A first-class, lifelong loser, especially a loser toward which one might feel some sympathy, but to whom failure clings inescapably and is best avoided, lest they drag you down with them.
Phrase was inspired by the kid in elementary we all knew, who was nice, but none of us wanted to be around because s/he had a faint smell of urine to them.
B: Who was that guy you were talking to?
J: Guy I used to go to high school with. Haven't seen him in a while.
B: Cool, invite him to the Halloween party.
J: Naah, he's a nice guy, but he smells like piss and broken dreams.
B: Damn, you're nice.
J: No, trust me, I'm doing you a favor.
Fogey/fogy /fougi/ sl. (early 18C+, orig. Scot) old-fashioned, stuck-in-the mud.
Person with old fashioned ideas which he is unwilling to change: Come to the disco and stop being such an old fogey!
You think me an old fogeyand an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. I saw three generations since O’Connel’s time. I remember the famine. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the union twenty years before O’Connel did or before the prelates of your communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. (James Joyce, Ulysses. Penguin Books,1992. p. 38)