The Self Inflicted Theft

I have been many things. But for a very long time I was a miserable curmudgeon, and a deeply selfish person. I had a handful of friends, but I was not against harming them for my own benefit from time to time.

For many good reasons I was not popular with women, the objects of my desire. But I had a friend who I believed was less attractive even than me, and a lovely young woman had apparently, a few days earlier, agreed to go out on a date with him. I moved quickly, asking that very woman out for a date on the only hours after this friend of mine had respectfully asked us not to interfere with his courtship of this woman.

She was intelligent, lovely, and possessed a level of happiness and contentedness that I could not fathom. Thus, when I asked her if she would like to join me, a rather dour fellow, for lunch in a few days in the city, it was all the more shocking that she agreed with what appeared to be happy expectation. I was quite pleased with my guileful self. Though this now meant I had to find suitable clothes, choose a restaurant, and be responsible about time and space for a while. My friend, being a very generous and kind fellow, was disappointed that I had done such a thing, but seemed to shrug it off. He was, at that time, a much better sort of person than me, knowing that women were not something to control, and that if she had agreed to a date it was not for him to interfere. I would not reach such a level of wisdom for at least a decade.

My sense of self satisfaction did not last long. This is not to say that things went immediately wrong. I successfully picked her up on time, drove us in a clean car (I've always been good about keeping cars clean, though much of my personal hygiene and appearance needed a great deal of work) to the proper restaurant at which I had made a reservation. She was still the joyous, bright soul I had met before, and was kind and gracious throughout the opening hours of the date. Unfortunately I was very uncomfortable around women in those days, and it took a great deal of effort to properly fake being able to communicate affably about the usual mundane subjects that present themselves during an initial encounter. The aura of distress did not help my general appearance. I had no skill in the world of wardrobe management, and in those days the best I could pull off was worn out, or simply badly worn, slacks with a collared shirt. Being keenly aware of this deficiency made the stress worse. I had what I wanted, a date, but I had all the social discomfort that I loathed most in life: being ill at ease around a person I was desperate to impress.

Fortunately a conversational ease asserted itself once we were in the restaurant. No longer having to drive the mad hills of San Francisco, and being able to enjoy one of my favorite past-times—reading a menu with wholly too much anticipation–I finally calmed down. Relatively speaking. This gentle woman had been an absolute saint the entire time. Whether she had (she must have) noticed my earlier stress or not, she had stayed imperturbably pleasant. We continued with simple chit chat, talked about the items on the menu, ordered something, and then, finally were in a position to have meaningful conversation. Perhaps this was why I was less nervous. Finally I could speak with ease about ideas and things that I valued deeply.

Therein was a new problem, for what does a misanthrope bent on hating not only other humans, but the very human that they are, value deeply? Getting other people to dislike humanity as much as they do of course. I don't remember how it started, the details are lost, but I know for a fact I eventually started complaining about humanity as a whole. "Humans are bad," was probably said with some seriousness at some point, and not long after there was likely a diatribe about overpopulation, ignorance, violence, the environment, and the general level of nastiness that I saw as fundamentally characteristic of our species. She took it all in stride. She actually listened. And when I was finally done vomiting misanthropic bile all over the place she responded with kindness and certainty. "I disagree. I think humans are amazing."

I think she offered some examples of human excellence, kindness and ingenuity, but I can't remember any of the specifics. I was too busy preparing to engage in some horrified backtracking. I stumbled through a half apology, trying to come with my own examples of things I liked about humans, but really couldn't get past much other than the architectural. And classical architecture at that. I knew I had lost the entire thread, but was scrambling madly, like a wasp in a chlorine pool that didn't know it was already dead, for some means of understanding and escaping the predicament of my own making.

She knew it was done as well. What's amazing to me still about this person is that I don't think she had written me off until I went full hate-machine during our meal. There was actually a chance that I might have made some progress with this woman. Well, theoretically, but we all know not really. I just happened to slam the door closed rather early on in the relationship. Conversation dried up. It returned to the stilted, the mundane and meaningless, and if the food was any good I'll never know. I had ruined my own appetite and was only able to function as the bare husk of an automaton with a vaguely human shape.

I thought everything that could have gone wrong had already done so spectacularly. Unfortunately, for many of us, when it rains it pours. So defeated was I—I had blown one of the rarest things, a date—that my memory ceased to function. Normally I'm very good about remembering where I've parked the car. Normally I have a very good sense of direction. I'm usually quite adept at noticing landmarks and retracing my steps. Unfortunately, already having done this poor woman wrong by forcing her to sit through an uncomfortable lunch with an abject hater of people, I now dragged her on a march through the `gently rolling` hills of San Francisco in search of my car.

Every street I would say, "I think it's this one," and for at least twenty minutes I was wrong every time. I was a sweaty mess of despair again. I wish I could say I didn't care, but that's not my nature. I cared a lot and I felt horrible. I imagined myself as a filthy rag that had bent space into itself and collapsed into a black hole of self pity and disgust, but that could still be seen and mocked by the universe. As saintly, as unbelievably patient, as this woman was, I could tell that her patience had finally started to wear thin. Of course I could have been imagining it, but I do believe she was reviewing her life choices and probably preparing to fend off any future suitors like myself.

We did eventually find the car. The drive home is a complete empty space in my memory. I feel as if we simply didn't talk and I simply drove her sheepishly back to wherever she stayed. I did not make small talk once we parked. I might not even have really parked: it was probably a double park in the street with blinkers. The car stopped rolling. She may have said something pleasant, maybe not, and then she was gone entirely from my life forever. It was a relief. It was excruciating.

Through my cruel and selfish ways I had managed to rob myself. I thought I was cleverly stealing away an ugly, foolish man's woman. The full irony of this is that it was basically true, just not for the man I had in mind. It was clear, by the end of the debacle, that all I had managed to take away was my happiness, my confidence, and my humanity. What remained was a further strained shell of a person, filled to leaking with regret, despair, and great resentment. In trying to steal the girl I had ensured that I would have all the ingredients to be a great bonfire radiating the opposite of charisma; I had made certain a future devoid of women. As with much of the harm we do to others in life, the one principally wounded is actually the self.