Chapter 3, pages 101-126 Summary

The boy is convinced that life is nothing more than play, and that, since he is likely to die young, he can get by without ever showing his true face. The narrator reveals that the boy has cheated his way through life, learning to provide stolen answers to questions he doesn't understand. This quickly puts the cheater out of his depth, as all future life lessons are based on the lessons never learned.

The boy does his best to emulate heterosexuality when in the presence of his classmates, but comes off as wanton and crude. The narrator suggests that the boy's advanced self-awareness has less to do with maturity and more to do with necessity. Most boys, argues the narrator, being typical for their sex and age, don't need to carefully articulate their identities. Seeing that his crude comments...