John Doe, a basically decent, if lonely, man who has had a run of really bad luck and is in need of permanent companionship.

Author's Note: This thread contains elements of friendship, romance, man worship, gentle maledom, fsub, polyamory, hothusbanding, harem, and possible slow corruption. It uses both the custom male and female names for the main character and his best friend (with benefits), respectively. The defining characteristic of the main character is that he's a decent person, so if you're expecting a story about a sadsack who turns into a shitheel, this thread is not that.

I like to use song and movie titles for chapter names, and also like to write in long, descriptive prose; if you intend to contribute to this thread, please try to at least follow the latter and not submit extremely short chapters, and I would much appreciate it if you also stuck to using song or movie titles as chapter names. Also, if you'd be so kind, please keep the chapters within the second-person perspective, and use the custom character names, as I feel that contributes greatly to the fantasy of the story.

~ooOoo~

It wasn't like you wanted to be in a cafe in the middle of the morning, when a normal person would be at work, but your life had taken a turn for the worse in the last year.

Your life had never been easy, but you had never had much cause to complain; growing up as a ward of the state after being abandoned at a fire station as a baby, you learned early on that life would not be easy, and learned to suffer without complaining, though your early experiences left you a shy introvert who had difficulties connecting with others. When you were eventually adopted by an older couple who wanted a child but could no longer conceive one due to their age, they loved you as if you were truly their own, and you felt very fortunate to have finally found a family of your own.

You were never more than average at anything, and that clearly showed; even despite your best efforts, you only barely managed to get into a public university and, not wanting to burden your loving foster parents with the cost of your education, took out student loans to attend. Graduating with a degree in nursing, you were hired by an understaffed local hospital, where the long hours and frequent mandatory overtime meant what little time you had outside of work was taken up by recovery from the grueling shifts. Still, the money was good, so you couldn't complain too much.

When a cargo truck ran a red light and T-boned your parents' car on the night of their fortieth anniversary, your father was instantly killed and your mother ended up in intensive care with a concussion, multiple broken bones and internal injuries; when she finally recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital, you chose to take a leave of absence so you could take care of her in her convalescence. Unfortunately, six months after being discharged from the hospital, your mother passed away in her sleep; the only consolation you could find in the situation was that she died peacefully and had lived a (relatively) full life.

Two days after the funeral, police officers showed up at the front door of the house you inherited with a warrant for your arrest; unbeknownst to you, an coworker you barely knew in passing and had never really interacted with had accused you of **** in your absence, and the district attorney, eager to prove himself tough on sexual predators, was quick to push the case to trial, especially when you refuse to plead guilty to a crime you, a thirty-something virgin, did not commit.

Things went badly at your trial; unable to afford a good defense attorney after burning most of your savings on taking care of your mom, you end up stuck with a public defender who is more interested in getting the case off his docket than helping you defend yourself. Luckily, fortune smiled upon you; on the eve of your certain conviction, the police receive a tip about somebody bragging about getting away with the crime you were being tried for and ended up arresting a man who happened to be your identical twin, separated at birth. When his DNA proved to be a better match to the physical evidence than yours, the case against you is dropped.

After the trial, your accuser approached you and apologized, genuinely remorseful begging your forgiveness; in the dark and trauma, she had sincerely believed it to be you, and now she regretted the allegation she had made, as you had always been good and decent.

Being an honest and gracious person, you forgave her, as you understood how she could have made the mistake, particularly when the truly guilty party was your physically identical twin.

Nonetheless, the damage to your reputation had been done; the hospital had fired you, and other employers had no interest in touching you with a ten-foot pole, leaving you unemployable in your current city and with no friends who would help you. You had come to the coffee shop in the middle of the day to use their wi-fi and look for work; you stopped paying for internet at home to cut costs.

Things were looking up for you, though; after all, you had just found the Rulebook.