Chapter 12 of 17 · 4'02"
After a night of movies and small talk, David Foster Wallace confronts David Lipsky in private, accusing him of hitting on Betsy: 'I saw you hitting on Betsy.' He insists she stop talking to the journalist and warns him to 'stay away from her,' while Lipsky argues it was only about the story.
Wallace on the Classmate He Hated
Wallace Confronts Lipsky About Betsy
Late in the tour, Wallace, Lipsky and friends watch a movie and chat about bad films. Betsy offers Lipsky her e-mail in case he has questions about Wallace in graduate school. Once the two men are alone, Wallace accuses Lipsky of flirting with Betsy and tells him to stay away, a charge Lipsky denies.
The scene turns a friendly evening into the loudest argument of the trip, and it is not really about Betsy. For days Wallace has watched Lipsky move through his world — his friends, his town, his past — and the e-mail exchange is the moment it becomes personal. His accusation is blunt: 'I saw you hitting on Betsy,' followed by the line that gives the scene its title, 'stay away from her.' Lipsky defends himself as a professional gathering background, but his answer — 'I don't know. You're already involved with somebody who lives in Los Angeles' — puts the real subject on the table: both men are tangled up with women they cannot be honest with. Wallace's reply is not an argument but a request to be decent, 'Be a good guy.' The fight is about who gets to be part of whose life, and who only passes through.
A1–C2 is the CEFR scale. Cards above the level you pick fade, and playback will not auto-pause on them.
“And I was not. That was the basic offense. Look at him now.”
He turns teenage resentment into a mock legal charge, then lets the years deliver the verdict.
Informal
“The least you could do is show me the respect...”
The unfinished demand carries more hurt than a full accusation would.
Neutral
“I don't know. You're already involved with somebody who lives in Los Angeles.”
Instead of denying it, he points at the double standard and ends the argument.
Informal
“I don't want her talking to you.”
A bare command that reveals jealousy without ever naming it.
Informal
Up next · 13fauxThe scene: Wallace and Lipsky's Parking Lot FightHe sees Lipsky getting Betsy's e-mail and accuses him of hitting on her. Wallace and Betsy dated in graduate school, so he takes it as a personal betrayal rather than a professional move.
Lipsky insists he only wanted her e-mail in case he had questions about the story. Wallace does not buy it, pointing out that Lipsky got her address right in front of him.
It is his closing request after the fight: stop treating the people around him as sources. Wallace wants Lipsky to act decently toward Betsy rather than just professionally.
It is a strong way of saying you hate someone completely. Wallace uses it about a popular college classmate whose only offense was being well liked.
