But I had friends--a few. They were a bit odd; I don't think Chilly Debby would have approved. My friend Smiths ate tofu-and-peanut-butter sandwiches and talked about how dumb vegetarians were. Terry came from a farm. Cindy worshipped her own cerebral cortex. And I sat there and patiently listened to everything they had to say. I myself had nothing. I wanted a second girlfriend, I suppose. . .but fat chance of that coming to pass. . .
I was alone, and now I realized just how cold the world--against which her warmth had buffered me--had always been. Before, men had been expected to be urbane, and perhaps a bit handsome, if that was feasible--I always think of Fitzwilliam Darcy, somehow. But now we were expected to be a lot more, and at the same time a lot less. I wanted to be Kurt Cobain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Tom Cruise, all rolled into one. Instead, I was a wiry teenager who bore a strong resemblance to anemia, personified.
My adolescence was fraught with difficulty. It was hard to tell what view Chilly Debby took of this; she was busy sitting on couches reading books on economics and social history. And I--I was cute once. . .I was adorable once. Even at fifteen I might have been adorable. My girlfriend sure thought so. She was soon to dump me, however. I was possessed with the desire to explore her in ways only a man can explore. Unfortunately, I was still a boy. She peeled my arms back from around her neck and threw them back at me, like so much rubber.
