Maybe I've gotten cynical but I feel like he got taken advantage of. No inspirational story here. He should have left her. Perhaps she was the only girl who noticed him...

Life literally gave him the ability to dodge the baby bullet like Neo and he willingly walked into it. His feelings will fester and erupt one day, the whole situation is an unpleasant and common one. The child will grow into the image of the one that he felt wronged by in his youth. This outlook feels bleak.

This made me physically ill to watch.

I don't find your perspective especially cynical. This is like your standard single mother looking for a beta provider story. Reminds me of the controversy surrounding some facebook post a while ago with a guy who was helping raise someone else's child and wasn't even in a relationship with the woman.

icedtea

I don't think that's cynical at all. The moment he said she started dating that other guy and he didn't get why, my head hit my desk. I hope the guy is happy but goddamn. She 16, I get that she was scared, but she allowed this to go on for months. Kudos for telling him, shame for not doing it immediately and getting the father to take responsibility

Kadz

On Wikipedia, there is an article on brood parasites. It says: "In many monogamous bird species, there are extra-pair matings resulting in males outside the pair bond siring offspring and used by males to escape from the parental investment in raising their offspring". So the guy will put his efforts into raising a child who inherits genes from this type of man, and with a woman who is a fool. No thank you! She should have got the guy to take responsibility, with the aid of her parents. However, she was presumably scared and picked the easiest option. One error of judgement and many people pay heavily for the mistake.

This is the kind of shit show that happens when irresponsibility rules. The Chad who got the girl pregnant and then ran, the girl who chose to keep the kid and then withhold important information from her innocent beta simp of a friend, and the "protagonist" of this story, whos neglected to maintain himself as the centrepoint of his universe. There's no honour in raising someone elses kid...

Communicate With Confidence

Agreed. Is the moral of this story supposed to be that being a doormat is a virtue when it's a sacrifice for the baby? Those dark thoughts aren't nothing and don't just go away like magic. How could he ever trust the girl and how could she ever respect him after that? It would be a miracle if the two of them developed a stable relationship. The child will suffer because of it. Honestly, the story sounds generic enough to simply be made up

nickquest

This is a gray area for me. He did a great job doing what was best for the child, and accepted the responsibility of fatherhood. He learned how to serve others, by working two jobs and sacrificing his time, to care for a child which overall made him a giving person. Enough to where he was able to forgive his girlfriend for her mistakes, undeserving as it may be. On the other hand, he exhibited traditional nice guy traits and didn’t stand up for himself when it counted. She didn’t respect him and just considered him a friend, then when things didn’t work out with the other guy, she came running back to the friend. He was her #2 choice while he made her his #1 which is completely unfair. She should have gotten a paternity test and filed for child support so the biological father would be responsible for covering some of the expenses of the child if he wasn’t going to be responsible for raising him/her instead of having her ‘friend’ take care of the baby with her. I am with you regarding the woman, she took advantage of the guy as a friend and now the guy is responsible for the baby along with her. While I admire his ability to be giving and be willing to be a capable father in a less than ideal time, I think that he could have definitely picked a better partner. All in all, I am okay with the situation because the kid will now have a caring father in his/her life and won’t be subject to a likely single parent household. That’s a huge plus and ultimately, that is who I am most concerned about in this story. I foresee a split/divorce in the near future though due to the couple’s age and lack of ability on the girl to be an honest communicator with her partner. She needs to be able to respect her partner enough to give him the truth at the very beginning. Hopefully I am wrong and everything will work out. Worst case scenario, at least the kid will have a loving and caring father which is a huge game changer for the kid.

Kyle Worden