Flashback: Pizza party

When I was a freshman in high school, my friend T. and I were invited to a pizza party by a guy whom we barely knew. It seemed like a strange invitation, but I was curious. I asked: Who else will be there? What's it for? What do you guys do? "It's just a bunch of kids our age from my church. We eat pizza, hang out and talk." I had some misgivings because I knew most of the churches in the area were more conservative than I was, but I also didn't want to pre-judge a bunch of people I'd never met. And it sounded casual enough; if it didn't turn out to be our thing, T. and I could just leave.

We went. In addition to seven or eight other kids our age, there was one older guy. (At the time he seemed ancient, but he was probably only in his 30s.) "Get your pizza and come sit down," the older guy said. Little alarm bells went off in my head; already this was less casual than I'd anticipated. But we were here, the pizza was served, and I was dependent on T. for a ride. We each took a slice of pizza and a paper towel as a plate and joined the circle of people sitting on the floor.

A few bites into our slices, the older guy began to sermonize about the evils of homosexuality and the inescapable damnation of homosexuals. T. and I gave each other sideways glances - he'd recently confessed to me he thought he was bisexual - but we felt trapped. We'd taken the free pizza, were in the circle, and getting up now went against all my parents' teachings about what it meant to be a good person and a polite guest. So we stayed until he was done speaking and we were dismissed.

On some level I blamed myself. I knew already that almost nothing in this world is free; if someone you don't know very well offers you pizza, they're bound to have an ulterior motive. On the other hand, the guy who'd invited us hadn't been completely honest, either. I felt like he'd purposefully withheld information from us, which meant we couldn't make an informed decision.

I felt duped. Manipulated. Betrayed.

I had a similar experience last week with a novel I read, which I wrote about on my business blog.