The stories i am about to tell are a prequel to the preceding chapter; they are about the faking that goes on when we are first experimenting with what it means to be in love as an adolescent and about the presentation of self in courtship.

The tale that follows is also one of great gender anxiety, and it is true. I even think it happened exactly as I will relate it, for the events are so vivid in my mind's eye. I know – vividness has no necessary relation with veracity, at least where memory is concerned. I have told stories about myself that were largely true, but I remember altering the details to make them funnier, more suspenseful, or less boring, or to present myself as either wittier or more endearingly pathetic than really was the case. Now for the life of me I can no longer construct what really happened. I see it as I have told it, though I remember – no, I know – that I fabricated parts, but I no longer know which parts. My intentions are good, and, even if they were not, I take the refuge of the postmodern scoundrel: whether true or not it makes no difference. The tale raises the same points whether it happened exactly as I remember or not.