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.
