Read Online Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace - Free Book Online
Authors: David Foster Wallace
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that miasma and dispense towels for coins?’
Q.
‘…’
Q.
‘What were the two choices again?’
B.I . #2 10-94
C APITOLA CA
‘Sweetie, we need to talk. We’ve needed to for a while. I have I mean, I feel like. Can you sit?’
Q.
‘Well, I’d rather almost anything, but I care about you, and I’d rather anything than you getting hurt. That concerns me a lot, believe me.’
Q.
‘Because I care. Because I love you. Enough to really be honest.’
Q.
‘That sometimes I worry you’re going to get hurt. And that you don’t deserve it. To get hurt I mean.’
Q, Q.
‘Because, to be honest, my record is not good. Almost every intimate relationship I get into with women seems to end up with them getting hurt, somehow. To be honest, sometimes I worry I might be one of those guys who uses people, women. I worry about it somet—no, damn it, I’m going to be honest with you because I care about you and you deserve it. Sweetie, my relationship record indicates a guy who’s bad news. And more and more now lately I’ve been afraid that you’re going to get hurt, that I might hurt you the way I seem to have hurt others who—’
Q.
‘That I have a history, a pattern so to speak, of, for instance, coming on very fast and hard in the beginning of a relationship and pursuing very hard and very intensely and wooing very intensely and being head over heels in love right from the very start, of saying I Love You very early on in the relationship, of starting to talk future-tense right from the outset, of having nothing be too much to say or do to show how much I care, which all of course has the effect, naturally, of seeming to make them truly believe I really am in love—which I am—which then, I think, seems to make them feel loved enough and so to speak safe enough to start letting them say I Love You back and acknowledging that they’re in love with me, too. And it’s not—let me stress this because it’s the God’s honest truth—it’s not that I don’t mean it when I say it.’
Q.
‘Well, it’s not as if how many of them I’ve said it to isn’t an understandable question or concern but if it’s all right it’s just that it’s not what I’m trying to talk to you about, so if it’s all right I want to hold off on things like numbers or names and try to just be totally honest with you about what my concerns are, because I care. I care about you a lot, sweetie. A whole lot. I know it’s insecure, but it’s very important to me that you believe this and hang on to it all through our talk here, that what I’m saying or what I’m afraid I might do to in any way end up hurting you doesn’t in any way lessen or mean that I don’t care or that I have not meant it absolutely every time I’ve told you I love you. Every time. I hope you believe that. You deserve to. Plus it’s true.’
Q….
‘But what it is is that it seems as if for a while everything I say and do has the effect of pulling them into thinking of it as a very—a very serious relationship and almost you could say somehow like lulling them into thinking in terms of the future.’
Q.
‘Because then the as it were pattern seems to be that once I’ve got you, so to speak, and you’re as much into the relationship as I’ve been, then it’s as if I’m almost constitutionally unable somehow to push all the way through and follow through and make a… what’s the right word—’
Q.
‘Yes, all right, that’s the word, even though I have to tell you the way you say it fills me with dread that you’re already feeling hurt and not taking what I’m trying to say in the spirit which I’m trying to talk to you about this, which is that I honestly do care enough about you to share some honest concerns that have been troubling me about even the possibility of you getting hurt, which believe me is the absolute last thing I want.’
Q.
‘That, from examining the record and trying to make some kind of sense of it, it seems
Q.
‘…’
Q.
‘What were the two choices again?’
B.I . #2 10-94
C APITOLA CA
‘Sweetie, we need to talk. We’ve needed to for a while. I have I mean, I feel like. Can you sit?’
Q.
‘Well, I’d rather almost anything, but I care about you, and I’d rather anything than you getting hurt. That concerns me a lot, believe me.’
Q.
‘Because I care. Because I love you. Enough to really be honest.’
Q.
‘That sometimes I worry you’re going to get hurt. And that you don’t deserve it. To get hurt I mean.’
Q, Q.
‘Because, to be honest, my record is not good. Almost every intimate relationship I get into with women seems to end up with them getting hurt, somehow. To be honest, sometimes I worry I might be one of those guys who uses people, women. I worry about it somet—no, damn it, I’m going to be honest with you because I care about you and you deserve it. Sweetie, my relationship record indicates a guy who’s bad news. And more and more now lately I’ve been afraid that you’re going to get hurt, that I might hurt you the way I seem to have hurt others who—’
Q.
‘That I have a history, a pattern so to speak, of, for instance, coming on very fast and hard in the beginning of a relationship and pursuing very hard and very intensely and wooing very intensely and being head over heels in love right from the very start, of saying I Love You very early on in the relationship, of starting to talk future-tense right from the outset, of having nothing be too much to say or do to show how much I care, which all of course has the effect, naturally, of seeming to make them truly believe I really am in love—which I am—which then, I think, seems to make them feel loved enough and so to speak safe enough to start letting them say I Love You back and acknowledging that they’re in love with me, too. And it’s not—let me stress this because it’s the God’s honest truth—it’s not that I don’t mean it when I say it.’
Q.
‘Well, it’s not as if how many of them I’ve said it to isn’t an understandable question or concern but if it’s all right it’s just that it’s not what I’m trying to talk to you about, so if it’s all right I want to hold off on things like numbers or names and try to just be totally honest with you about what my concerns are, because I care. I care about you a lot, sweetie. A whole lot. I know it’s insecure, but it’s very important to me that you believe this and hang on to it all through our talk here, that what I’m saying or what I’m afraid I might do to in any way end up hurting you doesn’t in any way lessen or mean that I don’t care or that I have not meant it absolutely every time I’ve told you I love you. Every time. I hope you believe that. You deserve to. Plus it’s true.’
Q….
‘But what it is is that it seems as if for a while everything I say and do has the effect of pulling them into thinking of it as a very—a very serious relationship and almost you could say somehow like lulling them into thinking in terms of the future.’
Q.
‘Because then the as it were pattern seems to be that once I’ve got you, so to speak, and you’re as much into the relationship as I’ve been, then it’s as if I’m almost constitutionally unable somehow to push all the way through and follow through and make a… what’s the right word—’
Q.
‘Yes, all right, that’s the word, even though I have to tell you the way you say it fills me with dread that you’re already feeling hurt and not taking what I’m trying to say in the spirit which I’m trying to talk to you about this, which is that I honestly do care enough about you to share some honest concerns that have been troubling me about even the possibility of you getting hurt, which believe me is the absolute last thing I want.’
Q.
‘That, from examining the record and trying to make some kind of sense of it, it seems
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