$104,176

The capitalists foam at the mouth when they say I make six figures. Can you really believe this? I supposedly make $104,176 with benefits, with a base salary of $38,184. I’m not going to tell you the company or the line of work I am in. I will just say that I am in a system that makes capitalists feel all warm inside, while I see the structure built around me as an exercise in socialism.

Seriously, how do I live in a society that will put something up on their website that I make six figures when I don’t take advantage of the $4,000 plus tax advantage, don’t nearly get close to $19,000 in health benefits, am having to pay $5,000 for education because I don’t qualify for tuition assistance, and am forced to use housing instead of recieve my large rent stipend. We have an administrative issue that hyperinflates everything behind the banner of the red, white, and blue, while people who are never wise spew things from their mouths that sound like facts, but are really just manipulation. The example of my job is a great example of this because you could say that this year, the year that I am twenty-nine, was the first year that I made six figures. Yet when I look at my bank account or the ledger of my spending, I realize this is the farthest thing from the truth. My country has no problem trying to convince me I am better compensated than I am, and I really want to know the truth behind it. Why do you want me to think I’m doing better than I am?

That number has allowed people from the past, present, and future to boast. I can hear echoes of men trying to swoon over beautiful women in response to a statement about their earnings. However, the gross misappropriation of this has a value that I am unable to see. My boss’s boss’s boss would hate to read this, and I implore those around me to shield this from their eyes. Or better yet, tell them to counteract it by stating that this passage reads more like an angsty teenager's diary than a serious, introspective piece about American working conditions in 2026. I am constantly pandered to, patronized, discredited, ignored, depressed, and even exhausted over the fact that I live in a world that is so quick to remind me of my shortcomings, begs me to feel confidence over a stupid number, and then has the audacity to still pretend that all this shouldn’t affect my mood. It does people! I have no sense of belonging anymore; my confidence remains in the toilet bowl every morning, and my motivation to interact with a society that tries to pull the wool over my eyes has plummeted.

Instead, I will just continue to do what I want. That is the only semblance of normalcy in this world anymore. You say that people my age don’t want to work. That isn’t it. We have grown tired of the politics of the workplace, and we are also tired of being beaten over the head with connectivity that has driven us all further apart. People ask why women no longer want to have kids. Why have kids when you can make so much money on your own? That isn’t bitter. That is this manipulated reality. Why settle down when you can make money and enjoy independence? Men are in the same boat. The only problem is that some men want to settle down but can’t. The connectivity has driven promiscuity into the middle of our prospective marriages. Our future wives don’t fantasize about other men. They click a button and start talking to him. That might be a little bitter. I guess my own insignificance is attacking me again.

I hate it when older people try explaining to me how to find people of the opposite sex. Like they navigated the same society as me. They didn’t. That is my maximum bitterness. I get the relevance of similarities between the two, but we have actual statistics showing that people are no longer dating for the purpose of marriage. A system as corrupted as $104,176. All of what I am saying wouldn’t have been controversial twenty years ago. I would have been seen as honest, a good guy, someone who deserved to find love. In this modern age, I come off as vindictive, destitute, a man that women should avoid. They avoid me anyway. I truly have nothing left to lose. Fall back into that online dating cycle. I find a woman I like. We may message back and forth. Maybe we agree on a date or two. I like her. I am attracted to her. She blows me off. My ego in pieces, I match with someone else. She isn’t my type but I like the attention. She makes me feel special. She always has time for me. I reluctantly agree to a date or two. I then blow her off. Karma in its purest form. It’s funny how I can still hear the voice of a woman claiming how much worse I am than the women who blow me off. Great argument.

Why do I tie the discussion of my salary with that of my dating life? If I have to explain that, then we as humans are doomed. We can act as if the two don’t matter to one another. But they do. As a younger man, I used to think about this alot especially when I made almost no money. I am a former and current college student. I can always find ways to spend money. They aren’t totally dependent on one another. Believe me, I don’t think I live in a society of gold-digging women. Humanity is way more personable than that. That realization happened around the time I got sober. I fought sobriety for years and one of the biggest deciding factors that got me to quit was the hope that a woman would love me more for who I was rather than what life I could give her. I looked past thousands, if not tens of thousands of women, in compiling the data that proved life was worth living in clarity. That is where $104,176 doesn’t matter too much. But I also understand that wanting a family would be a financial undertaking that required responsibility. The final stamp on my passport of sobriety. That is where $104,176 matters. The idea that a woman could love me in this modern world was an opportunity I couldn’t ignore.

Four years of sobriety. $104,176. Still haven’t gotten anywhere better. That is the bitter reality I am forced to live with every day. Live in a place that I hate. Hopeless environment that has no semblance of the color or vividity that I live with in my life. In my mind. In my writing. Temporary. No promise of lasting or that I will ever have to be in this place again. Boring, dull, and grey. Yet, I still am not too far removed to watch movies about everlasting love. Television shows about a man and woman besting the odds to find love. Novels about the thinking behind courtship and how turbulent intimacy can be. Just me torturing myself in a sea of people scattered about. None of them sees or feels what I do. Me, all alone, with a paycheck much less than $104,176.