Before I get into the blog post, I want to give an update on what’s been going on (and why I’ve been somewhat lax about updating this blog). For the last few weeks, I’ve felt more inspired and productive than ever to build Date Hotter Girls.

As ridiculous as it sounds, something about this company really speaks to me on a very deep level. Even before we’d thought of the name, Date Hotter Girls was what I wanted to do. It gives me a chance to express my creativity in various mediums, put out content that has life-changing potential, and interact with likeminded guys who are motivated to take control of their lives. What could be cooler than that?

Since Thanksgiving, I’ve been going hard in the paint, working long hours to cultivate and shape the vision and direction of the company. In all honesty, I have a long road ahead of me, as I think it’ll take at least a year of working like this before I have everything in place the way I want it.

But the reward will be well worth it. I’ll be sitting on a company that I believe represents my complete vision of learning to become successful in dating. I don’t want to be all hypey and list off the tantalizing projects I’ve been working on, but let’s just say big things are in the works!

On that note, I want to focus today’s blog on a dark period of my life. In fact, it’s probably the darkest time I’ve ever had to live through. Not to be too dramatic, but I really saw a fork in the road: I could give up or I could fight with every ounce of my being.

This truly was the moment I sealed my fate, where I made a decision to take control of my life and stop giving a fuck what anyone else thought or said about me. If it weren’t for that summer, I wouldn’t be here, writing these words.

As I see it my life began when I stopped giving a fuck. Painful as that dark, dark summer was, I’d live through it a million more times if I came out in the end the way I am now.

But, holy fuck…what a painful summer it was.

I was only 12 years old at the time: the age where you’re just adult to enough to have complex emotions, but still child enough to be foolish. I’d been insecure my entire life, having grown up “the fat kid” in my small Long Island town.

I’d done absolutely nothing of note with my life up until that point other than befriend what I considered to be the “cool kids” of my school year. Even though I was always just a tag-along, I was grateful for that. To feel accepted by people I thought were important meant more to me than anything. In other words, I based my life on giving a fuck—giving a huge fuck.

One day, the cool kids decided to stop accepting me. To this day, I’m not even completely sure what their reason was. I was tragically uncool, which probably had a lot to do with it. Though, for it to suddenly just come to a flashpoint like that makes me think it was probably something I inadvertently perpetuated.

Whatever the reason, the exact moment my heart was smashed to bits happened when I’d called one of these cool kids. He told me some excuse why he couldn’t hang out. I remember something in his voice bothering me enough that I went out to take a walk. On this walk, I bumped into him as well as all the other cool kids. Their faces said it all: I wasn’t welcome in the group anymore.

Writing this as a 28-year old, I feel incredibly stupid. Being ousted from a social group at the age of 12 doesn’t sound like an incredibly traumatizing event. Yet, at that moment, I wanted to kill myself. I remember how horrifically low I felt. I didn’t want to live in my own skin.

I went home and cried, like a little bitch. I knew I couldn’t chase their approval anymore, as much as I wanted to beg them to accept me again. Stupid and pathetic as I was, at least I understood that. But for days, I just moped around my house, drawing unwanted sympathy from my family.

I felt like everyone knew how I’d been rejected and that they were laughing at me behind my back. I had no friends, so everyone was an enemy. I’ve never felt more isolated and alone as I did during those summer nights, when I’d lie alone in bed feeling hopeless.

To numb the pain, I did what any 12-year-old would do: I watched endless hours of television. Eventually, I heard a quote that would redefine my entire life. As hilarious as it sounds, this quote came out of a Batman cartoon and spoken by the Penguin. The quote was a simple cliché: “Living well is the best revenge.” Though as simple and cliché as those words were, they changed my life.

Suddenly, I felt incredibly empowered. The best “revenge” I could exact on those who snuffed me would be to live my life well. I could transform my entire life and that would be my big fuck you to all those who rejected me.

Living Well is the Best “Fuck You”

So I took steps to begin living well. I changed my eating habits. I began to jog at night. And I prepared to enter a private school that September. Since I spent those hours alone, I became my own best friend. Every time I did something that improved my life—even if it was only by the tiniest bit—I felt like I’d accomplished a victory.

Naturally, the “cool kids” took notice of me jogging around my neighborhood. They saw me trying to live outside their precious circle of influence. Maybe it’s just because 12-year-old boys are cruel or these kids were true bastards, but they did everything they could to salt my efforts. They taunted me. They insulted me. They even physically assaulted me. Again, maybe it was just in “good fun” or maybe they hoped to break my spirit.

Regardless, that’s when something snapped. Somewhere, deep inside me, a chord broke. It was the chord that attached me to the need of other people’s acceptance. Tenacious as those vultures of mediocrity were, I didn’t care. I kept doing me. I kept jogging. I kept striving to improve myself. I kept to my vision of “living well.”

At first, I did these things as “revenge.” But, later, I realized, as the haters spewed their hate, that I wasn’t doing it for them. I was doing it for me. My life was something that had nothing to do with them. If they wanted to shout heckles at me from the sidelines, so be it. I was going to keep pushing, keep improving, keep chiseling out my fate.

Somewhere along the way I stopped giving any hint of a fuck. I stopped caring what people thought about me, said about me, screamed at me out of a moving car as my then-fat ass jogged through the hot summer streets. It was a cycle: the less I cared, the meaner they got, which made me care even less.

All the hatred they dished that summer transformed into positive changes in my life. Such is the alchemy of not giving a fuck. When people push, you don’t push back—you push forward. I accomplished more in that school year than I had in my entire life up until that point.

And each year after that has been more successful than the last. As I see it my life began when I stopped giving a fuck. Painful as that dark, dark summer was, I’d live through it a million more times if I came out in the end the way I am now.

Somewhere, deep inside me, a chord broke. It was the chord that attached me to the need of other people’s acceptance.

Every time I meet a guy who wants to improve his success in dating, I secretly hope he’ll “snap” as well. The biggest inhibiting factor of most guy’s lives is that they give too much of a fuck what people think of them. They keep themselves safely mediocre because they crave acceptance over success.

In this game, acceptance feels nice but it won’t translate into a lifestyle change. If you want to actually make a change in your life, make a change in the way you see the people around you. They may be nice and well intentioned, but you can’t revolve your life around their approval. You have to start sacking up and stop giving a fuck.

Start sacking up and stop giving a fuck.

That may mean living through a dark summer like the one I endured. You may even be living through that dark summer right now. See it as a blessing. Never will the fork in the road be clearer to you. It’s now or never: either give up or fight with every ounce of your being.

But, when you’re weighing that choice, and the taunts of the vultures of mediocrity are loud in your ears, I hope the words of this blog echo like chant:

Start sacking up and stop giving a fuck.