"She desired me.

I knew this because I had evolved a cast-iron method of determining desire. The method said she desired me because I had no interest in her. Whenever I did find someone attractive it was guaranteed by the corrupt laws that govern the universe that the person would find me repellent, or just too small. This law also guaranteed that when I was with someone like Helen, whom I didn’t desire, the chances were they would look at me as she was looking at me now, with a wicked smile and an interest in squeezing my mickey, the thing I wanted most in the world from others, provided I found them attractive, which in her case I didn’t."

The Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi