...may be the worst period of one's life. I've tried to forget those years, but Ruben Bolling brings it back all too well.

...you can't really perfect it in the mirror.

It's weird how we feel one way about ourselves, and the world sees this whole other thing.

I was a wallflowery geek in adolescence, committed to being not as cool as other people in my group.

That worked fine for about twenty years. Then I ran into an old schoolmate (a year behind me) that I didn't even remember. When he saw me at that bar he seemed really excited. "You're [my name]! Back in high school me and my buddies totally wanted to be like you!"

As a lifelong self-loather, it was very difficult to grasp.

30 Rock had a decent (well, all their episodes are at least decent) episode this season about Liz Lemon's HS reunion. Her oppurtunity to get back at all those who kept her down back then. Ha! I produce a network tv show bitches!

Turns out she was the school bully and didn't even know it.

Hope I wasn't too big a jerk too anybody.

thanks for this pitch-perfect glimpse of adolescent "attenpts". I have two teenagers and this was just...WONDERFUL!

Can you please not make any more cartoons about me? I find it disturbing, the change in name notwithstanding...

Mr. Bolling completely gets what it was like to be a gawky teenager - again.

I had a similar experience to one of the posters... I was ostracized throughout high school as a geek (though I was lucky enough to have a steady girlfriend). Years later, someone from the school told me how cool I was back then. I was surprised! "But I didn't fit in at all!" "Right, you didn't care about any of our stuff, that was cool!"

We're rooting for you Louis, you're going to be a great cartoonist when you grow up!

Tristesse a Sartre et Camus, Bolling vous depasse...

(suis desole' pour le manque d'accents)

to be a legend, too!

I didn't realize how much even my friends were down on me. By the time I had figured it out, I had other stupid junk to worry about. True, I feel a bit hurt by it sometimes now, but at the time I was at least 60% oblivious. That was a good thing.