Big Buddy session: Hal ambushed by his own sincerity
Hal’s struck by the fact that he really for the most part believes what he’s said about loneliness and the structured need for a we here; and this, together with the Ingersoll-repulsion and spit-flood, makes him uncomfortable again […]
Context
The ironist ambushed by his own sincerity. Hal delivers the whole community-spiel as a Big Buddy performance, a practiced routine — and is disquieted to discover, mid-session, that he means it. Note the register of the discovery: belief arrives unbidden, and it does not console him, it makes him "uncomfortable," filed alongside the spit-flood and the Ingersoll-repulsion as one more symptom to be uneasy about. For Hal, meaning something is not a relief but a leak in the system, a thing that happens to him against his management of himself. Sincerity registers, in this consciousness, as a malfunction.