I was walking to my car from my night class the other eveningwhen a fellow approached me and asked if I was “that guy from thepaper.”
I said yes, and from there conversation ensued, though not aboutanything to do with my column.
We just talked about the stadium and what not.
Just small talk really, but enjoyable all the same until wereached my destination and I turned to say farewell with anappropriate, “take it easy, ” or “later man,” though I cannotremember which.
He repeated, and I thought that was that until he said, “youmight wanna get some new material, because today’s article suckedpretty bad.”
“I’ll do that,” I replied clumsily, and I climbed into mystation wagon and humbly drove off.
It’s not the criticism that bothered me … I get it all thetime, but just in the manner that it was presented; as if we wereold chums, and he was just saying what an old chum would say.
However, he was not an old chum, but rather a convenientacquaintance, to which we both benefitted equally from by nothaving to walk to our cars alone.
But now, I feel as though I’ve received more from him than hehas from me — seeing as how I had not given him any constructivecriticism to ponder over.
I feel as though I am the selfish one in the relationship.
As we all may or may not know, in every relationship of anyvariety there is always the selfish one and the one who is lessselfish than the other.
Most of the time it’s not anything we can help. It just kindaworks out that way.
No one wants to be the selfish one, because … well, it’s justa negative stigma.
And no one wants to be the less selfish one, because no onewants to find out that they may have more invested in someone elsethan that someone has invested in them — basically the “fool.”
You know the old saying “nice guys finish last.”
There is some truth to it.
Now, nice guys might not finish dead last, but let’s just saythey’re hard pressed to make the top ten.
This holds true for nice girls as well, (though it depends onyour definition of “nice”).
This is not just the case in romantic relationships, but inevery kind.
The less selfish ones always leave more at the table than bringhome in a doggy bag, and usually go hungry while the more selfishpat their full bellies with satisfaction.
This is really just too complex of an idiotic theory to developin 450 words … sorry.
Anywho, I never leave debts unpaid.
So to the guy the other evening … it’s called halitosis –chew a mint.
There, we’re all square.