Before I get into the story, some necessary background: My class organized a trip to Barcelona. I desperately didn’t want to go. I begged my parents to let me stay home, but they forced me, saying it would be “good for me” and that I needed to “experience life.” I’ve always been decent at “playing normie” (masking my discomfort, forcing smiles, and blending in just enough to maintain a few surface-level friendships over the ten years we’ve been together). But these prolonged school events are pure torture. I can only wear the mask for so long before it cracks.
On the third day they dragged us to the beach. I don’t even hate the beach itself. I lift regularly, so my body is at least passable. But that didn’t matter. The girls in my class were magnetically drawn to the taller, more attractive guys, laughing, flirting, touching their arms, while I might as well have been invisible. Or worse: when their eyes did land on me, I saw pure disgust. That quiet, visceral rejection you can feel in your bones.
Then it got even crueler. Some guy from class thought it would be hilarious to shove me straight into one of the girls “as a joke.” She recoiled as if I were diseased. She started screaming, literally crying in front of everyone, while her friends rushed to comfort her like I had assaulted her. The laughter that followed… . I became the class clown, the designated joke, the thing to point at and ridicule. And for what? Because I’m ugly. Because I’m short. Because the genetic lottery decided I should be born wrong.
That night I barely slept.
The fourth night was the breaking point. We went to noisy bars to watch football. The place was packed with drunk, sweaty people, slop everywhere, fake laughter, primal screaming at the screens. The sensory overload was unbearable. I felt like an alien observing a species I could never join. On the edge of tears, I told our female teacher I needed to go back to the hotel. She refused. “This is a good opportunity to grow up and be part of the group,” she said with that condescending smile. So I stayed.
Everyone got plastered. I bought two beers but barely touched them because alcohol has never been my escape. Then one of my so-called friends, completely wasted, started yelling that he’d buy shots for the entire group. I tried to stop him; it wasn’t right to let him blow all his money like that. That’s when she appeared again, the same girl from the beach. She blocked me, stared into my eyes with pure contempt, and told her boyfriend (the guy literally everyone hates but who can throw punches) to “handle” me.
I tried to explain calmly. She cut me off: “It’s not your problem.” Then she signaled him. He shoved me hard to the ground. Pride or stupidity made me get back up and swing. I actually landed some decent hits. But it didn’t matter. He pushed me down again, and this time I couldn’t get up. My “friends” tried to intervene but were too drunk to even stand straight. I lay there on the filthy bar floor while the world kept laughing and cheering at the game.
Why her? Why me? Why is it always me?
This endless cycle of rejection and cruelty feels almost predetermined. As Schopenhauer observed, life is driven by a blind, insatiable Will, and those who are weak, ugly, or ill-equipped are simply crushed under its wheel so the stronger may thrive. Nietzsche spoke of the Übermensch and the will to power, but what about those of us born without any power to begin with? We’re not even allowed to participate in the game; we’re the cautionary tales, the grotesque background characters meant to highlight the beauty of others.
Camus wrote about the Absurd, the confrontation between our desire for meaning and a silent, indifferent universe. But this feels worse than absurdity. It feels engineered. Society pretends to value kindness and equality, yet the moment you deviate from the narrow ideal of height, face, and status, the mask slips and the primal hierarchy reasserts itself with savage honesty.
I keep asking myself: is there any escape from this? Or is suffering, for some of us, simply the default state, the tax paid for existing in a world that never wanted us here in the first place?
I don’t know anymore. I just know the pain is real, and it never seems to end.
If God is real, I wish him death.
If this is His design, this cruel hierarchy of faces and heights, this endless spectacle where the ugly exist only to be stepped on, then He is no benevolent creator. He is the ultimate sadist, watching His defective creations writhe for His amusement. Better that such a God die than continue presiding over this slaughterhouse of souls.
And if He isn’t real… then the universe itself is just a cold, indifferent machine grinding the weak into dust. Either way, I’m done pretending it’s anything else.
On the third day they dragged us to the beach. I don’t even hate the beach itself. I lift regularly, so my body is at least passable. But that didn’t matter. The girls in my class were magnetically drawn to the taller, more attractive guys, laughing, flirting, touching their arms, while I might as well have been invisible. Or worse: when their eyes did land on me, I saw pure disgust. That quiet, visceral rejection you can feel in your bones.
Then it got even crueler. Some guy from class thought it would be hilarious to shove me straight into one of the girls “as a joke.” She recoiled as if I were diseased. She started screaming, literally crying in front of everyone, while her friends rushed to comfort her like I had assaulted her. The laughter that followed… . I became the class clown, the designated joke, the thing to point at and ridicule. And for what? Because I’m ugly. Because I’m short. Because the genetic lottery decided I should be born wrong.
That night I barely slept.
The fourth night was the breaking point. We went to noisy bars to watch football. The place was packed with drunk, sweaty people, slop everywhere, fake laughter, primal screaming at the screens. The sensory overload was unbearable. I felt like an alien observing a species I could never join. On the edge of tears, I told our female teacher I needed to go back to the hotel. She refused. “This is a good opportunity to grow up and be part of the group,” she said with that condescending smile. So I stayed.
Everyone got plastered. I bought two beers but barely touched them because alcohol has never been my escape. Then one of my so-called friends, completely wasted, started yelling that he’d buy shots for the entire group. I tried to stop him; it wasn’t right to let him blow all his money like that. That’s when she appeared again, the same girl from the beach. She blocked me, stared into my eyes with pure contempt, and told her boyfriend (the guy literally everyone hates but who can throw punches) to “handle” me.
I tried to explain calmly. She cut me off: “It’s not your problem.” Then she signaled him. He shoved me hard to the ground. Pride or stupidity made me get back up and swing. I actually landed some decent hits. But it didn’t matter. He pushed me down again, and this time I couldn’t get up. My “friends” tried to intervene but were too drunk to even stand straight. I lay there on the filthy bar floor while the world kept laughing and cheering at the game.
Why her? Why me? Why is it always me?
This endless cycle of rejection and cruelty feels almost predetermined. As Schopenhauer observed, life is driven by a blind, insatiable Will, and those who are weak, ugly, or ill-equipped are simply crushed under its wheel so the stronger may thrive. Nietzsche spoke of the Übermensch and the will to power, but what about those of us born without any power to begin with? We’re not even allowed to participate in the game; we’re the cautionary tales, the grotesque background characters meant to highlight the beauty of others.
Camus wrote about the Absurd, the confrontation between our desire for meaning and a silent, indifferent universe. But this feels worse than absurdity. It feels engineered. Society pretends to value kindness and equality, yet the moment you deviate from the narrow ideal of height, face, and status, the mask slips and the primal hierarchy reasserts itself with savage honesty.
I keep asking myself: is there any escape from this? Or is suffering, for some of us, simply the default state, the tax paid for existing in a world that never wanted us here in the first place?
I don’t know anymore. I just know the pain is real, and it never seems to end.
If God is real, I wish him death.
If this is His design, this cruel hierarchy of faces and heights, this endless spectacle where the ugly exist only to be stepped on, then He is no benevolent creator. He is the ultimate sadist, watching His defective creations writhe for His amusement. Better that such a God die than continue presiding over this slaughterhouse of souls.
And if He isn’t real… then the universe itself is just a cold, indifferent machine grinding the weak into dust. Either way, I’m done pretending it’s anything else.
