of charity women have demonstrated towards me (except the beloved readers of my blog, how I wubs you all), this a disease I think that has really permeated all of society, especially in places where the notion and practice of true love should have been most evident (like say, a church.)

It also explains why I’ve always believed the odds of finding my honey bunny snuggly snookum wugs wouldn’t notably improve if I started attending church again. They are just as cold within as they are without, so really, what would be the point? Hugging a crate full of frozen fish would give me more warmth than these churches do.

Meh, that’s a topic for another day though. In the meantime, suffice it to say, as much as I might express bitterness and vile acidic venom towards all things Christian and womenly, once you dig past that rough, wounded exterior of mine, you’ll find I really am… all about love, baby.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, yeaaaah….

You’re my first, the last, my everything,

My kind of wonderful, that’s what you are!

It’s over, I’ve lost.

After 23 years of rejection, heartaches, unrequited love, enduring the rude, cold treatment of every women I’ve ever been interested in or in love with, I’m tossing in the towel.

My latest failure took away whatever remaining hope I had. Even though we seemed to have so many specific, rare things in common, I only managed to hold her interest for maybe 5 minutes before she decided I just wasn’t worth her attention anymore, and blew me off without warning.

I guess that’s it then. I’ll never experience what it’s like to hold hands with a girl, to kiss her, to hold her in my arms, to tell her how much I love her and care for her, and have her tell me the same. I will be single and alone for the rest of my life, and I’m sure all my enemies will gain immense satisfaction in knowing I will never be happy.

Ah well, I won’t get mad about this. I’ll just get even.

After all, if ya gotta go, go with a smile!

HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaay beeeeeeeeeee
If I praaaaaaaaaay eveeeeeeerry niiiiiiiight,
You’ll come back tOoOoOoooOooOoOo meeeeeeeeee! 

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaay beeeeeeeeeee
If I crrrrry eveeeeeeeeeeeeryday,

You’ll come back toOOoOoooooOOO staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay,
OooOoOooOhhhh, maybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

****************************

I’ve prayed and prayed,
To the Lord,
To send you back myyyyyyyyy looooOOOoooOve,

Buuuuuuut instead, you came to meeeeeeeeeee,
OoOoOoOOooOOoOnly in myyyyyyyy dreeeeeeaaaaaams!

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaay beeeeeeeeeee
If I praaaaaaaaaay eveeeeeeerry niiiiiiiight,
You’ll come back tOoOoOoooOooOoOo meeeeeeeeee! 

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaay beeeeeeeeeee
If I crrrrry eveeeeeeeeeeeeryday,

You’ll come back toOOoOoooooOOO staaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay,
OooOoOooOhhhh, maybeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Care to guess what I’ve been praying for lately? 

One of the reasons it’s been so difficult for me to find dates is because I don’t have a very active social life (which is to say, I have no social life whatsoever to speak of.) I used to have a close knit group of friends that carried me through high school and beyond college for a while, but eventually we began to drift apart for various reasons, until one day I found myself living the life of a loner again.

I was never one for attending social gatherings though so I could maybe gain some new friends, mainly because there were, well, people there. And I hated people.

Ok, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hated them, maybe that I just didn’t get along…no I hated them.

Unfortunately, if I was ever gonna meet girls then I was gonna have to go where people were, sooner or later. With a mindset like this, it’s a small wonder why I was always holding out hope that I would meet someone at my job instead. After all, I’m forced to be here, and there were people here too, soooo….

For the longest time I used to entertain fantasies of meeting the girl of my dreams at work, so much that it started taking on a life of its own. I even nailed down what she would look like too: deeply tanned skin, big brown eyes, and luscious brown hair. She would be as sweet as an angel, maybe assigned somewhere close to me so we’d run into each other on a regular basis. Things would be strictly platonic at first, but before I knew it she would eventually warm up to me… and love would blossom out of nothing at all.

Out of nothing at allllll….. Out of nothing at… *ahem* but anyways, that’s how I imagined it. From that we would eventually become engaged, get married, and live happily ever after. Oh how I prayed and begged God that this would all happen for real. My fantasies here were so vivid that I could have weaved a cheap romance novel out of it. Probably could have made some cash from selling it too.

I had been churning over this latest fantasy of mine for a few months, when something weird happened: we got a new coworker assigned near us who had… deeply tanned skin, big brown eyes, and luscious brown hair. I swear you couldn’t make this stuff up. Our department doesn’t attract a lot of young workers to begin with, so just getting another coworker around my age would have been odd unto itself. She was a year older than me, but single and beautiful, and had a mellow, pleasant personality about her. In her previous job she worked with kids who suffered from various disabilities too. It was perfect! My dream was actually coming to life!

Except she hated me.

Well, she didn’t really hate me. She just had no interest in me whatsoever. I tried everything I could think of to woo her too, all in the futile hope that eventually, sooner or later, she would warm up to me in very much the same way her alter ego did in my fantasies. I kept her company when things got quiet during our late shifts. I helped her out whenever she needed to learn something about the job. I helped her find her keys when she had lost them and was freaking out over it, and at her request I burned dozens of her CDs into MP3s so she could use an MP3 player she bought for the gym (even though she didn’t have a computer). I changed my hairstyles, clothing, and yes, I’m ashamed to admit it, during my low points I even tried using TAG body spray (I’m suing those bastards for false advertising by the way.)

Yet despite all my efforts, when it came to asking her out to lunch, or even just coffee, she had no interest at all. The more she blew me off, the more I pined for her love. After a couple of months of this I eventually gave up. I decided I would continue being a nice guy as always, but I resigned myself to the fact that she would never be interested in me. I was just a pathetic loser who could never be good enough for her. My fantasy was not to be.

And that might have been the end of it, except that shortly afterwards she fell madly in love with another coworker, and within a few months they were engaged to be married.

My fantasies were coming to life after all… but for somebody else. Honestly, mere words could not convey the state of my emotions as I watched some little bastard boy enjoy what I previously could only experience in my dreams. Every day I had to come in to work and see those two nuzzling noses or holding hands at a picnic table (just as I envisioned it), and it was all I could do to keep myself from screaming at the top of my lungs and stepping on the gas at a nearby red light hoping an 18 wheeler would plow into me.

The best though was when the wedding itself was soon coming up, and she asked me if I had any suggestions for wedding songs she could use. I ended up making a CD of what I considered to be my most favorite love songs, songs I probably would have picked for my own wedding too. From what I heard my CD turned out to be a big hit, though I wouldn’t know, since I wasn’t invited.

I’m not one for bitterness though, so here’s a toast to their new life together. May their imminent divorce be appallingly messy and violently ugly.

No seriously, I do hope they’ll be happy together, I guess. I don’t begrudge anyone getting married, but for the love of kindness, did it really have to F*&%ING play out EXACTLY like I imagined it???

When I saw that, I guess I went through something of a system shock. My feelings went numb and I succumbed to a state of deep depression. In a way, I had given up on life. I no longer took care of myself, no longer went out as much as I used to. My clothes would get worn and start showing holes, but I didn’t care. I started suffering from health problems, but still I didn’t care. It wasn’t uncommon for me to sleep for 12-15 hours a night, and even then I just had no energy to get out of bed at all. I used to be punctual and on time for work, but I became so lethargic that if I ended up being only 10 minutes late, it was a miracle. It was becoming a regular tradition for me to hit the supermarket the night before my days off from work, stock up on groceries and DVDs from Redbox, then head home and hole up in my bedroom with my tub of popcorn, TV and laptop, where I would stay unmoved in my jammies until it was time to go back to work again.

I became utterly convinced that God hated me. After all, He wasn’t going to simply ignore my prayers here. Nope, He was going to twist and twist and twist the knife in so deep that it would all but ensure my psyche would never recover from this. It was almost like He recorded my fantasies and decided to orchestrate it in real life so that someone else would become the beneficiary of it, right before my very eyes. I mean really, what were the odds of something like that happening, down to even using the same collection of songs I dreamed would be used at my own wedding? (Which I say at the risk of sounding like a weenie girlie boy.) About a billion to one??

Why? Why did I have to endure that? Why did God have to hurt me like this? I know I can be a wiseass and all who deserves to get smacked around every now and then, but this was bafflingly cruel. It’s part of why I’m so slow to get out of bed every day, because I absolutely dread what new punishment He might have in store for me. My pathetic life must be a source of constant amusement for Him.

But… and before you Christian dweebs start berating me here, let me be quick to note that I don’t really believe this now. I know there’s a purpose to everything, and I’ve seen enough to know that for whatever reason God is keeping me safe from a lot of the evil that’s in this world. I guess that goes to show what a foregone conclusion I must be, that in spite of the complete embarrassment I experienced, I still believe God cares for me and has only my best interests in mind. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome?

Still, this one really got to me in a bad way, and even now I’m still nursing the wounds. Just when I think I’ve put it behind me, every now and then somebody will stick a finger in the wound, like when I run into her and she talks about her “husband” (just hearing her say that makes me cringe.) Ironically enough, the most recent jab came from my mother, of all places. My Mom never knew I had a thing for this girl, even though she met her a few times at work. One time we had a conversation afterwards and Mom said, “She is SUCH a sweetheart, Linc! How come you can’t meet somebody nice like her? She would have been PERFECT for you!!”

Poor Mom. She had no idea why I ran out after hearing that and started ripping and chewing on the grass on the front lawn.

Ah well. I guess the only thing that will make the pain go away for good is when I finally do meet someone for real. It’s hard to imagine even after all that how I could still retain hope that somehow, somewhere, she’s out there waiting for me, but I do. I guess I’ll always be a romantic at heart, no matter how loopy I get.

I still fantasize about meeting her though. But trust me, I have learned my lesson. Now I imagine meeting her in scenarios that are so outlandish that they cannot POSSIBLY happen to me in real life, much less to anyone else. Currently I fantasize about meeting her as part of an undercover operation I’m doing for the CIA. Oh, and I have superpowers. And the girl of my dreams is an alien from another planet who gets captured by the U.S. government. We fall in love and I spring her loose, then steal the USS Enterprise starship and together we make our way to the Alpha Centauri system, where we spend many steamy, romantic evenings on the paradise planet of Gimmegoomajamjam.

Let’s see y’all beeotches try to turn THAT one into reality, yo!

Ever since I’ve began to get some feeling back in my hands once I started tying up icepacks to them, a thought occurred to me.

Women are to blame for all of my health issues.

Wait, I’m going somewhere with this. See for guys, when it comes to taking care of ourselves and improving our general health, we’re pretty much… what’s the word, a bunch of schmucks.

We could wake up with the left side of our bodies completely paralyzed, but as long as it doesn’t stop us from getting our clothes on and driving to work, we won’t really think much of it, the same way we won’t concerned much if a car backblows 3 quarts of oil out its exhaust pipes, as long as its considered otherwise drivable. Minor things like half body paralysis (or a black cloud of smoke bellowing out of the engine of a car) don’t really bother us too much, so long as we can still get from Point A to Point B.

Women though, have this tendency where if they so much as suffer a mild discomfort, they’ll go into a complete system shutdown while they conduct extensive full body scans to determine what’s going on. But more importantly, they’ll do that for the people they love too. It’s what helps them make great mothers and doctors.

Unfortunately for me though, Mommy thinks I’m quite old enough to take care of myself now, yet I still have to reminded that there are things out there such as bandages and Tylenol, so no, I don’t have to go to bed with unbandaged scrapes oozing blood onto the spreadsheets, or wail over a pounding headache that a little Motrin IB could have fixed up right away.

Had life not have been so cruel, had I met a special girl early on, she could have kept me healthy, bandaged up my wounds, and kissed all the booboos, especially the one that was in my heart. So I blame women, (or rather the absence of one), for my current plight. You could have fixed me up and made me a better man, but instead, all that’s left of me now is a wounded rabid animal hellbent on ridding this planet of your vile kind. May the skies rain down hellfire and brimstone on all you filthy harlots of Babylon, all because one of you just couldn’t wubs me.

YOU GIRLISH MANIACS!!!! DAMN YOU!!! DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!!

Claire Bear (oops make that Dr. Claire Bear) tagged me with a meme (which longtime readers know is usually a sure prelude to much violence, ranting and whining on my part), BUT… I’ll give her a pass her since it’s a musical meme, which is right down my alley and just the thing needed to calm the savage beast.

The meme calls for taking 19 of your most favorite songs, burning them on 5 CDs to share with 5 other people(?!?!), then posting the playlist on your blog.

Uh, I think I’ll just mention my Top 19 and y’all can take it from there.

The first 10-15 songs were pretty easy to fill, mainly songs I first heard during my high school years that would profoundly shape my musical tastes over the years. I’ve always been a romantic at heart, so it made sense that I’d be drawn to music that expressed the highs and lows of my sometimes turbulent emotions.

The last 4 took some thought, since I was still over by about 5 songs and had to knock a few off the list. Some of the casualties were songs by the Platters, Gloria Estefan and Fleetwood Mac.

After even more consideration, I finally managed to winnow it down to 19 songs, so here they are, The Habitation of Justice’s Top 19 Songs of All Time Playlist, in alphabetical order:

• All Out of Love - Air Supply
• Best of Times - Styx
• Broken Wings - Mister Mister
• Desperado - Eagles
• Every Breath you Take - The Police
• Everything I Do (I do it for you) - Bryan Adams
• Faithfully - Peter Cetera
• Free Fallin’ - Tom Petty
• Glory of Love - Peter Cetera
• I Still haven’t Found What I’m Looking For - U2
• I Wish It Would Rain Down - Phil Collins
• King of Pain - The Police
• Mandolin Rain - Bruce Hornsby and the Range
• Open Arms - Journey
• True Colors - Cyndi Lauper
• When A Man Loves A Woman - Percy Sledge
• When You Love A Woman - Journey
• Worthless Evening - Don Henley
• You’re The Inspiration - Chicago

Update: HOLY COW I can’t believe I accidentally cut out REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling” AHHHHHH, that easily would have made my top 5 list too! OK, scratch off ummm…. Percy Sledge for REO and that should do it for my Top 19.