I really hate meeting myself. It's great to meet the person I wish I were: for instance, Mark Wahlburg's character in I ♥ Huckabees or Ewan McGregor's in Big Fish. But meeting someone more likely to be the real you is pretty unpleasant. This doesn't happen often, but does happen reliably, for the simple reason that your friends often have a friend or two tucked away somewhere that they're friends with for just the same reasons they're friends with you. If you're me, this often results in bewilderment and frustration: "How on earth could this friend of mine be friends with this jerk? Doesn't he see how reckless, haughty, and poor his opinions are? The way he is elitist where he should be democratic and democratic where he should be elitist? The way he puts on airs about things he knows little about?" These are, of course, the same things I dislike about myself; the same things, no doubt, that many of you already dislike about me.

So: stave off, other Nates. We don't need your kind here.