What is the theme in A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter?

The relationship between Dean and Anne-Marie, though certainly passionate, is ultimately dysfunctional because of the fundamental inequality which is at its root. Dean is, at least in the narrator's mind, a superior human being, a kind of Nietzschean superhuman who is above the fray of normal social conventions and morality. Anne-Marie, on the other hand, is an average girl whose life goals are incredibly normal. All she wants is to be in love and have a happy family. Dean, however, can hardly be satisfied by those things; he would likely scoff at them as mundane, something beneath him. However, he is a keen observer of others—a necessary tool for his manipulative behavior—and therefore he is all too willing to dangle the prospect of it in front of Anne-Marie in order to get what he wants: domination.