October 22, 2021:
Stripped of his vanity he's an ordinary, even typical, left-ghetto wanker.
His mockery of the language of texting. He knows no young people, so that "LOL" or "ROTFL" are not so much foreign as ludicrous — objects for elitist ridicule based on ignorance. That's his reality, in a nutshell: ignorance plus elitism, the toxic brew he shares so widely with others in his milieu.
In the end I call him out, not verbally but in practice. For months he's claimed he could solve the so-called "transformation problem" in Marx's Capital — if only he had a computer. I loan him a laptop. After weeks of evasion he acknowledges failure.
His arc is identical whenever called on to contribute. "I'd write articles if I had a computer..." He has the one I loaned him, yet writes nothing. Entirely predictably, if you're experienced with his type. Where his complacency and self-congratulation are matched only by his self-indulgence.