Ah, the joys of alt.bitterness, a place where people come to pick at the scab of existence, to exchange tales of bleak experience in a game of hideous escalation, the winner being the person dealt the cruellest hand by fate. Somewhat more literary and reflective than its cousin, alt.life.sucks, alt.bitterness wallows in suffering and fights back with misanthropy. It finds solace and even joy in the process of uploading life's chunky bits to the Net. I have this surging, hateful sickness in my gut that is spreading like a stain through the rest of my body, soaking me through with bile. A statistics page for the group tells me that there are about 60 messages posted to alt.bitterness every day, with about 12,000 regular readers worldwide.
Misery clearly does love company.
More stories and ravings can be found at The Book of Bitterness , a greatest hits compilation of particularly rich and savage outpourings, collected by a newsgroup member, John Sealander. Bitter people are often maligned, accused of being a surly bunch of non-productive whiners who are seldom satisfied and never happy. This paints a distorted picture, however, since the bitter are, in reality, a fairly normal lot, cursed with the ability to see the world as it is. Bitter people have always understood that the world is not fair. They have known for some time that good guys don't always win.