knew my place. I didn’t ask girls
out. I didn’t have a girlfriend. I
didn’t even try.
For me to try to get a girl would
have upset the natural order of
things. Part of my success as the
tuck-shop guy was that I was
welcome everywhere, and I was
welcome everywhere because I was
nobody. I was the acne-ridden
clown with duck feet in floppy
shoes. I wasn’t a threat to the guys.
I wasn’t a threat to the girls. The
minute I became somebody, I
risked no longer being welcomed as
nobody. The pretty girls were
already spoken for. The popular