"Hey." I say, grinding my teeth. "You may think I'm a really disgusting yuppie but I'm not, really," I tell them, swallowing rapidly, wired out of my head. Two black guys are sitting with them at the table. Both are glaring at me. I stick out my hand at a crooked angle, trying to mimic a rapper.

"Hey," I say. "I'm fresh. The freshest, y'know...like, uh, def... the deffest." I take a sip of champagne. "You know... def." To prove this I spot a black guy with dreadlocks and I walk up to him and exclaim "Rasta Man!" and hold out my hand, anticipating a high-five. But the n***** just stands there. "I mean" – I cough – "Mon," and then, with less enthusiasm, "We be, uh, jamming..."

He brushes past me, shaking his head. I look back at the girls. They shake their heads – a warning to me not to come back over. I turn my gaze to a hard body who's dancing by herself next to a column, then I finish my champagne and walk up to her, asking for a phone number.

this is a completely real (no chicanery) paragraph from the American Psycho novel and it is not even close to the most embarrassing thing Patrick does