I hoped it was clear from my comment that this was a youthful indiscretion and should not be used as any indication that I was right about any of my motivations

I hoped it was clear from my comment that this was a youthful indiscretion and should not be used as any indication that I was right about any of my motivations for this at the time :) Though I dunno, this was a long time ago, much closer to the publication date of the book (like a decade and a half before either of these articles were published), and I'm not sure this cynicism had quite taken off yet. Also, I'm a bit skeptical of the gender lens on this, at least at that time period. From reading these articles, I think the girls I was trying to impress were likely themselves "typical DFW asshole[s]" by the judgement of these authors. Men don't actually have a monopoly on "I am so smart" vanity (though I'd agree we seem more prone to it).