Imagine Being Both Unemployed And Unable To Impregnate Your Wife

It sucks.

It's incredibly depressing.

Every day, it makes you not feel like a man.

Now, before we go much further, I realize this can sound like "Victimhood Olympics."

I don't mean to sound like that, honestly.

I'm just expressing how I feel.

I'm depressed and feel worthless and useless most days.

I understand some of the white male rage problem -- and a lot of those dudes are enraged because they have five kids, and they see America as getting worse for those kids.

There's an article from The Guardian a few years back where some guy says, "My inability to be a father eats away at my very being."

I'm not sure I feel exactly that same way, because I see some of the benefits of the "DINK" lifestyle, even if Elon does not.

The problem is: the first two letters of "DINK" imply "Double Income," and while I do make some money from Medium and Substack these days, it just covers a small percentage of my bills -- say, my annual mortgage. Everything else is on my wife, who also wants kids that I haven't given her.

It's a brutal little arc that I feel trapped by every day, as I see derp guys tell me "I looked at her and got her pregnant," and see people retain jobs where all they do is scroll Instagram all day and periodically answer hair-on-fire emails from their boss.

I feel ashamed and depressed and am not always sure what to do next.

Do I say f*ck it all and just become an X-Ray tech?

Do I just lean into freelance writing?

Do I re-embrace the service industry?

Do I just cry for a while and then figure it out?

I really have no idea.

I had this job at a church recently. I had no idea I'd be getting laid off until the dreaded "Hey, have a minute to discuss something with me and HR?" comment at my door frame. I mean, I had no clue. There were elements of my performance in that gig that probably weren't 100%, but nothing worthy of layoff. The main deliverable in that job was a Sunday bulletin, which I always had done on Wednesday or Thursday. The second main deliverable was three emails a week on Tuesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Those always got done, with good open rates. I was blindsided.

So now here I am, back to being no-income and shitty sperm.

I need to figure something out.