Breaking bad [the wrong way]

They said it was impossible, that I would never pull it off, that it couldn't be done.

They were right.

When I expressed my desire to become a "bad boy" four years ago, my friends laughed. I don't blame them. I was always considered innocent and untainted, the mama's boy, the nice boy. I didn't like being the nice boy. I wanted to live life on the edge. Inject some excitement into my life. Play M-rated video games.

Don't ask why. I really don't even understand myself.

What I can tell you is that I'm a 21-year-old Christian white boy (not cool since the 1960s) who grew up on a farm (not cool since the 1860s) close to McDonald County High School (which never was cool), so I was homeschooled with my two sisters (one of whom still thinks I'm cool) by my mom.

I still think she's cool. Obviously, the bad boy transformation is necessary.

I sought counsel from a highly respected bad boy, an old friend named Dustin Heritage. Dustin wrestles for cash and gets tattoos, which are two things that would probably put me in the fetal position, so I think he has the bad boy credentials. He said being bad is all about "charisma."

"Without it, you've got nothing," Dustin told me. "You've got to believe that you're the most important person in the room."

Unless my girlfriend is around, I already do that.

He also told me I needed a slider phone. At the time, I had a sissy-girl-flip-phone. He made a lot of sense.

But the last lesson he taught me is that I need to get into a fight.

This posed a problem.

It wasn't that I didn't want to; it was just that I didn't know how. And I didn't want to.

Just as I convinced myself that I was ready to fight someone, I realized I didn't know how to start a fight. I thought if I was enough of a bad boy, somebody would just come up and start punching me or something because my bad-boyness was so threatening.

Turns out that's not true. Either I'm not a threat to anyone's masculinity, or I'm such a bad boy nobody dares to randomly start punching me.

Yet the record shows this: Every time I tried to become more of a bad boy, I came up short.

I learned the Soulja Boy dance, but then I learned the Soulja Boy lyrics, and then urbandictionary.com told me what the lyrics mean, and then I didn't want to sing or dance to them anymore, and then I did anyway, and my mom took away my CD player.

I got rid of my trapper keeper from fifth grade, which I carried through seven semesters of college. But then I bought a messenger bag and gained no points.

I also bought a leather jacket, but it has a hood.

Just as I gave up on ‘N Sync getting back together, Justin Timberlake became cool.

I tried learning gang signs and accidentally discovered "the shocker." If you don't know what that is, don't Google it.

While it was a fun four-year journey, I learned you really can't change who you are. And just because you get a slider phone doesn't stop Mom from calling you to ask what you ate today.

Somebody please hit me.