The problem

You're bored. Bored with the summer, bored with your boyfriend, bored with forty varieties of neurotic who make up your social circle. You don't like being cruel or cutting, but sometimes people deserve no better because they don't even try. And besides, you want nothing so viscerally much as to be put in your place by a brooding asshole whose verbal dexterity makes you feel deserving of the prize-for-taking-part.

The solution

We will meet for a drink tomorrow after work, somewhere around the Aldgate or Shoreditch area. I will fix you with a penetrating stare and reduce you to stammering inanities. I'm older than you, sharper than you, more confident than you. My mind will penetrate your person with the finesse of a cognitive artist. You will never have felt so seen in your life. Your heart will beat a little faster; your stomach will flutter; you will want to impress me. And who knows, you might. Or you might not.

Me

I'm a professor, business owner, publicly visible intellectual, all that shit. I'm in superlative physical shape, so if you want a dad bod so you feel less bad about yourself, don't bother. I am an accomplished conversationalist so you needn't worry about keeping the show on the road. I don't do anxiety or fear or any of that insecure emoting that seems to be in the fucking water these days. I will overcome you like an avalanche sweeping away a velvet rope.

You

You are intelligent, cynical, and creative; you are also attractive and in excellent physical shape. You will reward my attention with elegance and sagacity and an appreciation for dark truths––especially the funny ones. There is, after all, nothing funnier than unhappiness. You will be willing to share a photo before we meet so we know there's an attraction.

What will happen

We'll figure this out quickly enough. Most likely, we'll get three drinks in, lean closer the better to hear each other, and then fall into a moment. Maybe the moment will happen once, maybe it will happen all evening––maybe it will grow into something more than just a moment. Whatever it is, it will redeem a July Thursday that would otherwise have had the audacity to make us one day older and give us nothing in return.

Talk to me.