Manners

He was friends with assholes, so they gave him terrible advice: “If you really want to know if he loves you, be disgusting,” and so that's what he did. For days he didn't shave, and refused to shampoo or use soap. When they were going to go out for coffee that one Tuesday, he didn't brush his teeth and spoke close to his face, but the guy just looked at him and smiled while he spoke of his rashes as if that happened all the time, and finally he did what his friends told him to do as a last resort. He said, “I'm going to poop.”

The guy said, “Ok. I'll wait here.”

“I'm just going to poop, ok?”

“Ok.”

“To POOP,” he said, standing up, facing the restroom. “I am going to defecate in a commercial establishment rather than in the privacy of my home, which is how the homeless and uncouth do it.”

“No problem,” the guy said crossing his legs and picking up a magazine. 

“I can't do this,” he said, sitting back down. 

“What do you mean?” said the guy. “It's no problem. It's just like how you do it at home. Do you need tissue paper?”

“No I mean I don't really need to poop,” he said. 

“Why would you lie to me like that?”

“I said it so you'd love me.”

“You told me you're going to poop so that I'd love you?”

“No,” he said. “I mean look at me. Look at me for a second. I'm ugly, and fat, and that one time I spoke in your face when I didn't brush my teeth. You really must be something to like me. Even I don't like me.”

The guy smiled. “That's the sweetest thing anyone's said to me. No one pretend-pooped for me before.”

“Let's start over tomorrow,” he said. “Tomorrow I take a shower.”

“That's great,” said the guy.