Not so long ago, in a galaxy on a hill above Cayuga Lake … there was a studious young Cornellian named Mr. Nice Guy. He liked math, and beer and meeting new people.

The events related are true.

Jeremy: So you get pinched where?

Mr. Nice Guy: That soft spot on my amazingly built left tricep.

J: Sounds pretty forward. And you turn around … what do you see?

MNG: I turn around, and there’s a young black girl. MNG is black too, so it’s cool that he said black. Actually I can’t tell if she’s young. She has young qualities. She’s definitely on the thicker side. Not too thick. I like thick.

J: Yes, I know.

MNG: The next thing I take in is her face. She has a smile on her face, but then I notice the nose ring. I’m like, yo, there’s this nose ring. It’s a stud. But there is a rod sticking out of her nose too. That part is supposed to be hidden, you know?

J: Does this freak you out?

MNG: Maybe it should have. Finally, the last thing that catches my eye is this tattoo on her arm. It says “Diamond.” That’s her name.

J: Diamond? Stripper?

MNG: Diamond. Like the rock. Stripper. So she goes, “You look like a nice guy. I kinda have a problem — I live in Albany, but I’m … wait, you go here, right? I need to use a computer to try and find a bus to get home.” And, you see, I wasn’t really in a helping mood — I was just trying to get my study on.

J: But you’re Mr. Nice Guy!

MNG: Right. So I took her over to a computer, got her on Library Gateway — not catalogue, I don’t believe in catalogue — and walked away to get back on the phone.

Diamond. Like the rock. Or like the stripper? How did it get to be both? This is a strange problem of meaning. Diamonds are thought to be pure and shiny, so they’re used for engagement rings … and in that respect, it fits that beautiful young girls would be named Diamond. But then we have those diamonds on sale at department stores, mass-marketed out of all their romance ... Perhaps this latter incarnation of diamonds is where we get women marketed as Diamonds themselves: they’re all grown up, and their bodies are objects for other people. This plays out in the mall and in the strip club. You can have a diamond either way, but either way, it is not love, and either way, you must pay.

J: Who is this crazy philosopher talking in italics?! Weird. O.K., go on, Mr. Nice Guy.

MNG: So, about two and a half minutes later, she comes back. I say, “How’d things go?” And she grabs me by the arm, links arms with me, and says, “Let’s go talk outside.”

J: And you went?

Should he have gone?

MNG: Yea. So this is where things really start getting iffy. She starts asking me all these questions.

Maybe he shouldn’t have gone …

MNG: First, she says, “Lemme see your hands — oh good, you’re not married.” I agree with that. “Are you a nice guy?” I say, of course I’m nice. Then she asks me if I have any roommates. And I’m thinking… you know, I do not want to be the father of your child.

J: It sounds like she’s a stripper.

MNG. Laughs. I wouldn’t go that far. She was just a lot more prying than I’d expected. Like, how does me helping you depend on my having my own room?

J: Yea, I’m not sure why she would ask that. So what then?

MNG: Then she asks me if I believe in karma. And I say yea. And she says, “So I found a way to get home.” And I say I’m happy to hear that. I am, you know? Good for her. But then she says, “Yea, but I … don’t have any money, you know, to get back.”

J: Oh no. Sounds like a scam.

MNG: No, I don’t think it was.

J: So she asks you for money.

MNG: Yea.

J: What was it, $20?

MNG: $80.

J: $80? Are you f&%*ing crazy?!

MNG: Feeling helpless, but not regretful. Come on man, I had to.

J: No you didn’t!

And of course he didn’t have to. It was irrational and stupid. Who knows what the deal was with this girl Diamond? And to top it off, it’s now five days later and she still hasn’t returned his calls. Things aren’t looking good.

But Mr. Nice Guy is still nice. His friends can knock him if they want; but in the knocking, they’d realize that if Diamond can rely on him, so can they. Naïveté, then, is cannon-fodder for the cynic, but the cynic is confronted with Mr. Nice Guy, his philosophical arch-enemy and his real-life friend. A friend who stays nice in the most dubious of situations. And the interviewer and me, the italics guy, seem to agree: that unconditional niceness is, well, rather inspiring.

Jeremy Siegman is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at jsiegman@cornellsun.com. Cosmology on the Rocks appears alternate Fridays.