The Art of Work: A Proven Path to Discovering What You Were Meant to Do

table. Now it was up to her.
Lane opened her mouth and let out two soul-crushing
words: “I . . . can’t.”
My head dropped in defeat.
“I’m sorry.”
Shoulders slumped, I nodded, pretending to understand.
But then I did something even worse: I didn’t leave. Instead
of excusing myself, I sat down in the middle of the room
and tried to blend in. As if somehow that would be less
embarrassing than just playing a song in front of a bunch of
people, getting rejected by a girl, and then leaving.
I attempted to join the conversations, only to be greeted
by looks of curiosity. But I played it cool: What, that? That
thing I just did? Oh, I do that every Saturday. In fact, I have
three more gigs lined up today! This is just another stop on
the College Dormitory Rejection Tour.
Unable to bear the awkwardness any longer, I finally got
up, walked across the room, and excused myself. Lane
rushed to the door to see me out, walking with me through
the hallway. “Well, thanks for my song!” she said sweetly.
Through gritted teeth, I mustered in the most sarcastic
voice possible, “Oh, my pleasure. I aim to entertain.” And I
left.
After that incident, it would be a long time before I
would ever do something so audacious for a girl again. But
looking back now, I understand how it happened the way it
did. Why did Lane shut me down? Probably because I had
uttered a total of one hundred words to her in the previous