$2.

95

HOW TO
MAKE
YOURSELF
MISERABLEr
Avital training manual
by Dan Grcenburg with Marcia Jacobs
"The ultimate in self-demoralizing manuals... full of hilarity.- McCa/Zs
 HOWTO
MAKE
VDURSOf
MISERABLE
 HOW TO
MAKE
YOURSELF
MISERABLE
Another vital training manual by Dan Greenburg
(who wrote HOW TO BE A JEWISH MOTHER),
with Marcia Jacobs (who never wrote anything)

Illustrations conceived and drawn by Marv Rubin

Random House f^SMu^^, New York

© Copyright, 1966, by Dan Greenburg
All rights reserved under Internationaland Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in New York by Ran-
dom House, Inc., and simultaneously in Toronto, Canada,
by Random House of Canada Limited.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 66-23498
:

ISBN 0-394-73168-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
 ) )

What This Book Will Teach You

Introduction (Page 1)

SECTION I: METHODS TO MISERY ALONE (Page 3)

Chapter 1: Basics of Self -Torture (Page 3)

A. Why You Need to Be Miserable (page 3)
B. How to Create a First-Class Anxiety page 5
(

1. How to Select a 3-Dimensional Worry page 5 ( >

2. The Power of Negative Thinking (page 7 )

3. How to Mellow Your Worry (page 12

4. Worries into Anxieties (page 12)
5. Exercise in Anxiety (page 14)
6. Quiz (PAGE 16)
 ) ) ) ) )

Chapter 2: Seven Classic Misery-Making Situations (Page 18)

A. Situation #1: Basic Worries About Noises in the Night
(PAGE 18)
B. Situation #2: Basic Worries About Giving and Receiving
Gifts ( PAGE 20
C. #3: Basic Worries About Waiting (page 21
Situation i

D. Situation #4: Basic Worries About Vacations (page 22)

E. Situation #5 Basic Worries About Dinner Parties page 25
: (

F. Situation #6' Basic Worries About Minor Infractions of the

Law (PAGE 27)
G. Situation #7: Basic Worries About Flying (page 27)
H. Quiz (page 32)

Chapter 3: Misery About the Past, the Present and the Future
(Page 33)
A. Optimum Brooding Conditions ( page 33
1. Sunday Afternoon page 33 ( )

2. New Year's Eve page 35 (

3. Seventeen Basic Pessimistic Philosophies ( page 38

 ) ) )

B. How to Make Yourself Miserable About the Past (page 39

C. How to Make Yourself Miserable About the Present page 40 (

1. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You're Not a Rich

Person (page 42)

2. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a Rich
Person (PAGE 42)
3. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You're Not a Famous
Person (page 45)
4. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a Famous
Person (page 45)
5. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You're Not a
Beautiful Person (page 47)
6. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a
Beautiful Person (page 47)
7. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You're Not a
Talented Person (PAGE 48)
8. How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a
Talented Person (page 48)
D. How to Make Yourself Miserable About the Future ( page 50
E. Exercise: Seventeen Masochistic Activities for the Beginner
(page 52)
F. Completion Test (PAGE 54)
 ) ) ) 1 ) )

SECTION II: METHODS TO MISERY WITH OTHERS

(Page 55)
Chapter 4: HowLose Friends and Alienate People (Page 55)
to
A. How to Formulate a Reject-Me Image (page 56)
1. The Reject-Me Posture (page 57 i

2. The Reject-Me Tone of Voice (page 57

B. The Dynamics of Rejection page 58 (

1. Selecting a Promising Potential Rejector (page 59

2. The Apology as an Aid to Rejection page 60 (

3. The Reject-Me Formula and How to Use It page 64 ( )

4. How to Handle the Reluctant Rejector (page 68 »

5. Test Problem (page 69 i

Chapter 5: How to Lose Your Job (Page 71)

A. Basic Underpaid Attitude (page 72 i

B. Balancing the Scales page 73 ( i

C. Quiz (PAGE 75)

Chapter 6: How to Avoid Deep Romantic Relationships

(Page 76)
A. Misery at Parties page 76 (

1. Basic Strateg>^ page 76 i

2. The No Small-Talk Maneuver (page 79)

 )

B. The Telephone as an Instrument of Self -Torture (page 80

1. Waiting for a Phone Call (page 81)

2. Phoning for a Date (page 87)

3. Opening Remarks for Telephone Calls (page 89)

4. The Invitation (PAGE 90)

C. The Ordeal of Actually Going Out (page 93

Basic Philosophy (page 93)
1.

2. Ten Ways to Kill a Good Evening (page 93)

D. Quiz (PAGE 96)

Chapter 7: How to Destroy Deep Romantic Relationships

(Page 97)
A. Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #1: The Great Love
Test (PAGE 98)
B. Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #2: The Great Marriage
Bluff (PAGE 101)
C. Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #3: Do We Have
Anything Left? (page 102)
D. Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #4: Don^t Leave Me
(PAGE 104)
E. Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #5: Attractive Fred
(Counterpart for Women: Attractive Corinne) (page 105)
F. Test Problem (PAGE 108)
Chapter 8: How to Lose Any Remaining Friends (Page 110)

A. The Acceptable Failure Range (page 110)

B. Alone at Last! (page 112)
 Introduction

Too long have you, the average masoehist, gone about

the important task of punishing yourself for your various
guilts by devious or ineffective means.

Too long have you had to settle for poorly formulated

anxieties and hit-or-miss methods of self-flagellation, simply
because this vital field has always been shrouded in ignorance
—a folk art rather than a science.

Here at last is the frank report you have been waiting

for. In it we you on a step-by-step investigation
shall take
into every phase of self-torture and humiliation, sharing with
you in the process many of the methods we ourselves have
used so successfully in the past.

It is our humble but earnest desire that through these

pages you will be able to find for yourself the inspiration and
the tools for a truly painful, meaningless and miserable life.
 SECTION I:

Methods to Misery Alone

Chapter 1: Basics of Self-Torture

Why You Need to Be Miserable

You, we can safely assume, are guilty.
Guilty of what we don't know. Frankly, we don't want
to know. Chances are it's something pretty tacky.
Perhaps you're toying with the notion of spraying
Black Flag on your father's Cheerios, or of running off to
Denver with your dearest friend's spouse.
Or maybe it's something even more exotic, like secret
romantic feelings toward: (1) your locker-mate at the Y,
(2) your sister, (3) your Doberman pinscher, (4) your um-
brella. (We're willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and
assume none of these things have progressed beyond the
notion stage.)
Well, whatever your own business and we don^t
it is, it^s

wish to pry. Our only concern is that you have toyed with
a few socially frowned-upon ideas, that you feel guilty about
— —
doing so, and that quite logically you wish to be punished
for your guilt.
—
Who can you get to punish you your father? your dear-
est friend? your locker-mate? Hardly. These people don't
even know about your guilt. And besides, they're far too
busy punishing themselves to be bothered about punishing
you. Clearly, if any punishing is to get done, you are going
to have to do it yourself.
Well, then, how to go about it? How to make yourself
as miserable as you truly deserve to be?
You probably already have a few misery-making methods
of —
your own like bombarding yourself with morbid fears
about that persistent pain in your stomach, or berating your-
self about what you should have said to that rude salesperson
in Heavy Appliances.
Whatever you're now doing to yourself, we can help you
do it better.
In this book we shall outline two paths to misery which
are at once deadly effective and easy to follow. The first, a
solitary pursuit, is The Creation of Anxieties. The second,
which requires the use of other people as unwitting accom-
plices, is Making People Reject You.
These two techniques, combined in an intensive but sen-
sible program of suffering and self-torture, will be all you
need to attain the elusive and much sought-after goal of Total
Personal Misery.
And now, on to the first of our two methods to misery.

How to Create a First-Class Anxiety

Do you know how to worry?
Of course you do.
Or do you?
Let us rephrase the question. Do you know how
worryto
creatively 1 Can you take the simple worries and common-
place fears of everyday life and transform them into true
misery-making anxieties?
If not, you can be taught. And the first step is learning
how to select a 3-Dimensional Worry.

How to Select a 3-DimensionaI Worry

Some worries are just not good anxiety material. For
instance, there's little point in fearing a visit to the dentist
and the discovery of cavities if you: (a) watch between-meal
 :

treats and brush often with an effective decay-preventive

dentifrice in a conscientiously applied program of oral hy-
giene and regular professional care, or (b) have no nerve
endings in your mouth, or (c) wear false teeth.
No, in order for a fear to become a 3-Dimensional Worry
it must fulfill three important conditions or dimensions
DIMENSION # 1 There must be hell to pay if your fear
:

proves to be true.
DIMENSION #2: There must be some evidence that your
fear will prove true,
DIMENSION #3: There must be a substantial period of
time wait before you can find out if your fear is true.
to
Medically based fears are among the most promising,
but let us select for illustrative purposes here something more
ominous than a possible cavity. Let us choose, for example, a
fear that you're coming down with an obscure but deadly
disease. Could this fear become a 3-Dimensional Worry? It
could, provided the disease youVe selected can pass certain
tests.
DIMENSION #1: Have you chosen a disease which could
not only have dangerous complications but which would also
require lengthy, expensive, painful and humiliating treat-
ment?
DIMENSION #2: Have you chosen a disease whose early

6
symptoms are so general that you could find them in a com-
mon cold and an upset stomach?
DIMENSION #3: Have you chosen a disease whose posi-
tive confirmation would require that you take off from work
and spend at least a couple of days undergoing tests in a
hospital?
you can answer "yes'' to all of the above questions, then
If
you have a true 3-Dimensional Worry, and you are ready
to develop it intoa First-Class Anxiety.
Let us assume, however, that you are not quite so fortu-
—
nate that your fear has failed to meet one or even two of
our prerequisites. Do not be dismayed. You may still be able
to supply the missing condition, provided you have mastered
the all-important Power of Negative Thinking.

The Power of Negative Thinking

Negative thinking is the ability to picture a little love
nest out where the roses cling, and see mortgage payments
and rose fever. It is the ability to walk in the shade with your
blues on parade, to direct your feet to the gloomy side of the
street and not leave your worries on the doorstep where they
can't be of any use to you.
Some people are born with this Power of Negative Think-
ing. — —
Some like lawyers develop it through years of inten-
sive training. Any lawyer you every bad thing that
can tell

either has ever happened or could ever happen to someone in

your situation, whatever that situation might be.
Since it would not be practical for you to have a lawyer
with you at all times, you must learn to imagine all the dis-
astrous possibilities in all types of situations yourself.
To return your worry about becoming gravely ill.
to
Let's say your inability to satisfy all the requirements
for a 3-Dimensional Worry stems from the fact that you have
had a physical examination within the past three or four
months and have been given a clean bill of health. Does this
make your situation hopelessly unthreatening?
It emphatically does not. First of all, how can you be sure

some serious condition hasn't cropped up since your examina-

tion?
Second, how can you be sure there wasn't some fact you
neglected to tell the doctor, something which you didn't even
think was important enough to mention at the time, but which
any medical man would have instantly recognized as the tip-
off symptom?
Or, even assuming there wasn't a single relevant fact you
failed to tell —
him how can you be absolutely certain he was
competent enough to interpret correctly the information you
gave him?

8
FIG. I: BEGINNER'S EXERCISE IN NEGATIVE THINKING
Without referring to the list below, how many potential hazards can you
identify in this scene?

Partial List Of Hazards: (A) Intense sunlight could fade your clothing, grass could perma-
nently stain it; (B) passing bird could soil your head; (C) passing airliner could erroneously
jettison its septic tank on your car or person; (D) bottles could tip over and spill on clothes;
(E) soft drinks could rot your teeth; (F) pollen could inflame your nasal membranes; (G)
nearsighted bee, attracted by flower, could accidentally fly into your ear, become trapped
and hysterical; (H) weakened tree limb could fall and fracture your skull; (I) sultry weather
could cause embarrassment; (J) great distance from nearest restroom could cause extreme
anguish; (K) continuous weight of arm could irritate appendix; (L) companion could sud-
denly realize how boring you are; (M) freelance photographer could snap embarrassing
pictures from helicopter; (N) vice-squad officer submerged in stream could be observing
you through periscope; (O) thin bear could be lurking behind tree; (P) you could stub your
toe on boulder or get tetanus from stepping on rusty nail; (Q) you could break your teeth
on smooth white rock you mistook for hardboiled egg; (R) passing Greyhound bus could
careen out of control and demolish your car; (S) mischievous passerby could release hand-
brake, or paint obscenities in permanent enamel; (T) ground tremor could loosen bank;
(U) sudden lava flow could engulf you; (V) stray lightning bolt from cloud could strike tree
and electrocute you; (W) plant lice from bark could lodge in scalp; (X) flash flood could
carry you away; (Y) rabid herring could leap out of stream and attack your toes.
 Or, even assuming he was competent, how can you be sure
he gave you a complete physical examination? How complete
is a complete physical examination? Couldn't there have been
a test —perhaps the very one which would have revealed your
illness —which he didn't consider worth giving you because
the disease was too rare and the test too cumbersome?
Did he, for example, give you a complete set of x-rays,
including the so-called ''G.I. series"? If not, that's probably
the only thing which could have saved you.
Or let's say he did take x-rays but found no cause for con-
cern. How
can you be sure you didn't move while the machine
was on and the plate was being exposed, thereby blurring the
image and covering up the subtle, telltale characteristics of
your affliction?
Or let's even say you're positive you didn't move while the
plate was being exposed. How can you be sure that your x-rays
weren't accidentally switched with those of a healthy person
by some young intern in the darkroom who was simultane-
ously developing stag films?
In short, there no situation that, with the application
is

of a little creative Negative Thinking, cannot be turned into

a true 3-Dimensional Worry.*

It's also possible that your doctor discovered you have an incurable fatal
disease and has decided not to tell you.

10
 THINNING HAIR
CHRONICALLY WIDE-OPEN EYES
'"''^'^-^^y.uu.

""''^^'^
T0NG13B ro^avB
WHITISH

SHALLOW BREATHING

^^\^ VLl^^^

FIG. II : MEDICAL ANXIETY FORMATION GUIDE

How many of these seemingly undangerous symptoms of dread diseases do
you have ?
How to Mellow Your Worry

Fine worries, like fine wines, are at their best only after
they have been properly mellowed. To properly mellow your
newly formed 3-Dimensional Worry: dwell on the most un-
pleasant things that could happen to you if your fear proves
to be true blame yourself for having let the situation progress
;

this far; think about all the ways the situation could have
been avoided.
Once your worry has been properly mellowed, you are
ready to convert it to a First-Class Anxiety.

Worries into Anxieties

How your fear of having an undetected illness
to take
that last rewarding step and make it a First-Class Anxiety?
There are just three steps:

STEP 1 : Figure out the one way you could find out if your
fears are justified,

STEP 2 Figure out

: why the action of finding out is impos-
sible for you to take,

STEP 3 Figure out

: why inaction is equally impossible for
you.

12
 Let's see how these steps apply to your worry.
STEP 1 : Obviously, the only way to find out whether your
fears about disease are justified submit is to to that unpleas-

ant two- or three-day hospital examination.

STEP 2 There are a number of reasons why this course of
:

action is impossible for you. We need only mention the threat

of finding out something you don't want to know, or the un-
deniable impossibility of taking off from work for a couple of
days go to the hospital when there's probably nothing
to
wrong with with you at all. And think how embarrassed you'd
be after all that fuss to have them find out you're perfectly
healthy.*
STEP 3 Of course, if you are really ill and you just sit
:

back and don't do anything about it, very soon it will be too
late to do anything about it —
so a course of inaction is equally
unthinkable. What should you do? Whatever it is, you must
make your decision fast. You don't even know how much time
you have left, and the clock is already running out on you.
Now that you have succeeded in making both action and
inaction impossible, you will have automatically produced the

*Should you ever weaken and decide to contact a physician, your symptoms
may suddenly disappear. Don't let this alarm you. As soon as the opportunity
has passed and it's no longer possible to contact him, your symptoms will
reappear.

13
vital emotion known as Frenzy,* thereby completing the
—
transformation to Anxiety because a Mellow 3-Dimensional
Worry (SDW^) plus Frenzy (F) are all you need to achieve
a First-Class Anxiety (FCA). Or, to put it into terms of the
scientist: 3DW^ + F = FCA.
Exercise in Anxiety
Arrange an important business trip to another town, a
trip which could have great bearing on the future of your job.

Make a reservation on a plane leaving at 8 00 a.m. Find :

out exactly how long it takes to drive from your home to the
airport, park your car in the airport parking lot, and board
your plane.
Let's say it takes exactly one hour door to door.
The night before your trip, get into your car and keep
driving around the block until your gas gauge reads just a
notch above the "empty'' mark.
The following morning, leave your home at precisely
7:00 a.m.
If traffic is light and you don't encounter any delays,
there is a very good chance that you will make your plane. But

*An interesting bonus effect of Frenzy is that it can actually cause your fears
to come true —especially in the lower digestive tract.

14
FIG. Ill : BASIC WORRIES FOR THE VERY YOUNG
(1) Mommy and Daddy are going out and never coming back. (2) I was mixed
up with another baby at the hospital and they gave me to the wrong Mommy
and Daddy. (3) My Daddy is going to kill me when he gets home. (4) My baby-
sitter is going to kill me before my Mommy gets home. (5) My teddybear's
Mommy is going to kill me for taking her baby.
if you either run out of gas along the way or stop at a service
station, you will surely miss your plane.
If you have allotted yourself too much time or too much
gasoline, you have been a poor sport and will create no anxiety.
If you have allotted yourself too little time or gas, you have
made missing the plane inevitable and have removed the fun
of the chase.
But if you have planned this exercise with a reasonable
amount of care, you will have one full hour of glorious Frenzy
—
and Self-Torture a sixty-minute slice of Total Personal Mis-
ery.

Quiz on Negative Thinking

Question: Which of the following sports are safe and which
are dangerous?
Fishing
Sky-diving
Checkers
Golf
Tiddledywinks
Swimming
Ping-pong
Hunting
Pitching horseshoes
 :

Answers
(a) Dangerous. A crazed giant turtle could attack you
and try you into his shell.
to pull
(b) Dangerous. Just as you are about to dive, you could
trip, fall backwards into the plane and smack your head.
(c) Dangerous. In executing a quadruple jump across
the board you could fall off your chair and break a rib.
(d) Dangerous. You could sink in quicksand while re-
trieving a ball from a sand trap.
(e) Dangerous. A tiddledy could ricochet off the wall and
put out your eye, or it could become permanently lodged under
your thumbnail.
(f ) Dangerous. A seagull could drop a heavy clam on
you and crush your head.
(g) Dangerous. A ping-pong ball could fly into your
throat while your mouth was open and choke you to death.
(h) Dangerous. You could be sexually assaulted by a
love-starved moose.
(i)Dangerous. You could pick up hoof-and-mouth dis-
ease from an unsterile horseshoe.

17
 Chapter 2: Seven Classic Misery-
Making Situations

You have been exposed to most of the following classic

Misery-Making Situations before, but because you hadn't yet
read this book it is doubtful that you were able to derive any
more than superficial pain from them.
As you read through these situations now, armed with
the techniques we have taught you thus far, see how many of
your own subjective, personalized worries you can add to the
basic list, and how many you are able to turn into First-Class
Anxieties.

Situation =h=l: Basic Worries About Noises in

the Night
During the night, as heat escapes from the walls of your
home and the various joints and braces and timbers contract,
and then later on during the hours preceding dawn as these
same joints and braces and timbers expand, you are apt to
hear a number of curious creaking noises.

18
FIG. IV : VISUAL AID TO INTERPRETATION OF NOISES IN NIGHT
Keep this diagram next to your bed. When you hear any of the following
noises during the night, match them v^ith the corresponding guide numbers
in the illustration above in order to interpret them imagi natively.
(1)Wind in chimney; (2) branches of tree brushing against house; (3) beams in attic con-
tracting; (4) air currents rustling drapery; (5) moth in light fixture; (6) steam escaping from
radiator; (7) shrinking timbers in basement; (8) motor of deepfreeze; (9) dripping faucet.
 You should be able to convince yourself these noises are
one or more of the following :

(1) A hideous-looking criminal who is going to rob you

and stab you.
(2) A hideous-looking crazy-person just escaped from an
insane asylum who is going to stab you and rape you.
(3) A hideous-looking ghoul, vampire, zombie or crea-
ture from another planet who is going to rape you and kill you.
(4) A hideous-looking man from the Bureau of Internal
Revenue who is going to find discrepancies in your tax return.

Situation #2: Basic Worries About Giving and

Receiving Gifts
When buying a gift for somebody, worry about the fol-
lowing :

(1) They already have one.

(2) Not only do they already have one, but they hate it.
(3) The gift theyVe getting me will be much more ex-
pensive and mine will look cheap next to theirs.
(4) TheyVe not getting me anything at all.
(5) They'll get me something I already have, or some-
thing I hate, and when
go to the store to return
I it Til run
into them at the exchange counter.

20
 :

Situation #3: Basic Worries About Waiting

What to think about while waiting for the results of a
job interview:

(1) I asked for too much money.

(2) I asked for too little money.
(3) I appeared too eager.
(4) I didn't appear eager enough.
(5) I don't deserve such a good job.

What to think about while waiting for someone who's

late for an appointment
(1) I'm waiting in the wrong place.
(2) An emergency came up at the last minute, they can't
make it, and they don't know how to reach me.
(3) They probably aren't coming. They probably never
intended to come.
(4) Everybody who passes by knows how long I've been
waiting and is laughing at me.
(5) I was a little late myself and they've already been
here and gone.
(For further guidance in this area, consult the section
Waiting for a Phone Call in Chapter 5.)

21
Situation #4: Basic Worries About Vacations

When on vacation in your own country:

(1) Picture the door you probably forgot to lock and all

the people who have wandered into your living room and are
having an orgy.
(2) Picture the faucet you probably forgot to turn off
and the water as it cascades over the sides of the sink or tub,
seeping out into the rest of the house, drowning your carpets,
then your furniture, then your clothes, and finally bursting
out of your windows and onto the street.
(3) Picture the lights or the stove you probably forgot to
turn off, the overheating of electrical circuits or the build-up
of gas, and the inevitable flaming holocaustand explosion.
(4) Picture your doorstep as the milk delivery you prob-
ably forgot to cancel accumulates and quietly curdles into
fourteen quarts of warm cottage cheese.
(5) Picture the place you work and everything going
to hell in your absence.
(6) Picture the place you work and everything going
more smoothly than ever in your absence.

22
'^ts D CD P''> C \^ O =! °

ao o

iiifiin^ y^i a
r-.nr-ir^ rn n n>^T=i mnn n /r^ nn nl inn
FIG. V BASIC WORRY FOR TRAVELERS ABROAD
:

Shown are two taxi routes (solid line and broken line) from hotel (H) to restau-
rant (R). Which is the route for residents of the country ? Which route will you
be taken on ?
 When on vacation in a foreign country concentrate on the
following ideas:

(1) Somebody is waiting to snatch my cameras.

(2) Somebody has been rifling my suitcase.

(3) Did I have seven pieces of luggage iv eluding or not

including the camera bag?

(4) I can't understand what theyVe saying but they're

obviously making fun of me.

The minute they realized

(5) I was an American the
price went up. Also, I left a tip and the service was probably
included.

(6) The taxi driver is taking a circuitous route and the

place I am going to is probably just around the corner.

(7) I feel dizzy, which means Tm probably sick, because

although I haven't been drinking the water I have been brush-
ing my teeth with it, and I am coming down
with a strange
foreign disease which the doctor, who won't understand Eng-
lish, will diagnose incorrectly and I'll die all alone in a strange

country.

24
 : :

Situation #5: Basic Worries About Dinner Parties

you who are entertaining
If it is
Worry that nobody you invited will come, that there'll be

too little food, that there'll be too much food, that they won't
like the food, that nobody will mix, that they'll break your
good glassware, that they'll leave cigarette burns in the up-
holstery, that they'll spill things on the carpet, that they'll
steal something, or that they'll step on your dog or cat or child.
If you're going to someone else's house:
Worry that you won't remember the names of people
you've met before, that people you've met before won't re-
member yow name, that nobody will talk to you, that you'll
spill something or break something, that you won't like what's
being served or you'll be allergic to it and you'll either have to
insult the hostess by not eating it or else eat it and be sick
afterwards.
Special thoughts for the latter part of the evening
If you're atsomeone else's house, alternate between
thinking (1) that they wish you'd leave already and (2) that
they'd be terribly hurt if you left so soon. Tell them it's time
you were going and see if they coax you to stay.
If you're the host, when a guest says it's time he was go-
ing —even if it's possible he's saying this in hopes you'll coax
him to stay —fear he wants to leave because he's bored and
don't coax him.

25
FIG. VI : BASIC WORRIES ABOUT DINING OUT
(A) The prices on the menu will be too high and you'll be embarrassed to get
up and leave (B) the dishes on the menu will' be in a language you don't under-
;

stand and you'll feel foolish asking for translations (C) you won't know which
;

fork to use (D) you'll inadvertently knock over a glass and spill the contents
;

all over or upset the candelabra and set your date on fire (E) by tipping the
;

person who gives you your coat and not the one who took it from you, or by
tipping the waiter and not the captain, or by tipping the waiter and the cap-
tain but not the headwaiter, or by tipping all of the preceding too little or
too much or by tipping someone you're not supposed to, you will prove your-
self a clod.
 :

Situation #6: Basic Worries About Minor

Infractions of the Law
Each time you do something —
running a red
illegal like
light or dropping litter on the street or jaywalking or sneak-
ing into a show or double-parking or smoking pot or not de-
claring purchases to Customs officials or cheating on your
—
income tax think as follows
( 1 ) Everybody knows. Everybody is looking at me.
(2) ril be caught. Millions of people do it all the time,
but me they'll catch.
The story will be in all the papers and will go into
(3)
the permanent files they keep on everybody, and every pro-
spective employer or credit manager or policeman in the world
will know me on sight for the rest of my life.

Situation #7: Basic Worries About Flying

We strongly recommend flying on commercial airliners
for two important reasons.
an excellent opportunity for you as a novice
First, it is
to practice your Anxiety-Creating Techniques, since any fear
of crashing will instantly fulfill all requirements for a 3-Di-
mensional Worry (or perhaps even a First-Class Anxiety),
as outlined in Chapter 1.

27
FIG. VII : WORRYING ABOUT MINOR INFRACTIONS OF THE LAW
You are passing through Customs with an undeclared purchase inyour suit-
case. Anticipate the reaction of each person in line with you when your crime
is exposed.
 Second, never will you be in a better position to meet so
many fellow masochists at a single time, since everybody who
travels by plane is terrified of flying, and since everybody on
your plane (unless you spot handcuffs or a revolver some-
where in the cabin) has rejected the idea of a safer means of
transportation and is present purely by choice.
The basic anxiety, from the moment you phone in your
reservation up until the moment you board, is: Whatever
plane you have reservations on is the one that^s going to crash,
and the only way to avoid certain doom
change your is to

—
reservation to another plane which, of course, you feel too
sheepish to do. (If you actually do have enough guts to switch
to another plane, the anxiety then becomes It^s not the plane :

you changed from but the plane you changed to that is going
to crash.)
The basic anxiety once youVe on the plane, after the big
steel door has been locked but before the plane actually leaves
the ground, is : It's still not too late ! You could still make them
open the door and let you off. But you won't because, al- —
though you know the plane will never reach its destination,
you'd rather face death than public ridicule.
In flight, and in some cases just prior to boarding, you
will be subjected to a number of oblique and ominous messages
by the personnel of the airline. In order to properly under-

29
 stand and exploit these messages you will need to translate
them into Plain Talk. The sample below should aid you in
making such translations.

WHAT THEY SAY WHAT THEY MEAN

( 1 ) Ladies and gentlemen, there ( 1 ) One of our wings was about
will be a slight delay in boarding to fall off and the crew needs
the aircraft due to a few minor time to Scotch-tape it back to the
difficulties. fuselage.

(2 ) Kindly fasten your seat belts (2) The tape broke and the wing
and observe the No Smoking fell off.

signs, as we are about to encoun-

ter some minor turbulence.

(3) you look out of the win-

If (3) It was the right wing that
dows to your left, you should fell off.

be able to see the outskirts of

Indianapolis.

(4) We^ll be landing in another (4) It takes a little time for the
eight to ten minutes, ladies and crew to strap on parachutes and
gentlemen, so before we get too bail out.

busy up here Td like to say, on

behalf of myself and our crew,
that we've enjoyed having you
aboard this flight.

30
FIG. VIII : POSSIBILITIES TO CONSIDER WHILE FLYING
(A) Re-entering space capsule could collide with plane (B) poorly sealed win-
;

dow could pop out, sucking you through opening; (C) six wild geese could
simultaneously enter and clog jets; (D) sudden meteorite shower could punc-
ture fuselage (E) excessive vibration could loosen bolts holding top and bot-
;

tom halves of plane together (F) plane could be shot down by die-hard
;
WW II
kamikaze pilot (G) disturbed pilot could leap
;
from plane in fit of pique.
 :

Quiz
Question #1: on a plane:
Is the safest seat

n (a) in front of the engines on a jet and behind

them on a propellor aircraft?
n (b) behind the engines on a jet and in front
of them on a propellor aircraft?
n (c) nearest the wing?
n (d) where the stewardesses sit?

Answer : There is no safe seat on a plane.

Question #2 When you

: reach your destination, should you
n (a) immediately double your flight insurance
for the return trip?
n (b) immediately cancel your return-trip tick-
et and transfer to a train or boat?
n (c) try to figure out whether, to avoid a re-
turn trip on any form of potentially haz-
ardous transportation, you couldn't just
settle in the city where youVe landed?

Answer: What makes you think you're going to reach your

destination?

32
 Chapter 3: Misery About the Past,
the Present and the Future

Optimum Brooding Conditions

If you are serious about making yourself miserable, you
will meet no greater foe than constructive activity, no greater
friend than absolute inactivity.
Inactivity is the fertile ground in which flourish the seeds
of despair and self-pity. Doing nothing at all — sitting on an
uncomfortable wooden chair and looking out the window or
—
lying in bed staring at the ceiling you are ideally situated to
brood about all the bad breaks youVe ever had, all the inade-
quacies youVe ever noticed in your personality or appearance,
and all the possibilities for misery in your past, your present
and your future.
Is there a time, you may ask, a particularly propitious
time to accomplish such brooding? There is indeed.

Sunday Afternoon
The best time of the week for brooding is the time of
—
greatest inactivity Sunday afternoon.

33
 —:

Monday through Friday aren't much good for brooding

because then you are caught up in the busy schedule of work
or study and you simply don't have the time. Besides, you are
looking forward to The Weekend. All sorts of grand things
could happen on The Weekend, and the closer it gets the less
you're going to feel like brooding. (Late Friday afternoon is

generally about the worst time of the week to get any serious
brooding done.)
By Saturday morning you may be vaguely aware that
Friday night wasn't as great as you hoped it would be, but you
don't have much time to think about it even then because you
have many errands to do before the stores close and, of course,
you are still looking forward to the climax of The Weekend
Saturday Night.
By Sunday afternoon, however, it is all over. Hope is

dead. There is nothing further to look forward to, except the

gloomy prospect of Monday morning and another whole week
of drudgery at a job or a school you detest. The Weekend
like your life—can at last be viewed in its correct perspective
one colossal letdown, one gigantic anticlimax. On Sunday
afternoon you are free to ponder all the great times you felt
sure lay ahead but which never quite materialized.
Yes, Sunday afternoon is a marvelous time for brooding.
But as marvelous as Sunday afternoon is, there is another

34
time which is even better.
Surely the best time of all for brooding and self-pity is
that yearly intersection of past, present and future, that
annual orgy of self-flagellation —New Year's Eve.
New Year's Eve
Hooray! Everything connected with New Year's Eve is
ideally suited to misery. The moment Thanksgiving is over
it is permissible to start dreading the arrival of the evening

of December 31.
Some of the things you may look forward to are ( 1 ) the :

inevitable impossibility of obtaining reservations at any good

restaurant or show; (2) the prospect of being repeatedly
jostled by drunken revelers or maimed by drunken drivers;
(3) the humiliation of paying fifteen to thirty dollars per
person for a glass of cheap champagne, an imitation TV din-
ner and two dimestore party favors.
If you're not married or otherwise attached, you are per-
mitted the additional anxiety that you'll end up with a date
you'll be embarrassed to be seen with —
or that you won't be
able to get a date at all.

When the great night arrives, you can either : ( 1 ) delib-

erately ostracize yourself from your friends and be miserable
alone, or (2) put on a funny paper hat and drink too much

35
with the rest of the group, postponing your brooding till the
following day, when you will have ample opportunity to regret
your behavior and be sick.
Either way, the occasion will provide you with an abund-
—
ance of rich Brooding Material like all the things which you
promised yourself last New Year's Eve you would accomplish
in the year just ended, and like the fact that every year you get
to look less and less like the little kid with the diaper and the
banner across his chest and more and more like the old guy
with the beard and the hourglass and the scythe.

So between New Year's Eves, Sunday afternoons and

whatever additional time you can periodically set aside, you
should manage good brooding done provided,
to get a lot of —
of course, that you can keep this precious time free of con-
structive activity.
Should you ever be tempted to undertake any type of con-
structive activity — like looking for a better job, meeting some-
body of the opposite sex, taking up a hobby, entering a contest,
going into business for yourself or getting out of bed to make
breakfast —quickly refer to the following Read it aloud
list.

repeatedly, and persist until all temptation toward construc-

tive activity has passed.

36
FIG. IX : REASONS FOR NOT GETTING OUT OF BED
(A) It's too early ;
already too late (C) you would have to shave (D)
(B) it's ; ;

weather might change (E) phone might ring any minute (F) it's warm under
; ;

covers but floor is probably cold (G) you might slip on rug and wrench your
;

back (H) you might not have any more clean socks (I) important radio pro-
; ;

gram is not yet over (J) by pulling wrong foot out from under covers first
;

you might get caught in sheets and strangle.

Seventeen Basic Pessimistic Philosophies
(1) Ican^tdoit.
(2) I never could do anything right.
(3) have the worst luck in the world.
I

(4) I don't have a chance, so why try?

(5) Tm all thumbs.
(6) rd only get hurt.
( 7) It would never work.
( 8) It's not in the stars.
( 9) It's never been done before.
( 10) It's not who you are, it's who you know.
(11) It's too late now.
( 12 ) than you think.
It's later

(13) You can't take it with you.

(14) What good could come of it?
(15) Thepiper must be paid.
(16) The wages of sin is death.
(17) The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
So what's the use? Whatever it is, you'd better forget
about it. You just couldn't handle it. You wouldn't know what
to do. You wouldn't know what to say. You'd bungle it and
everybody would laugh at you. Perhaps you could tackle it
sometime in the future. Maybe you could try it after you've
had a chance to prepare a little more. But not now. Better
wait. Better postpone it. Better retreat.

88
 Now that constructive activity is no longer a temptation,
let's take a look at some of the things you can torture your-
self about in your past, your present and your future.

How to Make Yourself Miserable About the Past

The secret of being truly miserable about the past lies in
being able to regret everything you ever did and everything
you ever failed to do, from the moment you were born right
up to five minutes ago.
The following suggestions should get you started on your
own personal list of regrets:
( 1 ) I should have gotten married when I had the chance.
(2 ) I shouldn't have gotten married so young.
(3) I shouldn't have let them put whipped cream on my
Jello.

(4) I should have held out for more money.

(5) I should have accepted his offer.

(6) I should have studied more in college and frolicked

less.

(7) I should have studied less in college and frolicked

more.
(8) I shouldr 't have agreed to come here tonight.
(9) I should have taken along an umbrella.
(10) I shouldn't have dragged along an umbrella.

39
 (11) I shouldn't have allowed myself to become involved.
(12) I should have waited went on sale.
till it

(13) I should have just walked up and introduced my-

self.

(14) I should have told them exactly what I thought of

them.
(15) I shouldn't have moved from New York to a city as
culturally stagnant as Los Angeles.
(16) I moved from Los Angeles to a city
shouldn't have
as pushy and dirty and unfriendly as New York.
(17) I should have quit when I was ahead.

How to Make Yourself Miserable About the

Present
If you aren't famous, beautiful or talented, making
rich,
yourself miserable about the present should be as easy for you
as knowing whom and how to envy.
But if you are rich, famous, beautiful or talented, there's
no need to feel left out. Making yourself miserable is no more
difficult than knowing what to brood about.

In the following section we have provided you with Basic

Brooding Material for all of the above-mentioned life situa-
tions. The thoughts presented, we hasten to point out, are not
intended as a complete list but merely as a guide to the forma-

40
 B

FIG. X CLASSIC UNGRASPED OPPORTUNITIES FOR MISERY ABOUT THE PAST

:

(A) You could have bought Los Angeles real estate before WW II (B) you
;

could have married the homely rich girl in your junior high school class; (C)
you could have bought IBM stock in 1938 (D) you could have invented frozen
;

food.
 —

tion ofyour own Brooding Material. Obviously, the material

you come up with yourself is going to be much more relevant
and much deadlier than any we could suggest to you.

How to Make Yourself Miserable If You're Not a Rich Person :

(1)Brood about how rich people can buy all the nice
things you've always dreamed of owning but could never
afford about how rich people can walk into a store and buy
;

— —
anything any silly thing any crazy, impulsive, totally im-
—
practical thing just because they feel like it and not even
have to ask the price.
(2)Brood about how rich people never have to work if
they don't feel like it. Thus they have time to do all the things
you want to do but can't because you have to work for a living.
(3) Brood about how rich people can tell anyone they
wish to go to hell.

How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a Rich Person :

( 1 ) Brood about all the great things you could have done
with all the money you've paid in taxes if you had found some
way paying it.
to avoid
(2) Brood about all the people you have to pay just to
help you hang on to what's left of your money.
(3) Brood about all the people who are charging you
more for their services just because you're rich.

42
FIG. XI : SUPPLEMENTARY BROODING DIAGRAM FOR NON-RICH PERSONS
Study the above manifestations of comfortable income until you achieve either
an upset stomach or a migraine headache.
 (4) Wonder whether your money is really working for
you as well in the relatively safe place youVe invested it now
as it could be in a more speculative investment.
(5) Wonder whether your money really is safe where
you have it invested now.
(6) Wonder whether youVe living way beyond your
means; whether you should cut expenses by giving up cabs
for buses, fancy restaurants for lunch counters, etc., before
you approach bankruptcy.
(7) Wonder whether the gifts you give to friends or to
charities are really appreciated or taken for granted whether ;

the recipients feel you could have afforded a bit more.

(8) Wonder whether the people who are nice to you are
only nice to you because of your money.
(9) Wonder whether those friends of yours who are less
fortunate than you resent your money; whether you should
begin to seek out a new circle of friends in a higher income
bracket where you might feel less resented; whether you'd
ever be accepted as a friend by anyone in a higher income
bracket.
(10) Wonder whether being able to afford all the luxu-
ries youVe ever wanted is anticlimactic; whether there's any-
thing left in life to look forward to.

44
How to Make Yourself Miserable If You're Not a
Famous Person:
(1) Brood about how famous people can get away with
—
anything like never needing to wait in line like being able
;

to get tickets at the last minute for sold-out performances like

;

being allowed to walk into an expensive restaurant without a

tie or a jacket on if they're a man, or with pants on if they're

a lady —because the rules for un-f amous people don't apply to
famous people.
(2) Brood about how famous people lead such glamor-
ous, exciting lives, and how all famous people know all other
famous people, and how everybody is always falling all over
themselves to invite famous people to parties.
(3) Brood about how nobody ever forgets a famous per-
son's name.

How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a

Famous Person:
(1) —
Brood about the privacy you no longer have about
being mobbed for autographs every^^^here you go, even when
you're eating in a restaurant or shopping, and how^, as a re-
sult, you're no longer free to go to places that un-famous

people go to all the time.

45
 (2)Brood about how everybody keeps asking you the
same questions about your life and your work and about how
you have no right to get angry with them because you have to
—
be nice to everyone even to people who are not nice them-
selves —
because they're your public, they are the ones who put
you where you are and they are the ones who are keeping you
there.
(3)Brood about how, since you are public property, all
your personal problems are fair game for the press, and how
even if you don't have any personal problems the columnists
will make some up for you.

(4) Brood about how you are criticized for saying or

doing, or for failing to say or do, things which un-famous
people get away with all the time.
(5) Brood about how you have to go out of your way
to prove to old friends that you haven't changed and are still
the same lovable old you.
(6)Brood about the fact that the minute you're no
longer on top you're a has-been; about all the young comers
out there who are at this very minute training to replace you.
(7) Wonder whether you deserve to be famous at all.

46
How to Make Yourself Miserable If You're Not a
Beautiful Person:

(1) Brood about how everybody likes beautiful people,

and how they're a lot nicer to beautiful people than to un-
beautiful people.
(2) Brood about how beautiful people can wear all the
new styles and look absolutely marvelous in them, or how they
—
can just throw on jeans and a sweater scruffy things you
—
wouldn't dare to wear in public and look just as great.
(3) Brood about how much confidence beautiful people
have, and about how beautiful people find jobs and love and
marriage so much more easily than un-beautiful people do.

How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a

Beautiful Person:

( Brood about how much more care you have to take

1 )

in keeping up your appearance than un-beautiful people do,

about how much more you worry over blemishes, wrinkles,
gray hair and calories.
(2) Brood about how people tend to overlook your other
qualities — intelligence, sensitivity, talent, etc. —because they
consider you a decorative object rather than a person.

47
 (3)Brood about how quickly and easily looks are lost,
and about how you'll feel worse after they're lost than if you
never had them.
(4) Brood about how, since youVe been lazy in develop-
ing your other qualities, you'll have nothing left at all when
your looks are gone.

How to Make
Yourself Miserable If You're Not a
Talented Person:
(1) Brood about how everybody is always telling tal-
ented people how great they are and how great their work is.
(2) Brood about how talented people have the satisfac-
tion of being involved with something creative —
something
more noble and enduring than the world of commerce about ;

how work that talented people do lives on

the after them, so
they have a permanent place in posterity.
(3) Brood about how easily talented people can become
rich people or famous people if they want to.

How to Make Yourself Miserable If You ARE a

Talented Person:
(1) Brood about how, when you go to see the work of
somebody in your own field, you're either so critical you have
a terrible time, or else you're so envious you feel even worse.

48
FIG. XII : FACIAL DIMENSIONS OF NORMAL MAN AND WOMAN
Compare the above measurements with your own or with those of a prospec-
tive lovemate.Any variation from the norm, no matter how slight, is a defect.
Should you discover no defects, refer to the section Hoiv To Make Yourself
Miserable If You ARE
a Beautiful Person,
 :

(2) Brood about how you're fair game for critics who
have no talent themselves.
(3) Brood about how, just when you seem to be getting
somewhere in a certain circle, you are always pushed to com-
pete in a bigger circle w^here your accomplishments look small-
er and where the competition is much tougher.
(4) Brood about how, if you haven't been successful yet,
your confidence runs out more and more with each failure;
about how, if you have achieved success, you're only as good as
your last effort, and you have to keep topping yourself to stay
on top.
(5) Wonder whether you're losing your talent.

How to Make Yourself Miserable About the

Future
Whether or not you can manage to remain miserable in
the future is going to depend upon your ability to master two
vital concepts:
(1) Refuse to accept what cannot be changed,
( 2) Establish unrealistic goals.
What not to accept
(1) Don't ever accept your age, or your weight, or your
height, or your face, or your ethnic group, or your socio-
economic level.

50
 Twenty-six-year-old patent office Swedish singer, Jenny Lind, was so
clerk, A.Einstein, formulated theory popular that men paid $653.00 per
of relativity. seat to see her.

Youthful piano player, W

A. Mozart, Civil servant, Abdullah al-Salim of
had already composed his first sym- Kuwait, receives a salary of $7,280,-
phony and three sets of sonatas by 000 per week. Every two hours and
the age of eight. forty minutes he earns the equiva-
lent of the average American's life-
time income.

FIG. XIII : AID TO EVALUATING YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

Compare yourself with these four
ordinary people who were chosen at random.
 :

(2) Don't ever acknowledge the fact that you make

mistakes.
(3) Don't ever accept the possibility of failure, and don't
ever prepare for it with alternative plans.
(4) Don't ever accept the fact that most people will
never realize how great you are.
(5) Don't ever believe that the things other people have
which you've always thought would make you happy aren't
making them happy either.
What goals to establish
( 1Find the perfect mate.
)

(2) Find the perfect job.

(3 ) Write the Great American Novel.
(4) Get even with the phone company.
(5) Develop a foolproof system to beat the horses, or the
wheel at Las Vegas, or the stock market.
(6) Fight City Hall, and win.
(7) Get revenge for every injustice you've ever had to
put up with in your entire life.
(8) Never be unrealistic again.

Exercise: Seventeen Masochistic Activities for

the Beginner
(1) Make a list of all the people you know who are
younger than you and more successful.

62
 (2) Make a list of all the things you nearly had but
somehow blew.
(3) Make a list of all the great things you can't do any
more.
(4) Write a letter to somebody, mail it, and then figure
out which part could be most easily misunderstood.
(5) Schedule your next nonessential drive downtown to
coincide with a peak traffic hour.
(6) Schedule a Labor Day Weekend excursion without
making advance reservations.
( 7) Schedule a trip to New York in August or February.
If you already live in New York, go to Philadelphia in August
and to Chicago in February.
(8) Make it your business to see the next James Bond
movie the night it opens.
(9) Buy a stock, check the market quotation every day
in the paper, and every time it goes down figure out exactly
how much money you lost.
(10) Using the tip of your tongue, see how long it takes
you to make your gums bleed.
(11) Get yourself a medical book, copy down the symp-
toms of ten fatal diseases, and see how many you already have.
(12) If you're a girl, ask the lady behind the cosmetics
counter what to do about your face. Or take a scissors and cut
off your nice long hair.

53
 :

(13) Go to the beach and compare your body with any-

one who has a very good build.
(14) Go to the bathroom in someone else's house and
wonder if they can hear you.
(15) After leaving a room full of people, try to imagine
what they might be saying about you.
(16) Spend one hour a week wondering whether you
tip too little and everybody thinks youVe cheap, or whether
you much and everybody thinks you're a sucker.
tip too

(17) Make a list of people you frequently have drinks or

lunches with and figure out how many more times youVe
picked up the check than they have. Or else make a list of
everybody who owes you a small amount of money and who
has obviously forgotten about it, and try to figure out how to
get it back without seeming petty.

Completion Test
Directions : Fill in the missing words. Then compare your an-
swers with those at the bottom of the page.
( 1 ) A penny saved is a penny
(2) and his money are soon parted.
(3) Nothing ventured, nothing
(4) Not much money, oh but honey, ain't we got
Answers
(1) depreciated (3) lost

(2) Anybody (4) debts

54
 SECTION II:

Methods to Misery With Others

Chapter 4: How to Lose Friends

and Alienate People

In Section I you learned howmake yourself miserable

to
through the creation of anxieties. You will soon find that the
mere creation of anxieties will cease to be an effective means
of self-torture unless you are allowed to put these anxieties to
practical use.
One of the most practical ways to utilize anxieties is as
a means of getting people to reject you. Obviously, the more
people you can get to dislike you, the more miserable you'll be.
Employers, lovers, wives, husbands, friends, even casual
—
acquaintances all can be made to reject you by proper use
of the techniques set forth below.

55
 Before you are ready to tackle our actual Reject-Me
Techniques, however, you must first formulate for yourself
a suitable Reject-Me Image.

How to Formulate a Reject-Me Image

—
Everything about you your tone of voice, your posture,
the way you enter a room —
tells people who you are and how

you want them to treat you.

Therefore, you must weed out of your image any appeal-
ing qualities that might encourage people to accept you.
In general, try to be as apologetic, boring, critical, com-
plaining, impatient, irritable, jealous, nervous, suspicious and
wishy-washy as prudence will allow.
Always hang back and wait to be coaxed to participate
in a group activity when everybody else just joins in of his
own accord.
Be sloppy about personal hygiene. Forget people's names.
Nurse grudges. Sulk. Never do what anybody else wants to
do. Take yourself very seriously. Be a bad sport. Be impossi-
anyone should act enthusiastic about anything,
ble to please. If
be a wet blanket.* When with a proud parent or pet-owner,
confess your aversion to children or animals. Remember:
Sometimes you must first appear to reject in order to be
rejected,^
And now for the specifics.
*See Basic Pessimistic Philosophies.
tCaution: If you're too obvious about provoking a rejection you'll miss out
on a lot of righteous indignation when it finally happens.
66
The Reject-Me Posture

Stand facing a full-length mirror. Slowly let your chest

collapse. Crane your neck forward and peer sideways out of
the corner of your eye. Let your shoulders sag. Now pretend
you are a turtle and, without uncraning your neck or unsag-
ging your shoulders, try to pull your head down into your
shell. This, when properly mastered, is the correct Reject-Me

Posture.
Your walk should be a direct outgrowth of your posture
—that is, a hesitant, suspicious, moving slouch. Or, to put it

more graphically: Learn to enter a room as though you ex-

pected at any moment to he struck in the face.

The Reject-Me Tone of Voice

Your tone of voice should be indistinct and whiney, and

it should come from your nose rather than from your dia-

phragm. The following nostalgic phrases should aid you in

cultivating the proper Reject-Me Tone of Voice:
(1) wanna play that game.''
"I don't
(2) "Gimme my ball, Fm going home.^^
(3) "That's not yours, that's mine.''
(4) "Mommy, make him give it back.''

57
The Dynamics of Rejection
Now that you have begun to develop your Reject-Me
Image, you are no doubt eager to get out there in the field and
get rejected. We applaud your enthusiasm, but a word of cau-
tion is in order.
Winning your first big rejection is not quite as easy as it

looks. Why? Well, for one thing, all potential rejectors are
also potential rejectees —which is to say that somebody you
are counting on to reject you might just turn right around
and act as though youVe already rejected him. Thus:

YOU: "Hello. Vm awfully sorry — I guess Fm phon-

ing at a bad time, aren't I?''

HE : "Why, hello. No, not at all. As a matter of fact,

Vm a little hurt that you haven't called before
this.''

To prevent this type of embarrassing and unsatisfying

occurrence,* and to guarantee you your all-important rejec-
tion, you will need to have a thorough grasp of the Dynamics
of Rejection. You will need to know how to select a Promising
Potential Rejector. You will need to learn the Art of Apology.
And you will need the skill to efficiently utilize the Reject-Me
Formula.

*See The Telephone as an Instrument of Self-Torture, Chapter 6.

58
Selecting a Promising Potential Rejector

Everybody in the world is a Potential Rejector —even

small children and domestic animals.
The trouble with children and animals, unfortunately,
is their well-known lack of discrimination: they will reject
anybody at all, for no reason at all, and any rejection so easily

won can hardly be highly valued. (In emergency situations,

where no more promising Potential Rejector can be found, of
course, a child or an animal may have to be used. In such cases
it should prove helpful to remember that young babies can
generally be counted upon to cry when you pick them up, and
that cats can always be counted upon to walk away from you
if you evidence a sincere desire to pet them.)

Adult human beings make the best Potential Rejectors,

though, particularly those who can belittle you in areas of

greatest personal vulnerability — e.g. sex appeal, professional

competence, social poise, intelligence, tact, sense of humor, or
any area in which you possess the least self-confidence. Need-
less to say, your most promising Potential Rejectors are those
who are some sort of authorities in their particular fields of
rejection — e.g. headwaiters or attractive young girls.

59
 :

The Apology as an Aid to Rejection

Once you have found yourself a Promising Potential

Rejector, you must be able to let him know that you are some-
one who wishes to be rejected.
The best way to accomplish this task is to subtly put
yourself —
down to say something in an apologetic, self-depre-
cating manner which couldn't possibly be mistaken for false
modesty. (After all, hardly anyone is going to be foolish
enough to like you if youVe made it obvious that you don't
even like yourself) .

There an Apologetic Style suitable for every

is level of
development, from the beginner's

"You'll have to forgive my appearance this evening"

to the more advanced student's

"You probably think I always look this bad."

There is also an Apologetic Remark suitable for every

occasion. For example, to a dinner guest you might say
(1) "This martini probably isn't dry enough for you,
but we do have all this vermouth and we're almost
out of gin."

60
Yolx Pirobably dorit want
to be my valentine.

] juat thought you ou^hf to hncm my

birthday j's coming soon although I
realize you didn't intend to get m^
anything'

Will you be my Valentinp-

TIMNKYOII
son
FOR thelOVELY GIFT
It's much better than I
<'«5«r\/e.

-iPnobody better asks you ?

FIG. XIV : SAMPLE SELF-DEGRADING GREETING CARDS

 :

(2) "Tonight is the first time IVe ever tried this dish,
so it probably won't be any good."
(3) "I'm afraid I made the coffee too strong."
(4) "Fm afraid I made the coffee too weak."
(5) "I hope you don't mind —the meat is a little too well
done.*
(6) "Itmay not taste so bad to you, but this isn't the
way it's supposed to taste."
When telling a joke you might say:
(1) "I'm afraid this story is a bit long-winded."
(2) "I guess this anecdote doesn't have much point."
(3) "The guy who told me this tells it a lot better than
I do."
When out for the evening with someone you could say
( 1 ) "I wanted to take you to a better place but I couldn't
get reservations."
(2) "You're probably used to taller men."
(3) "I meant to wash my hair but I didn't have time."
(4) "I couldn't seem to find a pair of stockings that
didn't have a run in them."
(5) "I'm probably boring you with all my problems."
(6) "I'm sorry I'm not more articulate."
(7) "I'm usually a lot more fun to be with."

*It hardly pays to apologize for meat that's too rare, since it could always be
put back in the stove.

62
 :

>>
(8) "My hands don't usually perspire so much.'
The Always call attention
rule in all the above suggestions is :

to something embarrassing which wouldnH otherwise be

noticed.

To the apprentice apologizer we must give the follov^ing

warning. It frequently happens that, just as you're preparing
to deliveran apology, somebody beats you to the punch by
complimenting you about the very thing you were going to
apologize for.
How to handle The solution is
this frustrating situation?
a simple one: Confide a Secret Personal Embarrassment
which invalidates the compliment.

SECRET PERSONAL EMBARRASSMENT #1

"You really have a terrific figure.''

"Thanks, but my legs are much too fat."

SECRET PERSONAL EMBARRASSMENT #2:
"You really have terrific legs."
"Thanks, but my ankles are much too thick."
SECRET PERSONAL EMBARRASSMENT #3:
"That's a sensational outfit you're wearing."
"I'm surprised you like it. I bought it eight years
ago at a rummage sale and I can hardly stand to look
at it anymore, but I had to wear it because every-

63
 thing else I own is absolutely filthy."*
We would advise the serious student to do his advanced
research in Japan, where he can readily learn to formulate
such self-deprecating remarks as:
"Please forgive the humble appearance of my unworthy
home and the unwholesome quality of my disgusting and
overripe food."

The Reject-Me Formula and How to Use It

All forms of the basic Reject-Me Formula are really tests

—repeated requests for votes of confidence. Naturally, any
time you ask somebody for a vote of confidence you run the
risk that he will actually give it to you.
With the following formula, the chances of experiencing
such a mishap are remote, to say the least.
REJECT-ME MOVE #1 Ask foT a vote of confidence in a
:

way that suggests you donH deserve to get it.

REJECT-ME MOVE #2: Refuse to accept any vote of con-
fidencCf ask again^ and be sure to make rejection the easiest
response.
REJECT-ME MOVE #3: When you succeed in winning a
rejection^ however slight, act terribly hurt thu^ assuring —
future rejections.

•Alternate reply : "It's not even mine.

64
FIG. XV THINGS TO CONTEMPLATE IMMEDIATELY AFTER PURCHASE OF APPAREL
:

(A) Locations of probable premature fraying (B) points of weakest construc-

;

tion (C) places most likely to be soiled (D) styling details most likely to be
;
;

disapproved of by friends or business associates.

 An illustration of this formula follows.

REJECT-ME MOVE #1:

YOU: "I suppose you already have plans for
tonight?''
REJECTOR: "Nothing definite —why?''
MOVE #2:
YOU: **0h, well, we were thinking of having
some people though I don't really
over,
know how interesting you would find
them. You do have these other plans,
then, do you?"
REJECTOR : "Well, yes, we did sort of promise these
people. Maybe some other time, though."
MOVE #3:
YOU "You never seem to have time for us any
:

more, now that you're successful."

The above conversational maneuver was a successful ex-
ample of the Invitation type of rejection. That is, rejection
was accomplished by forcing someone to decline your invita-
tion. A slight variation of this maneuver —
using the same
—
Reject-Me Formula is the Evaluation type of rejection. In
this case, rejection is accomplished by forcing someone to give
you an unflattering evaluation of yourself.

66
 REJECT-ME MOVE #1:
YOU : 'Tell me frankly, what do you think of
me? Be perfectly frank."
REJECTOR : "I think you're very nice/'
MOVE #2:
YOU "No,
: tell me what you think. I
exactly
admire frankness more than any other
quality."
REJECTOR: "Well ... to be perfectly honest I do
think you act a little neurotic at times."
MOVE #3:
YOU: "Is that so! And I suppose you think
you're perfect?"

Needless to say, not all rejections are quite as easily won

as the two examples cited above. Most people, unfortunately,
are rather reluctant to reject you. For one thing, most people
are fairly kind, and rejecting you would make them feel un-
comfortable and sad. In addition, rejecting you would add to
their own already heavy burdens of guilt, thus making it nec-
essary for them to adopt even more intensive programs of per-
sonal self-torture than before.

So then: How to handle the reluctant rejector?

67
 :: " "

How to Handle the Reluctant Rejector

The best way to deal with someone who seems determined
to giveyou a vote of confidence by accepting an invitation of
some kind from you is to offer him that invitation in such an
embarrassing, self-deprecating manner that he couldn't pos-
sibly accept it without descending to the same humiliating
level.

We by developing our first example.

illustrate
YOU: "I suppose you already have plans for
tonight?"
REJECTOR "Not at all—why?"
YOU: "Oh, well, we were thinking of having
some people over. I guess it's kind of
short notice, though."
REJECTOR "Not really.We didn't have any particu-
lar plans
—
YOU "I'm so embarrassed. It's not even for
dinner. We invited these two couples
for dinner, you see, and there really
wouldn't be enough food for every-
body."
REJECTOR "Oh, well, that's perfectly all right. We
planned on eating home tonight any-
way."
YOU "I'm afraid I'm actually paying off a lot
:

of social obligations tonight

—
68
 :

REJECTOR: ''Oh?''
YOU : 'Tes, my husband keeps complaining we
only have people over that / like, so to-

night I thought we'd have some people

over that Ae likes."
REJECTOR ''I see."
YOU: ''Listen, don't feel you have to be polite
and say yes if you have anything you'd
rather do."
REJECTOR: "Mmhmm. Well, now that you mention
it, I do remember some sort of promise
to visit my in-laws later this evening.
You know how those things are."
YOU "No, listen —don't apologize. To tell you
the truth, I didn't really expect you to be
very anxious about coming over to see us
anyway."

Test Problem: The Stalemate

A man and a woman return from a date. The idea of go-

ing up to her apartment for a nightcap has occurred to both
of them. They are now outside her building. Each is mod-
erately skilled in Reject-Me Technique. Here are the moves so
far:
SHE: "I don't suppose you'd care to come upstairs
for a nightcap?"

69
 :

HE: ''Well, I don't know. It's awfully nice of you

to ask, I mean, and Fd really like to, but I'm
sure it's too late. Isn't it?"
she: ''I guess so. It's . . . let's see . . . one o'clock.
That's probably too late for you, isn't it?"
he: ''Well, it's not too late for me, but I'll bet you
generally like to get to sleep around this time.
Right?"
SHE: "Well, I don't usually get to sleep till after
two. But I'll bet you're exhausted. Aren't
you?"
HE: "Well, /'m not tired, but what's the sense in
forcing you if you are?"
SHE: "Well, / could stay up a Httle bit longer, but
you really look like you're dying to get home
and get some sleep. Aren't you?"
HE "Well, / could, but I doubt that you could."
:

SHE "Well, / could, but I doubt that you could."

:

HE "Well, / could, but I doubt that ijou could."

:

Etc.
PROBLEM : How to break the stalemate without losing
the rejection?
SOLUTION : Either party may reply, in a somewhat hurt
voice
"Well, it's obvious you don't really want to, so
let's just forget it till you're more in the mood."

70
 Chapter 5: How to Lose Your Job

Now that you have mastered the rudiments of rejection

you are finally ready to put classroom theory to practical
use.
In this and succeeding chapters we shall show you how to
use the Dynamics of Rejection to lose your job, your lovemate
and your friends. In short, we shall enable you to systemati-
cally expel everybody you know from your life, leaving you
wholly free to wallow in self-pity and climb ever higher on the
ladder of Total Personal Misery.
The easiest area in which to begin is the area of employ-
ment.
Losing your job is not the simple matter you might im-
agine it to be. Chances are you were hired because you possess
a certain skill. So, if only because it would take an unneces-
sary amount of time for your employer to find and train an-
other person to replace you, he is not going to be so eager to
let you go.

71
 —

How^ then, to instill in him this eagerness?

If you are able to look upon the act of being
fired as the
feat of making your employer reject you, then you can apply
many of the rejection-inducing techniques youVe already
learned. You are already, so to speak, halfway to the unem-
ployment office.

In this section wesupplement what you already

shall
know with several On-the-Job Anxieties which should lead
you right into basic Reject-Me Behavior for Employees.

Basic Underpaid Attitude

One attitude which translates readily into On-the-Job
Anxieties and thence to Reject-Me or Fire-Me Behavior is the
assumption that you are being underpaid.
If you brood long enough about being underpaid mak- —
ing up a list of grievances and reciting them over and over
—
again to yourself you will work yourself up into quite a rage.
If you get furious enough, you may even wish to quit
your job. Do not quit your job. If you quit your job you will
miss out on all the satisfaction and righteous indignation of
being fired.*
What is the next step after youVe decided you're being
underpaid?
*The only time quitting might have to be considered is in an emergency
when all attempts to get yourself fired have failed.

72
 The next step is either to demand an absurdly high
raise* or to attempt to balance the scales in some other man-
ner.

Balancing the Scales

The best way to balance the scales is to work less. Come
in late in the morning. Take unusually long lunches. Leave
the office early in the day. Fill up the remaining time with
coffee breaks.
After a while you may begin to feel a bit uneasy about
being caught. DonH let this deter you. Plenty of other people
in your office are getting away with just as much. They aren't
getting caught, and you can bet they aren't being underpaid
either.
Continue to come in at 9 30 instead of 9 :00, to come back
:

from lunch at 1:30 instead of 1:00, to leave work at 4:30

instead of 5:00.
But perhaps after a week or two of such behavior, no-
body has said anything to you about your new hours. Why
haven't they? Can it be that you were being underpaid even
—
worse than you thought that your employer's conscience is
so guilty he can't even bring himself to reprimand you? Well,
then, you're just going to have to try a little harder, aren't

*For proper Bluff Form, see Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #2: The

Great Marriage Bluff, Chapter 7.

73
 )

you? You^re just going to have to find out exactly how much
you^ll he allowed to get away withy because that's the only way
you'll be able to tell when the scales have been balanced.
Begin coming in at 10 :00. Return from lunch at 2 :00, or
even 3 :00, if necessary. Leave the office at 4 :00. (Perhaps soon
you won't even have to take off your coat between the time you
arrive in the morning and the time you leave for lunch or be-
tween the time you come back from lunch and the time you go
home for the day.

And now you have created a curious sort of situation.

You still —
you are being underpaid apparently worse
believe
than anybody in the office, since nobody has yet had the guts
to give you any meaningful reprimands. However, for the
amount of work you are doing, you are being vastly overpaid.
You know you have stepped way out of line. And yet you are
unable to stop. How could you possibly, of your own accord,
give up that extra time in bed in the morning or the chance
to do all those errands in the afternoon — especially when
others are getting away with it too? Obviously, you can not.

This is the time for you, in a state of frenzy, to start try-

ing to cover your tracks. Sneak in and out of the when no
office

one is looking. Prepare elaborate excuses for your hours away

from the office —appointments with the opthalmologist, with
the osteopath, with the peridontist, with the podiatrist, with

74
the endocrinologist.
Cover your entrances and exits with imaginative sub-
terfuges Keep your coat in the washroom downstairs to make
:

it seem as though you have just stepped out for a moment.

Arrange for somebody you can trust to switch on your desk

lamp promptly at 9:00 a.m. and mess up your desk a little,
then to straighten it up and turn off your light at 5 :00 p.m.
Dread and yet somehow long for that inevitable summons
to your employer's office which will end forever this absurd
nightmare of deception.
Finally, one day it will happen. The ultimate rejection.
The ultimate relief. You will be fired. You'll be given two
weeks severance pay and asked to leave immediately. And as
you clear out your desk, you will know all the suffering satis-
faction of the martyr —
the profound pleasure of knowing you
have been horribly, unjustly punished and rejected.

Quiz
Question : The unemployment office has arranged for you to
be interviewed by a prospective employer, and has asked that
you show him samples of your work. What should you say
when you present this work?
Answer ^This
: isn't really my best work, but I never had time
Or: ^This really could have been good
to re-do it." if they
hadn't made me change it."

75
 Chapter 6: How to Avoid Deep
Romantic Relationships

In Chapters 6 and 7 you will learn how to get rejected by

Lovemates or Potential Lovemates on all levels of involve-
ment. In this chapter, at the most basic level, you will first
learn how to repel members of the opposite sex at parties.
Next, assuming you have been unsuccessful at that level of
rejection and have actually been asked for your telephone
number or obtained somebody else's, we will show you how
to get the most misery out of dating.
And finally, should you be unable to avoid a Deep Rela-
tionship or marriage, Chapter 7 will furnish you with enough
strategy to eventually get rid of even the most ardent lover,
wife or husband.

Misery at Parties
Parties organized primarily for the purpose of meeting
eligible men or women are, by their very nature, ideal oppor-
tunities for self-torture and misery.

76
 : —

The very act of walking into a house full of people you

don't know, who are talking and drinking and laughing mer-
rily among themselves and who didn't even notice you come
in, immediately places you in a position of almost esthetically

perfect vulnerability.
For you are then truly lost. And, as you go through the
elaborate stalling-for-time rituals of hanging up your coat,
fixing yourself a drink and lighting up a cigarette — while
searching desperately for a familiar face and finding none
you realize that you are going to have to walk right up to a
total stranger and introduce yourself, and you must then
ask yourself the inevitable question: Why on earth would
anybody want to talk to me?
This question is entirely valid. Why woidd anybody want
to talk to you— unless you believe that you are both brighter
and more beautiful than whomever they are talking to at
present. And if you believe that, this book will never be able
to do a thing for you.
Very well. Once you have posed the above question to
yourself, you have two alternatives

( 1) You could go and stand in the corner by yourself and

wait for somebody to walk over and strike up a conversation.
(2) You could go over to the host, whom you probably
know at least by name, and try to get him to talk to you.
Let's assume you do the latter. The host will be hustling

77
drinks and hors d'oeuvres, catching up on past events with
people he hasn't seen in a long time and, in general, talking
to guests who are more interesting than you. He will give you
a perfunctory hello, pull you over to a small group of people
who are entirely engrossed in one another, quickly introduce
you and then disappear. The people he has introduced you to
will smile blandly, possibly ask you one polite question, and
then return to their previous conversation without waiting
for your reply.
You are now and stand in the corner by your-
free to go
self and wait for somebody to walk over and strike up a con-
versation.
Ifnobody does, you can lean against the wall and nurse
your drink until the ice cubes all melt. You can pretend to be
fascinated with the pictures on your host's wall or with the
titles of the books or records on his shelf, or you can go into

the bathroom and study the contents of his medicine cabinet

or, better yet, you can study the asymmetry of your face in his
bathroom mirror.
However, let's imagine that somebody is actually incon-
siderate enough to ignore your Acceptance-Prevention strat-
egy by just walking up to you and striking up a conversation.
How do you handle him ?
Here is one effective device, modeled loosely on the Reject-
Me Formula outlined in Chapter 4.

78
The No Small-Talk Maneuver
This maneuver, like Reject-Me Formulas, is essen-
all

tially a three-move Evaluation Rejection. This is how it

works.
REJECT-ME MOVE #1:
YOU : "I hate parties. I never know what to say to
anyone. I guess I just can't make any small
talk.''

GUEST: "Really? I think you're doing very nicely."

MOVE #2:
YOU: "No, I'm afraid I'm not very interesting to
talk to. I suppose you'd rather be talking to
someone else."
GUEST : "Oh, not at all. I'm enjoying this conversa-
tion immensely, I really am."
YOU: "Well, you're very kind, but I'm sure I'm
boring you to death."
GUEST: "Not at all, not at all. (pause) But I am
getting rather thirsty. Why don't you just
sit right over there while I go and freshen
my drink?"
MOVE #3:
YOU: "If you're that anxious to get away from
me, I'm certainly not going to try and stop
you."

79
 But let's say that, despite the use of the above techniques,
—
you have met somebody, somebody nice somebody too nice to
be interested in you, no doubt. But the two of you seemed to
have a lot in common, you seemed to enjoy talking to one an-
other, and you were unable to make yourself sufficiently re-
pulsive to preclude the possibility of further contact.
A telephone number has been asked for and given out,
and now a phone call seems imminent. How to handle what
comes next?

The Telephone as an Instrument of Self -Torture

Whether you're going whether you're
to call for a date, or
going to wait to be called, why not take a moment to ponder
what a marvelous aid to anxiety the telephone actually is.

If you're waiting for an important you can neither

call,

leave the house nor call anybody else in the meantime, or else
you'll miss it. (Even if you have an answering service, you'll
—
probably miss it answering services are very whimsical
about which of your calls they pick up, which messages they
remember to give you, and in what form they give them to
you.)
The telephone, when you do speak on it, effectively strips
your personality of all its non-audio charm all smiles and—
winks and other facial expressions that help to convey sub-
tlety and clarify your meaning. And God help you if you don't

80
have a beautiful voice.
Then, too, when you speak on the telephone you never
know quite what's going on at the other end of the line. You
can't see the facial expressions of whomever you're talking to,

so you really never know where you are with them. Perhaps
they're bored. Or dripping wet. Or watching television. Per-
haps they've put the receiver down and walked away. Perhaps
someone else is with them, listening to what you're saying,
and they're both exchanging funny faces and other signals,
and they can scarcely contain their laughter about what you're
saying.
Perhaps you're saying something unflattering about
a third party and just at that moment he was making a call,
his line got crossed with yours and he overheard everything
you said about him.
Perhaps your wire is being tapped and what you're say-
ing is being recorded and transcribed, and you'll see it all on
paper some day in court.
With all this in mind, let us now proceed to the actual
grisly business of telephoned invitations for dates.

Waiting for a Phone Call

Let's say you are the young lady in this case. How can
you make yourself completely miserable while you wait for the
young man's call, and perhaps even discourage him from ask-
ing you out once he does call?*
*At this point you may wish to turn back to Chapter 1, review the section
on The Power of Negative Thinking and use it as a pattern for rumination
and Anxiety Formation.
 Begin by assuming that if the young man is going to call
you, it will be on the day after the party, some time after
work. But (and this is your first anxiety) does he know how
late you work?
He does not. Suppose he calls you shortly after 5 :00 p.m.
and then again at about 5 :30, and he doesn't find you in either
time because you work till 5:30 and don't get home till 6:00.
Will he try again at 6:00?
Maybe he won't. After all,an attractive man like that
doesn't need to spend all his time calling up girls who aren't
ever home. Maybe you should leave work at 5 :00, just to be on
the safe side. But what if you should get tied up in traffic?
Maybe you should sneak out at 4 :30. Better yet, why not say
you're feeling sick and take the whole afternoon off? That way
you'll be sure to be home when he calls.

That is the next step, then: You must take off the entire
afternoon and wait for his call. Station yourself right next
to the telephone and don't leave it for a second, not even to go
to the bathroom. Needless to say, by the end of the evening he
will not have called.
What a fool you were to think he'd call at all. As if you
were the only girl in town he'd ever asked for a telephone num-
ber. How many numbers did he collect at that party alone?
Still, he did ask for your number and he did say "I'll call

you," and nobody forced him to do that. The fact that he did

82
1. The Legion of Decency 2. A Professional Extortionist

3. Your Mother 4. All The Girls at the Phone Co.

FIG. XVIPEOPLE
: WHO MIGHT BE SECRETLY LISTENING IN ON YOUR TELEPHONE
CONVERSATIONS
 :

ask must have meant he was at least considering calling you

—at least at the moment he asked for your number.
Maybe you said something between the time he asked for
your number and the time he said goodnight something —
which disgusted him. Try to remember what it was you said.
Probably all you said was **It was nice meeting you." Surely
there's nothing wrong with telling a person it was nice meet-
ing him.
And yet, you never know. Giving him your number and
telling him it was nice meeting him might have been a little
pushy.
Maybe he just asked you for your number so he could get
away from you gracefully. Not a bad little anxiety. But here's
a better one
Maybe he has been trying to call you all night and the
"phone just hasnH rung because iVs out of order. You must
find out if this is true. Pick up the phone —
and don't be dis-
appointed when you hear the dial tone. Just because you hear
a dial tone doesn't mean your phone is working. You must
conduct a more conclusive test.
Call a girlfriend. When she answers say, ''Don't ask me
to explain, just call me right back," then hang up. Don't be"
dismayed when she calls you right back. At least you now
know the phone is working.

84
 This is the moment for your next anxiety : Maybe he was
trying to call you while you were checking to see if the phone
was working and he got a busy signal.
Enough anxieties for a single night. Go to bed.
The next day, decide he's never going to call and don't
leave work till the regular time. But just as you arrive home
and are about to open your door, you might hear the phone
ringing. Scramble frantically for your keys. Your purse will
fall to the ground and the contents will spill all over, but some-

how you'll manage to get the key into the door while the phone
is still ringing, and you'll just have time to race across the

room, trip on the throw rug and pick up the receiver before
the ringing stops.
This is the moment you don't care if he
to decide that
—
ever calls that you're not going to spend the rest of your life
glued to a lousy telephone just because some creep at a party
said he might call you.
Just go about your normal evening routine. If he calls,
fine, and if not, that will be fine, too. Make yourself some din-

ner.Eat it in front of the TV. Wash the dishes. Dry the dishes.
Wash your hair. Dry your hair. And do everything you would
normally do if you were just staying home and not expecting
anyone to call. But turn off the water in the sink and in the
tub and switch off the dryer every four minutes because you

85
 : !

thought you heard the phone ring.

Maybe the reason he hasn't called you is that he simply
hasn't been home. Maybe you should look up number in the
his
phone book and just give him a call, and if he isn't home you'll
know that's probably why he wasn't calling you, and if he is

home you can just hang up.

This is not a good idea. Here is a better one
Maybe you gave him thewrong phone number. After all,
how often do you call your own number? You might have got-
ten it wrong —reversed the last two digits or something. And
if wrong num-
he did call and found out you'd given him the
ber he probably thought you did it on purpose. The poor man
How hurt he must feel! What can you do? You can call him,
that's what you can do.
Look up his number in the phone book. You find it, but
—
now you have another problem there are three people listed
with the same name. What a fool you'll sound like, trying to
find out if you've called the right one: ''Excuse me, but are
you the person w^ho took my incorrect telephone number at a
party the other night?"
This is clearly not the way to go about it. What you must
do is dial each man up a conversation based on
in turn, strike
something you discussed at the party, and then if it's the
wrong man you can just hang up, and it won't be that embar-

86
rassing because he won't know who you are. Unless^ of course,
all them are cousins and the one you talked to calls
three of
the other two and tells them.
This is an absurd anxiety. Go ahead and call, just as you
planned.
But while you're getting up the nerve to call, the phone
rings. It's him! Start to reach for the receiver, then check
your hand in mid-air. Why pick it up on the first ring? Do
you want him to know how anxious you are? Let it ring twice.
Better yet, let it ring three times. Now pick it up. And there's
nobody there.
—
How do you feel letting him get away when he finally
got home and called you! Well, now you surely have to call
him. Quickly, before he leaves the house again!
—
Try the first number. And you're in luck it's the right
man!
Tell him who Say: ^^Did you just now try to call
it is.

me?" There will be an embarrassed silence. *l'm afraid not,"

he'll say.

Phoning for a Date

Now let's say you are the young man in this situation.
An attractive young lady has given you her phone num-
ber and you said you'd call her, and now it's time for a few
anxieties.

87
 First of all, how do you know she wants to go out with
you? Sure, she gave you her number, but what else could she
have done when you asked her? She^s probably praying you
won't use her number.
—
No, that's an absurd idea she's not praying you won't
use her number. Because she doesn't even remember giving
you her number, and she certainly won't know who you are
when you call. Not only that, but when you call you're going
to catch her at an awkward moment. Like like when her
. . .

boy friend is there.

That's it —she already has a boy friend. How could such
an attractive girl not already have a boy friend? Well then,
there's no point in calling her, is there, just to ask her out and
have to be told she already has a boy friend?
No, that's ridiculous. If she did have a boy friend she
would have had a perfect excuse not to give you her phone
number. She could have just said: "I'm sorry, but I already
have a boy friend."

So it looks like you're going to have to call her after all.

What will you say to her? You'll probably run out of

things to say to her in the first thirty seconds. You'll say
*'How are you?" and she'll say 'Tine, how are you?'' and
you'll say 'Tretty good, thanks," and then that'll be it. You
won't be able to think of a single other thing to say. There'll be

88
 : : "

a terrible silence, you'll blurt out someawkwardly phrased

invitation to go out, she'll refuse you in some humiliating
manner, and then she'll tell all her friends how dumb and
awkward and gauche you are.
Maybe you could avoid all that by jotting down a few
opening remarks and then just read them to her in a fairly
natural-sounding voice.

Opening Remarks for Telephone Calls

There are two types of opening remarks for any tele-
phone call in which you plan to be rejected: Primary Opening
Remarks and Secondary Opening Remarks.
Here are two acceptable forms for Primary Opening
Remarks
(1) ^Tou probably don't remember me, but
—
(2) ^Tou'll never guess who this is."
Both remarks are excellent setups for rejections. They
both suggest you're so unmemorable that the person you're
calling wonH ever guess who you are.
A good Secondary or Follow-Up Remark is one which
gives the person youWe calling the best possible chance to
avoid talking to you. Thus
(1) "I guess I'm calling at a bad time, huh?"
(2) "You sound like you were just walking out the
door."

89
 : : —

(3) **ril bet I caught you right in the middle of dinner,

didn't I?"
(4) ^^ril bet I woke you/'
(5) *'Do you have a moment now? Should I call
to talk
back some other time when it's more convenient? Or would
you prefer that I didn't bother you at all?"

The Invitation
There are two effective types of rejection-inducing invi-
tations.

(1) The invitation that hasn't been extended far enough

in advance for the person you're inviting to accept, even if
she wants to go
'*Can you go to a New Year's Eve party
tonight?"
(2) The invitation that has been extended so far in ad-
vance that the person you're inviting cannot gracefully de-
cline if she doesn't want to go
*'Can you go to a movie with me three
weeks from Thursday?"
We prefer the latter invitation, has the added ad-
since it

vantage of displaying a lack of confidence so degrading that

it taints anyone who might accept it.

Which brings us to form.

90
 1."Well, if you just de- 2. "Isn't that supposed 3. "Ha! Ha! Ha!"
scribe yourself a bit cheap
to be one of those
more fully, Fm sure Til romantic places?"
remember."

4. "Help! Police!" 5. ''Why, hello. We

were just talking about

FIG. XVII : POSSIBLE FEMALE RESPONSES TO REQUEST FOR DATE

Anticipate one of more of the above reactions before speaking to feminine
Potential Rejectors.
 : :

The proper form for a rejection-inducing invitation, as

pointed out in Chapter 4, is one where the person invited can-
not accept without placing herself in a humiliating position.
Here are two variations of this form
(1) ''What are you doing Saturday night?''
(2) ''Do you have any plans for Saturday night?''
The only way to accept such an invitation is to reply
''I don't have a thing to do Saturday night

unless you ask me out."

The person replying also faces the danger that the above
question wasn't an invitation at all, but merely a casual in-
quiry into her popularity.
Once it has been established that the person you are in-
viting is willing to accept your invitation, the final step is to

make whatever you have planned sound as unappealing as

possible. Thus:
(1) ''Some guys I know are throwing a party, and
they're kind of creeps, but it might not be that
bad. Do you want to go?"
(2) ''My uncle gave me these two free tickets to
this concert, which will probably be pretty bor-
ing,and the seats aren't too good either. I don't
suppose you have any interest in going, do
you?"

92
The Ordeal of Actually Going Out
If, despite the stratagems offered above, youVe gotten
yourself a date, then you have to face the ordeal of going out.
There's some hope for you, however. You may still
still

be able to ruin the evening, have a miserable time, and make

certain that your date will never go out with you again.

How to accomplish this task?

Ten Ways to Kill a Good Evening

(1) If you're a girl, don't be ready when your date ar-
rives. Make him wait at least a half hour —especially if he is
anxious to get to a play or movie at a specific time. If you live
alone, make him wait in the hall. Otherwise, see to it that he
is entertained by your roommate, your parents, or any
shaggy, friendly pet which will leave hairs of a contrasting
color on his suit.

(2) If you're a man, show up late and without any

plans for the evening. Ask: (a) ''What do you feel like doing
tonight?" (b) ''Do you feel like going to a movie, or what?"
(c) "Which movie do you feel like going to?" Etc.

(3) If you're a girl, kill any plan for the evening that
your date suggests. Thus:

93
 KILL #1:
"Let's go somewhere and dance."
**rm not a very good dancer."
KILL #2:
"Let's see a play."
"I never understand what they're about."
KILL #3:
"Let's go out for Chinese food."
"Chinese food always makes me break out."*
(4) man, speak about your aversion to mar-
If you're a
riage. If you're a girl, tell him how desperate you are to get
married and what type of religious education you expect your
children to have.
(5)Talk about your own faults or those of your date.
Criticize him or her for smoking or drinking, or for not smok-
ing or drinking.
(6)Talk about psychoanalysis. Tell him about your own
if you're in it, and urge him to get into it too. If he's already

in analysis and you aren't, make fun of him and urge him to
get out of it.

(7) Make fun of any romantic gesture your date makes

at any time during the evening.

*This is a good opportunity to combine a Kill with a Secret Personal

Embarrassment.

94
He's sharing your He believes He believes He doesn't
secrets you are evil. you're absurd. care about you
with others. anymore.

He cares He's trying He's trying to He's about to

too much. to bring out your brainwash you. retire and go
perverse instincts. to Acapulco.

FIG. XVIII : APPROVED FEARS ABOUT PSYCHOTHERAPISTS

To prevent psychotherapy from undoing all the good this training manual is
doing for you, visualize the above situations during your sessions.
 (8) Quiz him or her about anybody of the opposite sex
who walks by and says hello.

(9) Talk about anybody else youVe gone out with, are
going out with, or would like to go out with.
(10) In a restaurant, ask your date for a bite of what-
ever he or she is you receive it, ask for another.
eating. After
Then another. Then another. Sooner or later, even the tender-
est of hearts will petrify at your requests, and rejection will
be inevitable.

Quiz
1.Problem: You are a young man calling a girl you don't
know for a blind date. How can you phrase your opening re-
mark so as to guarantee a rejection?
Answer: you don't know me, but a guy you used to
''Hello,
go to school with gave me your number, although I must say
he thought you'd be married by now. How come you're not?"

2. Problem You are a girl who has accepted a blind date, and
:

the young man has just asked you how he will know you when
he sees you. How should you phrase your reply?

Answer: "I'm a little on the heavy side. Also, I have a cold

sore."

96
 Chapter 7: How to Destroy Deep
Romantic Relationships

To the layman it might seem that the deeper the relation-

ship you have with someone, the harder it is to find misery
and achieve rejection.
We professionals are happy to report, however, that this
is not the case — that, in fact, the reverse is true. The deeper
the involvement, the more numerous are the opportunities for
misery. Or, to put it more abstrusely: as involvement in-

creases arithmetically, potential misery increases geometri-

cally.
This by no means suggests that getting your lover, wife
or husband to reject you is an easy matter. On the contrary,
the chances are that it you to achieve,
will be quite difficult for
unless approached in a sufficiently oblique and underhanded
manner.

97
 Why?
Well, to begin with (and regardless of whether or not you
your lovemate is probably pretty fond of you. For
believe it),
another, he or she is no doubt just as eager for you to be the
destroyer of your relationship.
To make absolutely sure it will be you and not your love-
mate who is ultimately boosted up that ladder to Total Per-
sonal Misery, we have provided you with several deadly Rela-
tionship-Destroying Maneuvers.

Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #1:

The Great Love Test
This maneuver can be used at any stage of a Deep Rela-
seems particularly well suited to the beginning
tionship, but it
stages of a romance, so we recommend it as your first major
stratagem.
This maneuver, as well as the ones which follow, is, of
course, based on the Reject-Me Formula.

REJECT-ME MOVE #1:

YOU: ''Do you love me?''
MATE : "Yes, of course I love you."

98
MOVE #2:
YOU : "Do you really love me ?"
MATE: "Yes, I really love you."

YOU "You
: really really love me?"
MATE: "Yes, I really really love you."

YOU : "You're sure you love me —you're absolutely

sureV
MATE : "Yes, Fm absolutely sure."
(PAUSE)
YOU : "Do you know the meaning of the word love ?"
(PAUSE)
MATE: "I don't know."
YOU: "Then how can you be so sure you love me?"
(PAUSE)
MATE: "I don't know. Perhaps I can't."

MOVE #3:
YOU: "You can't, eh? I see. Well, since you can't
even be sure you love me, I can't really see
much point in our remaining together. Can
you?"
(PAUSE)

99
 MATE : *'I don't know. Perhaps not.**
(PAUSE)
YOU : 'Tou Ve been leading up to this for a pretty
long time, haven't you?"
The reader exchange the primary
will note that in this
device is a simple request for reassurance whichy when given,
is ignored,"^

In this respect the technique is identical to the primary

move of the Reject-Me Formula and, presumably, it could
stand up alone as an effective Relationship-Destroying Maneu-
ver. That you could just keep repeating the question '*Do
is,

you love me?" until your lover, out of boredom, irritation or

nausea, stops saying ^Tes." However, it is the introduction
of the philosophical question ^'Do you know the meaning of
the word love?" that really sets up the rejection.
It is important to point out here that you need not strive
to complete the whole maneuver on your first try. You may
elect to stop just before Move #3, having gotten your love-
mate to admit that he or she perhaps doesn't love you. This,
after all, is quite a little victory in itself and could keep you
brooding and sulking for several days. Then, when you have
*For best results, this maneuver (and all other tests for affection) should be
used when the party to be tested is wholly absorbed in some activity like
passing a long line of traffic on the highway with a truck approaching in the
passing lane at seventy miles per hour.

100
 : :

decided that youVe ready for more self-punishment, you could

begin the maneuver all over, either stopping again before
Move #3 or pushing right on to victory.

Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #2:

The Great Marriage Bluff
This maneuver, like the previous one, may be used at any
point in the relationship, but it is most effective in the earlier
stages.
The Bluff Formula, while still a variation of the Reject-
Me Formula, is essentially a two-step maneuver and breaks
down as follows
Move #1 is a demand for something either inappropriate
or unreasonable. Move #2 ignores warnings the bluff can*t
succeed and tops the demand with a harsh ultimatum.
Thus, the question
"When are we getting married?^'
if answered in some vague manner, may be followed by
"Either we set the date right now
or we stop seeing each other.''
If you have been your timing, your
sufficiently clever in love-
mate's reply should come out as planned
"Then I guess we stop seeing each other."
The Great Marriage Bluff, while a particular favorite
with women, has been known to work for men just as nicely.

101
 ::

Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #3:

Do We Have Anything Left?"^
As you will from the opening line of dialogue below,
notice
you are to use this maneuver directly after an argument, pre-
ferably your first. You may even wish to combine it with one
of the other maneuvers in this section —
perhaps as a direct
follow-up of The Great Love Test.

REJECT-ME MOVE #1:

YOU: "Well, our first big fight/^
MATE: "Yes."
(PAUSE)
YOU : we have anything left?"
"Do you think
MATE: "What do you mean?"
YOU "I mean do you think we still have a relation-
:

ship?"
MATE: "Of course, (pause) Why— don't 2/02^ think
so?"

MOVE #2:
YOU "Well, thought so before, at any rate."
I

MATE "What's that supposed to mean?"

YOU "That I thought so before:'
MATE "And you don't think so nowV
(PAUSE)
*Maneuvers #3, ^^4 and #5 are equally effective for married couples. But
then, 80 is Maneuver #1.

102
FIG. XIX: THINGS TO CONTEMPLATE AFTER EXTENDING OR ACCEPTING A PRO-
POSAL OF MARRIAGE
(1) The possibility that right after you're married you'll meet the perfect
mate. (2) The likelihood that prolonged domesticity will induce monumental
boredom. (3) The pain and expense of divorce. (4) The things a family will keep
you from doing. (5) The possibility that each of you will grow at different
rates.
 YOU : "I don't know. What do you think?"
(PAUSE)
MATE: "I don't know. I thought so before.''
YOU: "But now you're maybe not so sure, is that
it?"
(PAUSE)
MATE : "I don't know. Maybe not."

MOVE #3:
YOU: "Well, since you're obviously planning to
break up with me sooner or later, you might
as well do it sooner and not prolong the
agony."
Here again, as in The Great Love Test, Move #3 may be
saved and used the next time you decide to run through the
maneuver.
Please note that Move #3 plants the notion that your
lovemate has been "obviously planning to break up" with you
sooner or later. Though patently ridiculous, this idea will very
likely be accepted by both of you, at least subconsciously, from
that point on.

Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #4:

Don't Leave Me
This is a variation of Relationship-Destroying Maneuver
#1. Instead of repeating the question "Do you love me?" it

104
repeats the entreaty "Don't leave me" until your love is groggy
from vain attempts to reassure you.
If you follow the tenth "Don't leave me'' with the demand
for tangible proof of your lover's intent to remain with you,
this in itself might end the relationship. At the very least, it
will plant the notion of leaving you where it probably did not
exist before.
A slight variation of this maneuver is the observation
"Some day you'll leave me." Innocuous enough at first, this
observation with constant repetition becomes a self-fulfilling
prophecy, and just as effective as "Don't leave me."*

Relationship-Destroying Maneuver #5:

Attractive Fred (Counterpart for Women:
Attractive Corinne)
There are two ways of dealing with the suspicion that
your lover, wife or husband finds a friend of yours more at-
tractive than you.
The first method is to repeatedly express this suspicion
to him or her. Sincere jealousy is, we admit, a rather rudi-
mentary means of achieving rejection, but it is nonetheless an
effective one.
The second method is not only to conceal your jealousy
but to bend over backwards to prove you're not jealous. What
you sacrifice in immediate humiliation here you more than
make up for in Long-Term Pain.
*The Don't Leave Me Maneuver was first utilized inanother form by Brer
Rabbit to trick his adversary into throwing him into the Briar Patch.
105
 —

Such a method is the Attractive Fred Maneuver, It, like

DonH Leave Me, requires a fairly long incubation period, but
it is the most grueling of the maneuvers in this chapter, and

therefore the most rewarding.

To get you in shape for the Attractive Fred Maneuver we
suggest a little exercise called Tell Me About Your Past, This
exercise begins by saying to your lovemate,
'Tell me about your past
don't hold anything back''
and goes merrily on from there. After working out with Tell
Me About Your Past for several weeks you will become so
jaded that you will no longer find any misery in detailed de-
scriptions of your partner's past loves. It is then time to try
Attractive Fred,
Just how far you wish to carry this maneuver will depend
upon your degree of sophistication, your threshold of pain,
and how sincere you really are about seeking Total Personal
Misery.

YOU "Fred certainly seems to be attracted to you."

:

MATE: "Oh, really?"

YOU: "Yes. He's a pretty attractive guy himself,
don't you think? Physically, I mean."
MATE: "Oh, I don't know. I suppose so. I haven't
given it too much thought, to tell you the
truth."

106
 —

YOU: "ril bet youVe wondered what it would be

like to go out with him/'
MATE: ''I can't really say I have/'
YOU: '^Come on. You can't make me believe the
thought has never crossed your mind."
MATE "No, it really never has. Not till now, at any
:

rate."
you: "Not till now, eh? (pause) VWhet you would
like to go out with him though. Wouldn't
you?"
MATE: "Not particularly."
YOU : "You mean to tell me you wouldn't be even a
little curious to find out what it was like

you could do so without hurting me?"

even if

(PAUSE)
MATE: "I don't know."
. . .

YOU "Well, I just want you to know that if you

:

ever should decide you are curious, I think

you ought to go right ahead and do it."
MATE: "You do?"
YOU : "Just to find out what it's like. Just to get it

out of your system."

MATE: "You really wouldn't mind?"
YOU: "Mind? Of course I'd mind. But I'd much
rather you just go ahead and do it and find
out what it's like than not do it and have it

107
 become a fixation. You see what I mean?''
(PAUSE)
MATE: *Tes ... I see what you mean."

Test Problem
Imagine that before you even have a chance to set your
lovemate up for a Relationship-Destroying Maneuver, he or
she begins to set you up for one. What sort of counter-strat-
egy can you devise to halt each of the five maneuvers before
you are forced into rejecting your lovemate?
Compare your solutions to the Counter-Maneuvers sug-
gested below.

Counter-Maneuver to the great love test :

MATE: ''Do you love me?''

YOU "It never would have occurred to you to ask
:

that question unless you weren't sure you

loved me yourself."

Counter-Maneuver to the great marriage bluff :

MATE: ''When are we getting married?"

YOU "Just as soon as you can convince me you will
:

—
never look at or talk to another man." —

108
Counter-Maneuver to do we have anything left? :

MATE: "Do you think we have anything left?"

YOU "Is this your roundabout way of telling
: me
you're through with me?"

Counter-Maneuver to don't leave me :

MATE: "Some day you'll leave me."

YOU: "There's no one who'd have me if I did."

Counter-Maneuver to attractive fred :

MATE "Fred certainly seems to be attracted

: to you."
: —
YOU "How can you be so blind it's yon he's at-
tracted to."

109
 Chapter 8: How to Lose
Any Remaining Friends

We can safely assume that by this time you have gotten

rid of your job and your lovemate.
Now it's time to go to work on your friends.

The Acceptable Failure Range

It is true thatyou can always go to your friends to share
your joys or sorrows, and they will provide a perfect audience.
It is also true that if you have too many joys or sorrows you

are in great danger of losing that audience.

110
 Let us put this more graphically.

Total success

Friend's level
of success

Acceptable
Failure Range

Total failure

Friend's reaction

FIG. XX: FRIEND'S REACTIONS TO YOUR SUCCESS

apparent from the above chart that if your goal is

It is
to keep your friends you must stay within the Acceptable
Failure Range, but if your goal is to lose your friends you
must exceed the Acceptable Failure Range in either direction.
Since you have already lost your job and your lovemate
you range in a downward direction.
will be exceeding the
Remind your friends what a failure you are. Call them

111
 —

up every day, several times a day. Complain. Despair. If

possible, cry.
Reprimand them for not calling you up enough, for not
caring. Accuse them of deserting you in your time of need.
Act terribly, terribly hurt.
If you keep this up with any diligence, before you know
it you will be . . .

Alone at Last!
Congratulations! You have driven everybody you know
out of your life. Unencumbered by job, lover or friends, you
are now free to brood twenty-four hours a day about how rot-
ten life is and how everybody betrayed you in the end, just as
you always knew they would.
With the aid of the techniques outlined in this book
The Creation of Anxieties and Making People Reject You —
you have now achieved the ultimate Total Personal Misery.
:

And you have been punished for all your guilt.

Or have you?

112
 ^/fft^JI^^S;^ \%%%'fs\-%:^^'

FIG. XXI : ESSENTIAL BROODING EQUIPMENT FOR ADVANCED PRACTITIONERS

(A) Lifetime tally of cigarettes smoked (B) arc light or sodium vapor light
;

for exaggerating facial blemishes (C) mirrors for observing progress of bald
;

spot; (D) optional photograph of self before nose job; (E) precariously poised
expensive crystal drinking glass (F) unrepaired electrical appliance (G) box
; ;

of old love letters from someone who rejected you; (H) dental and chest x-
rays in light-box for intensive scrutiny; (I) telephone (see section The Tele-
phone as an Instrument of Self-Torture); (J) shoes too tight to wear, too old
to return, and too new to throw out (K) photos of successful classmates, with
;

estimated annual income (L) obituaries of people younger than you (M) in-
; ;

surance company life expectancy chart with used-up days crossed off.
I
"How To Make Yourself Miserable made me laugh out loud!"
— Jane Howard, Life

YES, MISERY-SEEKERS! IT'S BACK!

The frank report that has taught 100,000 people

how to lead truly meaningless lives!
"After you finish reading my review of this book, you will probably
hate me and disagree with every word I have written. Then you will
find my phone number listed in the directory and call me at any hour
of the day and night, the noise of which will kill my goldfish. This is

only a theoretical possibility, but after reading How To Make Your-

self Miserable, I have learned to accept the worst."
—Los Angeles Times
Too long have you, the average masochist, gone about the important
task of punishing yourself for your various guilts by hit-or-miss
methods of self-flagellation. In How To Make Yourself Miserable,
Dan Greenburg and Marcia Jacobs take you on a step-by-step in-
vestigation into every phase of self-torture and humiliation, sharing
with you many methods they themselves have used so successfully
in the past, including:
• What to brood about if you're not rich or famous or beautiful or
talented
• What to brood about if you are rich or famous or beautiful or
talented
• How to regret everything you've done or should have done
• How to lose your job, your friends, your lover or your spouse

And much, much more!

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