You Will Read This Post

Submitted by Cathy:

Jack had "hypnosis" listed on his online profile under interests.  He messaged me first, and it was one of the statements that stuck out, so I asked him about it.

"I can hypnotize people, no joke," he wrote.  In a follow-up message, he went on, "I don't usually make it public knowledge, as it either makes people laugh at me or it scares them."

I asked him, still via e-mail, "Do I have a reason to be scared?"

He replied, "It's a great power.  I can make people do things and then make them forget that they did it in the first place.  Remember Lee Harvey Oswald?"

Not personally, but I remembered that he was JFK's assassin.

Jack informed me, "He was hypnotized by Jack Ruby.  It's true."

Most people might have been willing to drop Jack at this point, but aside from this minor oddity, he seemed like a smart guy, and we shared a lot of things in common, like an unhealthy obsession for 80s arcade games.

We met in person, yes, at an arcade, and I came armed with a bunch of quarters.

In the midst of a Street Fighter II bout, I jokingly said to him, "Are you going to hypnotize me into losing?"

He turned to me, pulled a quarter out of his pocket, and told me to concentrate on the quarter.  I did.  He told me to block everything else out.  That was tough, as we were inside of an arcade.  I did my best, as I really wanted to see if he could perform as advertised.

Then he said, "You will kiss me by the end of the night."

I busted out laughing and said, "That has nothing at all to do with Street Fighter!"

He didn't find it too funny and said, "Ninety-nine percent of hypnosis failures are on the part of the person being hypnotized, not the hypnotizer."

I said, "Maybe I can't be hypnotized."

He tried it again, with the quarter.  "Try harder to block everything out.  We can do this in my car if it would be easier for you."

I assured him that I was quite able to concentrate while surrounded by shiny lights and electronic beeps.

"You will let me win at Street Fighter," he said, "And you will kiss me... and more... by the end of the night."

I repeated after him, in a robotic voice, "I will let you win at Street Fighter, and I will kiss you... and more... by the end of the night."

Needless to say, I whipped his ass in Street Fighter, he pouted about it all through dinner, and he was lucky to score a hug goodbye.

I hypnotized myself into ignoring his dozen texts and e-mails in the following days, asking me out again, pleading with me to attempt another go at hypnosis.

His last message was an angry one, yelling at me for playing him, and that it was "because of people like [me] that hypnotists had such a bad rap."

Sorry, hypnotists.  Really.