You're always giving, my therapist said. You have to learn how to take. Whenever you meet a woman, the first thing you do is lend her your books. You think she'll have to see you again in order to return them. But what happens is, she doesn't have the time to read them, & she's afraid if she sees you again you'll expect her to talk about them, & will want to lend her even more. So she cancels the date. You end up losing a lot of books. You should borrow hers.

Comments: I found this pithy poem in "Good Poems", an excellent anthology put together out of poems Garrison Keillor reads on NPR's "The Writer's Almanac" everyday. It goes into the Big Book because it nearly sums up my minor forays into the "dating and mating" game. Only in my case, the books weren't lent but gifted.