It is Friday night. Hank is sitting in his apartment eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream and contemplating this past week, which has been stressful. He is five feet six inches tall and weighs 250 pounds. Today he saw a therapist about his weight for the first time, something he had been considering after yet another woman decided not to continue a relationship with him. After just two dates, Sally told Hank they should not see each other anymore because they were incompatible.
Sally and Hank had met through a chat room espousing the virtues of Macs over PCs, and Hank became impressed with Sally’s knowledge of computers and software. After chatting a few times on the computer, Sally and Hank found that they lived in the same city and both were single. Because they seemed to have their love of computers in common, they both thought it would be nice to get to know each other better. They met for drinks at a mutually agreed upon bar and then went out to dinner. The date did not go as well as Sally had hoped, and one could understand Sally’s view. She tends to be a calm, friendly person with an aversion to conflict. Hank, however, tends to be quite sarcastic and often says offensive things. For example, Hank made an unkind comment about Sally’s occupation. She is an insurance saleswoman and he implied that she tries to rip off other people by feasting on their insecurities and selling them insurance they do not need. Other examples of his verbal insensitivity include Hank berating the waiter at the restaurant because he was dissatisfied with the service. Hank became so loud that everyone at the restaurant stopped talking to watch Hank and Sally. Sally was mortified.
Far from being occasional, these verbal outbursts seemed to be the norm because Hank engaged in similar behavior on their second date when they went to a computer show. Hank got into an argument with one of the exhibitors about which graphics software