So here I am stuck grokking this guy who looks like the last Vietnam body count. And, believe me, Elmer Fudd can’t stand too close a grok. (To grok—in consciousness-ese—means to stare at, examine.) Skin the color of yak cheese. At least 55 or 57 in age and 250 toneless pounds. With a toupee set on his scalp as if it had been thrown up by frost heave. Eyes that remind me of dead, stained paramecia. Just my good fortune (and his) that we’ve drawn each other in a seminar on How to Flirt. Other men are all agrok over young, even attractive women. Five temperature-taking minutes: a long time to pat anyone down with your vision in silence. Elmer, impatient, will ask our flirt leader, Caren Flashner, “You mean, I’ve gotta stare like this at a woman for five minutes before I move in? She’s gonna scream, I know it.”
“No, no—this is just a grokking exercise. You should learn to notice things about other people.” Caren is smiling so athletically, I’m afraid she might pull a cheek. Her credentials for this $35 two-session course (ten in attendance) are . . . oh, what would the opposite of impeccable be? Peccable, I guess. She has written for Popular Astrology and Photoplay, and she is also a state-certified dolt. Caren lost me earlier tonight when she came up with the following time-release capsule of pure beetleheadedness: “Don’t worry about rejection. The interesting thing to know is that attraction is always mutual. Even if a person rejects you they’re still attracted to you. But they had some kind of problem that wouldn’t let them relate. It has nothing to do with you.”
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