Look, I understand when you first meet the guy, he can be tough to get along with. He’s kind of shy, I guess…well, that might not be the proper word, because when I met him he held a backhand up to me and told me to fuck off. Guess you can’t really be shy if you’re willing to do that. Or you’re just shy with conviction. But, you know, he sort of warmed up to me with time. I would see him at parties and sort of shrug-nod in terror, and then he would get really drunk and so would I and before you know it we would start flirting and I thought things were going my way. But he said he couldn’t get too serious with me, so we’re pretty good friends, no big deal. We don’t hang out as much as I want, because he doesn’t answer my calls right away, which is fine. People think I’m friends with him because he’s good-looking and great in bed, but we haven’t had sex because he says I’m below his league. That’s fine; I’m glad that our friendship is deeper than that. The point is, I had a bad first impression of him, too. And I understand why you would. But I’m asking you to do me a simple favor: you really should just put in lots and lots of time and effort so you can understand that he’s not as terribly assholish as your first impression might have indicated.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not all roses from there. I still have a hard time with him sometimes. Like, he came to my birthday, didn’t bring a card or anything, didn’t foot the bill, and he ended up stealing my bottle of birthday vodka that Kira got me. But I talked to him about it and he said it was because he was broke and needed to get drunk as soon as possible because he didn’t want to deal with the situation sober because a girl he cheated on was there. Now, that’s more understandable, right? See, when you get to know someone, they become more sympathetic. And for the record, this might not have made it less traumatic, but it wasn’t a real gun. It was a fake gun that his son painted black. Wait, did he say son? I’m not really sure, but, man oh man that’ll be a fun Q&A session. It just takes a matter of getting to know somebody. You can’t just ride on first impressions your whole life; you miss out on all the perks that everybody has to offer. Like, Jarrett isn’t as racist as you think he would be: like, some of the things he says about blacks are pretty mean, but he’s got some black friends, and either way, some of the jokes he has about Asian people are actually pretty funny. They’re funny people, he says. See, he has a sense of humor. All in all, not a bad guy.
Listen, some people give off bad vibes, and some people give off really bad vibes. But maybe if you go up to him, maybe try to talk to him a dozen or so more times, make sure you say the right thing, offer him a drink (oh man, got to offer him a drink), buy him something, tell him he’s hot (he likes being called a ‘bad boy’ too), and just be persistent, you may realize he’s not a complete asshole, but rather, someone can be just a regular asshole from time to time. You think you can do that? For me? Hey, it’s not any different from when that high-strung bitch friend of yours called me a tubtard and I didn’t give her a chance at first. But now that we’re forced to work across from each other, we’re civil. It’s one of those things: you got to give people a chance. God, just quit making blanket evaluations about people all the time. You’re just like all the rest of your friends.
