Feeling sorry for yourself, although an enjoyable past time, is not the best way to entice people to hang out with you. The best circumstance for a pity party involves solitude, pictures of your high school sweat heart, The Counting Crows, some sort of frosted sugar lard pie, and if you are in the right part of town, mescaline. Sometimes you come across another human in a state of self-loathing and sorrow in which case you may join them and commiserate, but only long enough for them to listen to you, because who wants to hear someone’s sob story am I right?

The reason why it is best to isolate yourself in these moments is because usually there is nothing anyone can say to make you feel better anyway. They will try to cheer you up and say things like “it could be worse, you could have leprosy” or something about how having to wait 25 minutes for a table to eat brunch isn’t really that big a deal, but you don’t even hear them because you are too busy looking at your reflection in the window as you cry. Part of the delight of swimming in an oozing pool of self-pity is that you want to be there. There is a certain satisfaction of drinking margaritas on the shores of your victimization. A comfort in feeling the universe is against you, a sense of serenity in blaming the stars for your problems.

I am feeling really sorry for myself right now because now that I have a child I have no time or space to feel sorry for myself any more. Any time I try to fall into a shame spiral The Munch will say things like “baby farts,” and I start laughing instead of cutting myself. Being around The Munch who spends her days running around in circles for no reason and thinking I really can’t see her if she pulls her shirt up over her head makes it pretty easy to snap out of an emotional funk.