I sympathize

"Prior to meeting Mrs. Nolan, I'd never been disliked by anyone before, especially an older woman. Old women fell head over heels for me. I didn't even have to try--it just happened. I thought I had a gift. As soon as I walked into church, women over the age of thirty-four threw candy at my feet like I was Mick Jagger and the Tootsie Rolls were underwear. But Mrs. Nolan was indifferent to the charm other women saw in me. She wasn't impressed with me.

I really needed her to be impressed.

At my church and school, perception was everything. How people viewed you was much more important than how you actually were. The truth didn't matter. What people believed to be the truth mattered. I learned early on that if everybody believed I was the well-behaved, good-natured boy without a sin in the world, it didn't matter what the truth was. The truth was secondary to a person's opinion or perception of the truth. It was all about good PR, and prior to having Mrs. Nolan as a teacher, nobody stared at me too closely."

- "Churched," Matthew Paul Turner

This book is turning out to be a biography of my life. Hahahahaha.