Nice Guys Finish Last

I remember when I was younger, around 17 through about 26 years old I was lucky enough to be able to date a variety of some really beautiful and desirable girls. Gee whiz, some didn't even make it to the "date" stage, our raging hormones were so urgent and strong. Regardless, I think I was too much of a straight shooter in that, I didn't get any of these girls pregnant. I practiced "safe" sex and was very careful not to make a "mistake".

Many of my less responsible friends and relatives however, were not nearly so careful and ended up fathering a few children here and there, much to the initial horror of their parents. It's not like they ended up working in a coal mine the rest of their lives either. Job opportunities magically appeared, not like when I graduated from college and I couldn't even get a job interview the first year. If you have a kid with somebody, trust me they're not going to let you sit there with no job offers. Somebody somewhere will know of some opportunity for you to work and help pay for that child.

Several decades later, I now find myself regretting my carefulness as my aforementioned acquaintance's children are gleefully shown in pictures by their "illegitimate" parents on various social media sites attending their high school reunions and weddings and everything else that normally happens to young people coming of age. All that early drama is long forgotten while "responsible" guys like myself are left out of all that fun stuff.

Nobody cares how "responsible" I was. "Oh Kurt we so admire you for not having a kid out of wedlock". Bullshit. They just think I'm a weirdo, for not having any kids. Don't be a responsible idiot. The goal is to father at least one child while you are young and in demand and strike while the iron is hot, or you'll be left out of the mix, wondering what might have been.

The end.

Sincerely,

Me

Rich Kids

I've been getting some pictures sent to me lately, from people I went to high school or college with, of their grown children at their engagement parties or their graduations. Now most of these people I haven't heard from in years and probably aren't really friends but are more like acquaintances, acquaintances that have always been very jealous and competitive with me through the years, for whatever reason. I'm sure it's a thinly veiled complement if they're bothering to tell me about their accomplishments at this late date in life.

The thing is when I graduated, a number of my classmates had a lot of family support and received a good bit of help starting out. I know of more than a few that received huge chunks of cash to help them get off to a good start. One received $50,000 and a little house to boot. This was a lot of money back in the mid 1980's. Well of course they're going to be successful at something with that kind of start. Most still needed a couple of decades before they had any degree of "success". My parents on the other hand fought me every inch of the way, for whatever reason, but they were quite happy when I was still fairly broke ten years after graduation.

The classmates that were successful right off and got into the right occupations for their particular skills, curiously they never bothered to send me pictures of their kids or mansions or pools or any of that. They were too busy making money.

Regardless, if you haven't heard from someone in several years and suddenly out of the blue you get a picture of them accomplishing something big, most likely they're still trying to impress you after all these years, which is a complement, even if it doesn't feel like it.