Of course, I’ve angered a great many people on the Internet for a number of reasons. It’s kind of impossible to exist on the Internet without angering at least 10 percent of the people who interact with you. But insults from teenage girls always seem to cut deepest.

I have a number of theories as to why this is true. Some would say society pressures girls into living up to impossible standards and turns them against one another at the earliest possible age, meaning they’re literally prepared for war at all times and are likely to lash out at whatever target happens to provoke them at any given moment, which is usually me, a pasty gay who’s writing about their favorite Jonas brother. It also doesn’t help that I show up to their concerts and stand in front of them and scream louder than they do, but I can’t help that my hormones are just as aggressive as theirs. But the theory that seems most true is the simplest: teenagers are assholes.

So let’s talk about teenage assholes. Not like, literal teenage assholes. If the FBI is reading this, please don’t arrest me for typing “teenage assholes.” It’s not what you think. I’m talking about teenage assholes, like teenagers who are assholes. Not teenagers who have assholes. Although probably every teenager has an asshole, so I guess we’re talking about teenagers who do technically have assholes, but we’re not talking about their literal assholes, we’re talking about how they are assholes. I’m glad we cleared that up. Anyway, let’s talk about teenage assholes.

I was a teenage asshole. And not just any teenage asshole, but the worst kind of teenage asshole: the self-righteous, nerdy teenage asshole. Yes, nerds can be assholes, too, and sometimes, they’re even worse assholes than the other types of assholes, because they grow up thinking that the world owes them something for making them a nerd. I would’ve saved myself a lot of trouble if I could have gone back and told this to my child self. I would’ve taken that scruffy ginger nerd by the collar and shook him till his glasses fell off. It’s what he deserved. But alas, I became the asshole I would so despise.