This column has been written largely because my mind has been fixated, chained to the dark throne of English literature for the last six months. It will stay there until it thinks about what it’s done and realizes the mistake it’s made. Oh crap. I just made a Gothic image with my previous statement, thereby making me a successor to Poe’s legacy. I’m writing a thesis on Edgar Allan Poe. He is my distant tormenter, and with his big lightbulb-shaped head and little mustache, he has been — from beyond the grave — haunting me more than any one of his other tales. I am afraid that I will be become the outcast, penniless, deeply depressed writer that was Poe. I look terrible in a mustache.

Let’s face it: Chicks don’t dig Poe. If I was going to fake being intellectual, why couldn’t I have done it for a writer that is highly regarded as being sensitive? “Oh you’re writing on Jane Austen, oh you sweet, sweet man.” Then I’d say something about how, yes, I think oftentimes men in the literary community write Austen off as an author of manners, but I know brilliance in a woman when I see it. This would be said, of course, while I stare at the interested party’s chest.

I think even if I went with someone shitty like whoever the hell wrote “The Notebook,” I could have been rolling in the ladies. I could have learned to say: “It was like, the most moving book I’ve ever read. Hold me and caress me, for I lack the spine necessary to stand.” But no, I went with Poe. I make dumb life choices. This is like that time in high school when everyone got gold class rings but I chose one that lit up and was also a whistle. With Poe, immediately people think I’m a Goth. I’m not. I wear Hawaiian shirts. Do I identify with the impotent little squirt? No. I respect his writings.

Maybe I should have gone with one of the sexy majors. Venture capitalism? Economics? Taxidermy? For a senior project, working hours with the smell of formaldehyde to stuff a dead bird at this point would probably make me more attractive at a party than “I’m working on proving that Edgar Allan Poe is relevant to the average American.” I’m not the average American, otherwise I too would walk away from the kid with the punk T-shirt who is ranting on about the symbolism of teeth removal and premature burial.

I’m beginning to see the parallels that Poe’s stories have with my own life. Poe wrote about an overly intellectualized sexless detective who sits in his room and solves murders in the dark. I’m an overly intellectualized undersexed college student who sits in his room and murders dozens of little cyber people in Grand Theft Auto. My detective work is pretty simple I guess, because I also know who has been responsible for killing kittens after those French film classes.

Poe’s detective had a partner in his misery, and I guess I do too. He’s the Watson to my Holmes, if Watson and Holmes were bitter senior thesis writers that go to In-N-Out rather than actually do work. I know I cite my roommate in this column a lot, but I have to assure the reader that he was once cheery and sweet. Then he had a thesis. Now I routinely use him as my id in columns, offering an angrier, comically belligerent counterweight to my thinly veiled sarcasm. We play a lot of GTA.

The problem with this whole thing is I know that I am good at writing a thesis. I was made for this type of work. Overanalysis of actions made by female characters in a dark setting is a skill I learned at Columbae parties. Now I get credit for it.

I’m used to talking about shit nobody cares about, because that’s what makes me a good Daily writer. One month from now I’ll have this nice bound copy of pain, sweat, deep reflection and brilliant analysis. I will also have gotten farther in GTA than I will have with a woman in a long, long time. The sound my thesis makes as I throw it onto the department’s table will be a dull thud, a final stake in the coffin of my social life, for when I emerge, I will be some creature of the night — a socially stunted outsider who has spent most of his nights indoors — analyzing the minds of people who bury their sisters alive or murder their landlords. I will be finally ready to run for the Undergraduate Senate.

Chris actually has been enjoying his thesis and his social life couldn’t be better, but saying the opposite is a lot more fun. Send complaints to cholt@stanford.edu.