She was turning serious, so I shut up.

“The trouble with you is, you’re so narrow-minded about everything,” she said as she added cream to her coffee (meaning it was tasteless, after all). “You only see the negative things. You don’t even try to look at the good points. If something doesn’t measure up to your standards, you won’t touch it. It’s so annoying.”

“Maybe so. But it’s my life, not yours.”

“And you don’t care how much you hurt people. You just let them clean up your mess. Even when you masturbate.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I remember when you were in high school you used to do it in your sheets. The women of the family had to clean up after you. The least you could do is masturbate without getting it all over your sheets.”

“I’ll be more careful from now on,” I said. “Now, forgive me for repeating myself, but it just so happens that I have my own life. I know what I like and I know what I don’t like. It’s as simple as that.”

“Okay, but you don’t have to hurt people. Why don’t you try a little harder? Why don’t you look at the good side? Why don’t you at least show some restraint? Why don’t you grow up?”

Now she had touched a sore spot. “I am grown up. I can show restraint. And I can look at the good side, too. I’m just not looking at the same things you are.”

“That’s what I mean. You’re so arrogant. That’s why you haven’t got a steady girlfriend. I mean, you’re twenty-seven years old.”

“Of course I have a girlfriend.”

“You mean a body to sleep with. You know I’m right. Do you enjoy changing partners every year? How about love and understanding and compassion? Without those, what’s the point? You might as well be masturbating.”

“I don’t change partners every year, do I?”

“Pretty much. You ought to think about your life more seriously, act more like a grownup.”

That marked the end of our conversation. She just tuned out.

Why had her attitude toward me changed so much over the past year? Until then, she had seemed to enjoy being partners with me in my resolutely aimless life-style, and—if I’m not mistaken—she even looked up to me to some extent. She had become gradually more critical of me in the months since she had begun seeing her fiancé.