For a moment he considers this question: whether it is a good idea for them to see each other again. Is it different, to want something, and to think the wanted thing is a good idea? Yes, it could be different, he thinks, if the long-term consequences of the event were foreseeably worse than the short-term gratification involved. And indeed, the long-term consequences of seeing someone again who you like very much, who doesn’t really hand on heart seem to like you in the same way, while unrelatedly you’re still grieving and feeling distraught about a recent death in your family, those consequences could be pretty bad, devastating even, in the long term, if you got to like her more and more and she understandably, due to your bad personality and looks, did not experience the same thing on her side. A lot of negative feelings could follow on from that: sadness, low self-esteem, anger at yourself and the other person, despair. People probably have lost their minds over less, and gone actually crazy from the misery. And yet, at the same time, it seems incredibly possible now, tantalisingly possible, that he might once again hear her voice murmuring his name in a low pleasurable satisfied tone while he makes love to her. And for this, he thinks, whatever: despair, heartbreak, even losing his mind and going insane later on, anything. Literally, anything, any price. Yeah, he says. I think it’s a good idea. I do.