“Without even realising it, he’d fallen into one of those Let’s Be Friends vortexes; the bane of nerdboys everywhere. These relationships were love’s version of a stay in the stocks, in you go, plenty of misery guaranteed and what you got out of it besides bitterness and heartbreak nobody knows. Perhaps some knowledge of self and women.”

— Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao