I have been nice all my life and it never worked for me. I see the A-holes get the girls, who wreck them, hence that thing called #MeToo!, and women hate me, whom they have never met. My friend (a former stripper and escort who became a professor of English Lit only to be treated badly by male profs) jokes, “You are a middle-aged white male, what do you expect?”

There’s a psychological truth in human relationships, apparently, which is that if you treat people well, they think they can do better. You praise them, see all the good in them, and they treat you like dirt. But, I guess all the women I have loved only loved themselves?

No, nice guys finish last and I could only ever be nice: My father died when I was ten and I became the emotional parent of the family. I watched my mother with migraines try to raise two children on her own. Besides my father, a Stanford-and-Yale-graduated Urologist, she dated alcoholics and one gypsy, all of whom were inherently liars, probably because she needed help and they seemed bigger than life. My kindness and respect for women is inherent in my experience. My mother was physically, emotionally, and actively beautiful. I have a special reverence for women, but I have also watched you be crushed by a system and it’s made you intolerant and suspicious of men, who exude the weakness that kindness appears to be. The abused abuse. And so, as the rich-poor gap continues to widen, and evil appears to be strong enough to protect women. A billionaire walked up to me the other day maskless and smelling of expensive cigars and he said: “Are you guys still wearing masks?” One eye higher than the other. And I looked at him and thought wealth and narcissism trumps the White Knight any day. And while I could surmise psychopathology, and felt it was pointless to argue, along came a lady, who said kindness was golden. I laugh. I know I will go quietly and alone to my death. I am neither tall, rich, nor naive. I am merely an observer. Women say a lot of sh#t, but you can watch their actions. A woman I have known for years, who said I am generous and kind, just married a millionaire, but I have to admit he is kind too. The woman of my dreams just wanted to have children and be taken care of. I will let you know how it all pans out, but I hope you see that in the end, kindness is trumped by the practical. And what’s true is that you cannot afford to be nice, because the world will take you and spit you out. I keep finding this true, especially in the context of work.

I want to talk about work as it relates to kindness. You are expected to make a positive impression. Meanwhile, they stuff you with tasks to the point that you fail to keep up, and when you make a mistake they punish you. This happens over and over again. How does kindness work itself out in relationships, if on the job you are being stuffed like a goose and your liver is expanded? There are only two outcomes, one is to copy the behavior that goes on at work. That’s the reality. Or you can become pliable, accepting, and soft. You count your blessings each day that you made it through. How does such a person treat women? How do women respond to him? Kindness is unnatural. It is a state of disequilibrium.

Haven’t you ever seen a tree chopper? A perfectly beautiful tree goes in one end and comes out the other in a “million little pieces.”