Peer pressure is anathema to me. Mild cajoling if I’m only vaguely disinterested doesn’t count. But once I’ve outright voiced a negatory & wheedling continues, I get miffed. Woe to the person who tries to guilt trip me into activities I don’t want to engage in! That’s a dirty thing to do to anyone, especially a friend. I am not talked into something I expressly don’t want to do, much to the disappointment of all my former employers.

It’s insulting to be treated as if you’re a pushover. I may be nice, but I’m not pliable. I think that’s a common misconception about the amiable. Not all of us are people-pleasers. I had one relationship in all my years where my partner used devious & manipulative means around my refusals, so I’m not immune to being duped. But this story is about a kinder girlfriend who was upfront about her control-y tendencies. We are still good friends. Even after I took a novel approach to thwart her pushiness & do as I wanted anyway.

I was reminded recently about my preternatural knack for getting friends & family members to pitch in at a job I had. I didn’t purposely set out to urge anyone to do anything, since I detest it myself. Nevertheless I managed to glean unpaid labor just to facilitate an evening’s adventure. All it took was something along the lines of “I can’t go to that show. I have to clean a theater.” I must’ve roped in half dozen people that way. I don’t know if I should be impressed with myself or ashamed. I wasn’t pushy so much as pathetic. Sometimes it even occurred after the fun for the night was had. An outburst of “Shit! I forgot I had to work. I’m gonna be fired!” This was not intentional. I really had forgotten work. That’s how low on my to-do list earning money was. & it’s still down there at the bottom.

The Big Fat Leo (this girlfriend’s self-claimed moniker) wanted to have a night on the town, with the ingestion of a certain drug. Not only had we not been dating that long & I’ve never been much of a bar-hopper, I just didn’t want to. I was off intoxicants presently. Not committed to being clean & sober for life, but taking a couple year break. I made it clear I didn’t want to do this, but Ms. Bossypants was determined. It was apparent to me she thought either her powers of persuasion prodigious, or she perceived me as a compliant person. I was not going to let that stand. Then I had a flash of pure genius. This perfect opportunity to mess with her made me snort with impish glee. If I could pull it off.

I’m not prone to deception unless it’s of a prankish nature. I was a strange & morbid child growing up. Once dug a large rectangular hole in the backyard while my parents were out one night, & upon their discovering it the next day said “I was digging my own grave.” I staged grisly murders of myself for them to find on returning home from the store. Much like Harold’s suicides in the cult classic Harold & Maude. My parents’ reaction was much as Harold’s mother in the film: exasperation. When that movie was released I saw it in the theater with my mother. I wonder if she saw me up on that screen just like I did. Hindsight tells me I was rebelling against the rigidity of my family’s religion. It came out in creative ways. I’m fairly certain my poor mother thought I was possessed or a changeling or something. I did nothing to dispel that notion. In fact, I encouraged it.

The evening came. We were seated at a table in a trendy bar. Already not my thing even if the place was pleasant enough. Girlfriend held out her hand, a capsule in it. The thrilled & expectant look on her face, like she was getting her way, made me sure this was going to be awesome. I plucked the capsule up, palmed it in a seamless sleight-of-hand, & acted putting it in my mouth & washing it down with my beverage. Then slipped it into my pocket. In 40 minutes or so, the best performance of my life would begin.

A precursor to ecstasy, Methylenedioxyamphetamine, or MDA, was dubbed The Love Drug. Not strictly an aphrodisiac, it did elicit receptivity & heightened physical sensation. Many people who took it did so with the intention that at some point in the evening they’d be having sex. Since I’d taken MDA more times than I could count, knew its effects well, I figured I could easily appear as though I’d ingested it. You could practically get a contact high just being around other people on it. A little over an hour in, I was so into the role I half believed it myself. Stanislavski would be proud.

Astigmatism aided my performance. My pupils have lazy muscles, dilated all the time. Maybe not quite as large as those on MDA, but the dark bar compensated for that. & I always wore dark glasses. She was none the wiser, totally buying my spacey, quasi-hallucinatory, heightened sensory act. As the night wore on I began to wonder how long the charade would hold. It became like a contest: can I stay in character the whole night? How good an actor am I? Can I prevent myself from laughing at how silly this is?

I discovered I have the chops. I think I missed my calling. That one semester of Drama in high school really paid off! Not only did she not suspect (of course, she was loaded; how discerning could she really be?), but I got so into it I don’t recall much of the night myself. Then I took it even further by not revealing my ruse until weeks later. I was itching to tell her, laughing inside all the time. It became a secret joke I delighted in holding onto. I would tell her at the perfect time. I just had to be patient. I’d know it when I saw it.

Finally the day came. We were having a conversation about how easily she felt I caved, in which she boasted about how she swayed me to take MDA that night despite my initial refusal. Oh, to wipe that teasing, smug triumph off her face! This was my moment. “Actually, I never took the capsule. I just acted like I did. It’s at home, if you want it back.”

Her expression was priceless! Some things are worth the wait.