The sickest feeling is when you are talking to a woman and you suddenly realize that she hates talking to you, she fears talking to you, she is only talking to you to be polite, so it won’t be awkward when she unavoidably runs into you next, and you know this and yet you find yourself babbling on to her anyway, and you see the desperation growing in her eyes and her body has arched — not to receive you but to flee from you — and you see she’s madly searching her brain for any excuse to flee and you find yourself trying more and more desperately to connect with her to show that you are not an animal, all the while you know intellectually that it is completely hopeless and to preserve your dignity you should stop talking to her right this second and walk away but you talk on and on, repeating yourself (men butt in when they’re getting bored but women don’t like to interrupt), tripping over your words, the saliva dripping from your lips into your beard, the desperation growing in your heart, the knees locking, the hips bending, the neck crunching, the chest out, the breath coming in gasps, the nose flaring and all the unplucked hairs shining in the light…
Oy vey, the shame!
