Mon ami André spent a part of his visit explaining the precepts of pick-up art. One of its central tenets, he said, was to put down the women one wanted to sleep with in order to undermine their self-confidence. Jokingly, teasingly, he said, friedly-like, but put down all the same; therein lay much of the art: to put them down without turning them off. (To use art to hide the art, Rameau-style, as it were).
While listening to him, Zobenigo, who had been raised by his grandmother in the good manners regime (such as had formerly obtained in the old world) realized in a flash the reason for his troubling over-success with women: used to pick-up artists of the André sort, women are thrilled to meet a considerate, gentle, polite men; and are positively swept off their feet by men who hold doors open for them, screen them from the traffic while out walking, and do not let them carry their packages. They mistake such attentions for love, not realizing that Zobenigo, faithful to his grandmother’s tenets, treats all women with such courtesy; that his courtesies are, in other words, impersonal and indifferent.
The result is that Zobenigo often finds himself surprised by declarations of love, sometimes wonderfully welcome, but more often troublingly un-so. For courteous gentlemen it is embarrassing to have to turn down ladies in love. In the former times, when women were used to good manners and consideration in men, they knew not to misinterpret polite behavior and waited for more direct signs of attention before vesting their feelings. Their circumspection in the matters of love was also a form of courtesy.
Politeness may be a virtue and worth cultivating for its own sake, but when it is aimed at people less polite than we it often misfires. Possibly, this is the case with all virtue, meaning that the virtuous man can’t help but become estranged from their society.
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