Lies to Himself had a son, Masochism. They lived together in the harmony that only the deluded can. Masochism moved in after he flunked out of his freshman year in college. His father never supervised, guided, or checked on his child because it “isn’t my problem.” He did, however, exhibit signs that he cared for the boy, but not enough to even attempt the “do as I say not as I do” irony of some parents.

Masochism was walking the plank that was fast becoming his lifestyle by following his father’s example of drinking and smoking and hating himself and his life. Lies to Himself allowed his son to wallow in his own variation of suicide because if he could not find a way out for himself, how could he show his son where to go, or how to live healthier, or simply how to live.

Masochism bumped up the quantity of packs a day that he smoked and switched from beer to a bottle of vodka a day to numb himself from a relationship that ended during his freshman year at college. They had been sweethearts in high school with grades of A and dreams of success and a future that looked as golden as her hair. But the intensity of Masochism’s love for his girlfriend changed into something darker as he compared himself to the other young freshmen who strutted the campus with their own high school A’s and no girlfriends to keep their eyes from straying to his own beloved’s lovely form. His trust turned to mistrust, as his thoughts grew darker. Her desire to hang with her new friends strained the very sanity of Masochism until he was provoked into calling her twenty and thirty times a day, texting her every hour on the hour, and seeing her fail to immediately respond to reassure him of her constant and undying love, he started skipping class to stalk her. He tried to walk her to each and every class, to see to her meals in her dorm cafeteria, and refused to believe his beloved’s dorm roommates and her new girlfriends that she was indeed in class and was ever true. It must not be so as she seemed so happy and carefree, enjoying college while he was dark and miserable inside.

In a panic one night, Masochism crossed a line by scaling the outside wall of her dorm to gain access into her second story window. Frightened to death before the three roommates could understand who it was, Campus Security was called, the girls hustled out of their room in their pajamas to stand huddled it the hall while a drunk and viciously upset Masochism misundertanding these men in his girlfriend's room, tried to keep the male Security guards from his beautiful beloved who he now had proof was cheating on him.  Why else would these two big men in those handsome blue uniform's with tasers and walkie-talkies be in her room if not to have a dangerous liason with her?

His girlfriend called her parents in tears, afraid to speak to Masochism. “He’s changed so.” Her father drove to the campus and, with Masochism’s father and a counselor present, tried to explain to Masochism why his behavior was, ah, ummm, unorthodox. Masochism’s girlfriend had her father stand beside her while she tearfully told him she wanted to break up, her reasoning being, “I’m afraid of you.”

Masochism hated college after that, hated the other students, hated the very idea of it. College had taken his one true love. Oh, sad day it was when Masochism loaded his car with his belongings and followed his father to the dreary apartment. When questioned about his broken relationship, Masochism would rail against fate and whomever commiserated with him saying, “You don’t know what this feels like! You haven’t suffered a loss like this! No one knows my pain! I love her! I’ll love her forever!” The screamed statement that had the majority of his friends running for cover, to cover their expressions of frustration, was, “No one has loved and lost like I have, now get away from me!”

And so they complied.   Masochism was left with a life of cigarettes, booze, a dead-end job making and serving sandwiches at a fast food establishment, and a nowhere life with his father. Masochism was a chip off the old case of cigarettes with regards to the filth he lived in. This was truly a case of nurture over nature. Through the smoke of their apartment, they occasionally looked at each other, sometimes talked at each other but seldom to each other. Upon occasion there was genuine concern from Lies to Himself for Masochism but the reciprocal of that emotion did not appear to be there. Masochism ignored his father's cruelly slow, suicidal habits by leapfrogging into his own slippery slope towards a heinously slow death. Masochism drank quantities of vodka and smoked more packs than his father’s airways could manage. He cared not one bit for himself or his own personal well-being. He was a devastated young man who was being forced to live because he did not believe in killing himself though he talked about being dead inside quite a lot.

One of his friends who tried hanging in there in spite of the verbal abuse hurled his way when he offered his support called a suicide hotline once to ask for advice. Not being Masochism’s parent or even a family member, all that was suggested to this would-be friend was to orchestrate an intervention. Gather caring friends, as many as you can, and in an environment of love and concern and a refusal to be upset with any anger coming from Masochism, be there for him, hear him, and try to get him to help himself.  Promise you will ride this out with him and together you will come through the other side of this sorrow.

Supposed you gave an intervention and nobody came? Do you believe me? You’d better. That’s exactly what happened. No one came. Masochism and his last remaining faithrul friend were left to stare at each other. The friend was upset and confused by the lack of response to something he felt was of critical importance. Masochism took a pull on his vodka bottle and opened his fourth pack that day and told his friend to “() get out and never come back.”

This poor faithful friend did indeed leave but he calls Lies to Himself once a week to see if Masochism is still alive.  He says, "It's my way to see if my calls will prod his father into really seeing his son, and to see if the prayers for him need to change from praying for the living to praying for the dead." 

Masochism hates his job. Head sandwich maker was not his first dream. When his boss wanted him to “smile more and be more pleasant to the customers,” Masochism simply dropped his “tone,” but came home and slammed through the dark apartment saying, “() what does he want? I () go to work and do my () job. The place is () clean. The sandwiches are () made. Why do I have to () smile?” This was his logic with regards to his job and it stands to reason that if he needed to ask why he needed to smile at his customers then it cannot be explained to him.

Limited vocabulary of cuss words notwithstanding, Masochism was actually a very smart boy. Remember the high school A’s? They didn’t vanish. In the odd moment, the boy could be eloquent about what he’d suffered, accept the blame, and almost dream of a better life. But then some thought would crawl across his brain and he would once again turn back into the soulless little pig who built his house out of his fragile ego. Little by little his intelligence and abstract cognitive processing abilities started suffering the slow slide into dormancy from his attitude that life was cruel to him and there was nothing he could do that “wouldn’t go wrong so why bother.”

And then he was introduced to his current girlfriend, the Rolly Polly Princess of Power. (Still censoring myself and that was the clearest yet most sanitized name I could come up with.)

This relationship deserves its own hub so, my dear voyeuristic reader, I will stop here and move on to, oh, gosh, part four already? Well, to be fair, a cautionary tale of woe needs to be a little longer so the full extent of the lesson can be learned. I hope you stay with me, my friend. The haz-mat suit holding up? Good. Let’s continue on to Part Four.