Maybe you know the type. It's usually a male. It's well into adulthood yet it still lives at home. I don't mean in a converted garage or other semi-independent arrangement, and I do not mean someone who's hit on hard times and has temporarily fled to the safe port of mum & dad. I have done both on occasion. I mean that it lives at home. Mum feeds it. Dad derides it every once in a while, without much hope of ever being rid of it. It 'hangs' with the much younger teens of the neighbourhood. It dresses like a teen. It dates teens.
It has the limited worldview of a teen. It reads comic books and it plays computer games based on said comics. Usually this is the limit of its activities. Sometimes it has a part-time job, but never for any reasonable length of time. Sometimes it has other hobbies, such as a sport or fantasy role-playing games. It devotes a disproportionate amount of time to these pastimes. It usually derives its only few shreds of self-esteem from these activities.
It usually has a plethora of sob stories at the ready for any occasion when it is questioned about its questionable lack of what for lack of a better term we shall call 'a life'. It works from the misguided assumption that the listener will not have similar, or worse, sob stories shelved away in his or her life's history files. There is a word for this type of person, it's 'Loser' and there are many of them.
But the type of Loser I wish to discuss is a much further evolved sub-species of the common Loser. It's the Vampire-Loser. The Vampire-Loser differs from the common Loser that it has charisma, and no empathy or social conscience to speak of. It's much rarer than the common Loser, but because of its much further evolved manipulative personality and aforementioned lack of common human attributes to hinder it in its daily dealings with real people it is encountered a lot more in polite circles.
I encountered a prime example of the genotype Vampirii-Loserii about eight years back. I was still in college. So was it, albeit only for about six months. It then went on to get fired from an impressive amount of jobs, including the military. (It failed boot camp for lack of intelligence and discipline.) But by then my fate was sealed. It had latched on to me. I will recount the history that unfolded from henceforth.
On a fine spring day the Vampire-Loser accosted me in a computer room at college. It had learned that I was looking for new players to compliment my dwindling AD&D group. I failed my detect-evil roll and invited it over for a game. It, as it turned out, was fairly new to the game. Its style of play was obviously learned from computerized RPG-type games where fellow party-members were as expendable as Non-player characters. On many an occasion I made it kill off its own character because it had become too hated by the other players' characters.
Usually because it had killed a few of them off.
Yet it was charismatic, always available for a game -due to its lack of 'a life'- and in a few months it had become a walking manual of game rules. So, even when other -highly valued- players dropped out of the games because their enjoyment had given way to the Vampire-Loser's style of play, I tolerated it.
I even befriended it and took it upon myself, naively, to try and rehabilitate it. This even went to the point of me getting it a job directly answering to me at my place of employment. It went on to refuse to work and when it was let go three days later, by me, to steal a sizeable amount of money. (A four-figure sum.) My employers and me collectively failed an intelligence check, and covered it up, provided it would work the debt off.
Unsurprisingly, it refused.
A few years after becoming the unwitting host to th e Vampire-Loser, I stumbled upon a girl of the type Amazingus-Hottii. Girls of this type are hard to lure and even harder to keep in captivity, let alone to get them to breed. It's therefore not surprising, I think, that I took this prime example and bought a nice flat to keep it in. The first few years went very well. I decorated the flat with various bits of decoration and toys to keep the Amazingus-Hottii content. In return the Amazingus-Hottii played with me, granted me her full and undivided attention and on many an occasion granted me the privilege of practice runs at breeding. No offspring came from this though.
Meanwhile my social life and my welfare had started to suffer from the presence of the Vampire-Loser. It would break things and not replace them. It would invite itself to dinner and not contribute. It also started to emulate my ways, and on some rare occasions expressed its envy of my 'a life'. I was starting to disassociate myself from the Vampire-Loser, but to no apparent avail. The uncomfortable feeling crept up on me that the Vampire-Loser was living its life more and more by proxy of me. I also had learned some disturbing facts about this specimen. It appeared that it had previously found hosts in younger female persons. Persons hardly of fertile age. It had also displayed disturbing abusive tendencies towards these young persons. Yet, under the influence of sad sob stories, which seem laughable now, I failed another few detect-evil rolls.
Unfortunately the Amazingus-Hottii started to suffer from being kept in captivity and some common genetic afflictions to the type after a few years had passed. She started developing longings for the great spawning grounds of University. I was more than prepared to let her attend this University place, and cover tuition provided she would do her part from her meagre income derived from a part-time job. But she would not go. The step, it seemed, was yet too daunting and great for her.
Meanwhile the Vampire-Loser was still latched on to me, but it showed signs of seeking a new host. The most apparent signs were that it started showing up uninvited at times that I would normally be at work. It also spent a disproportionate amount of time with the Amazingus-Hottii alone. The Amazingus-Hottii, suffering from manic depressions of the non-rapid-cycling type, was grateful for the attention. As, at first, was I. I had noticed that the Amazingus-Hottii was suffering from a lack of pals, and a sympathetic ear that wasn't mine per-se. Although friends more versed in the mating behaviour of the Vampire-Loser than I warned me, I trusted my Amazingus-Hottii and paid them no heed.
Then the point came that I felt it was prudent to alert the Vampire-Loser to the fragile emotional state of the Amazingus-Hottii. I took him aside and spouted my knowledge of psychology at it. This was a mistake. In the weeks to follow the Vampire-Loser redoubled its efforts. It had found a weak spot, and it was taking full advantage of it. Manipulating shamelessly it gained the trust and infatuation of the Amazingus-Hottii. And when the time came of the dreaded 'Let's work on this relationship to give it one more try', it was by far too late. The Amazingus-Hottii made a valiant attempt by requesting the Vampire-Loser to cease its efforts while we worked matters out. But the Vampire-Loser, well aware that an infatuation will bite the dust when faced with actual love, moved in and put the Amazingus-Hottii between the proverbial rock and hard place. The Amazingus-Hottii, obviously emotionally drained, chose the path of least resistance and went to be host for the Vampire-Loser, foregoing five years of investments in her own 'a life'.
Currently the Amazingus-Hottii is visibly running on an empty tank, in a state known as Hypo-Mania brought on by inexpert use of anti-depressives without the further, and required, aid of expert psycho therapy. The Vampire-Loser meanwhile has attempted to re-associate itself with me. In fact, in ways which make one wonder if it suffers from acute memory loss. This I attribute to its lack of empathy. But I now have gained a few levels, and do not fail my detect-evil rolls that easily anymore.
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