2002-01-15 - 1:59 p.m.

This past weekend someone I don't know too well called me a player. It was pretty much apropos of nothing. I hadn't been hitting on her or talking about girls. My bursting-at-the-seams black book didn't slip from my pocket. I didn't fish around in my pocket for a bottle opener, only to accidentally flip out -- whoops! -- a string of condoms.

But apparently I am a player. Call up Bill Bellamy -- I'm speaking directly into the camera for How to Be a Player II, not him. (Or am I getting that confused with Booty Call?) So, this must be "how to be a player":

1. Don't call girls. Don't go out with girls.
2. A few days a week, go to the gym after work. That way, the emptiness of your apartment will have less time to consume you before you turn in for the night. Avoid looking at any girls, because you know a lot of them are in an uncomfortable situation as it is.
3. Ride the subway, but don't make eye contact with any females. See #2. Wonder why you don't see any average-looking guys with girlfriends on the train.
4. Crane your neck to glance at the answering machine the first second you open the door to dark apartment. Curse its non-blinking, mocking red glowing eye.
5. Get drunk enough on the weekends that you just pass out when you hit the pillow. That way you don't have to listen to your roommate getting it on and start feeling more alone.
6. If you see a young woman – anywhere: party, street, bar, coffee shop, elevator at work -- who looks nice and/or smart and/or cute, assume three things: A. She’s got a boyfriend. B. She’s just waiting for one more asshole to approach her so she can deliver that scathing, humiliating speech she’s been mentally perfecting. C. She knows both karate and ka-razy.
7. Seriously consider a writing schedule (A schedule! How regimented!) that will measurably stifle your social life.