He shakes his head, pressing the bag of frozen peas back to his face. "He won't assume you're a terrible influence. He'll assume that I've been getting myself into trouble, as usual, which is why he needs to keep such a close eye on me, because if he doesn't know what I'm doing or where I am every hour of every day, I'll get seriously injured or die. He's convinced that I'm going to wander out into traffic and get hit by a bus because I'm too absentminded, or get murdered by someone who decides they've had enough of my contradictoriness and resorts to violence beyond just punching me. And I think he can imagine that because I was a pain in the ass as a kid -- still am, I guess, just a little less juvenile about it -- and I'm sure he imagined murdering me more than once. Not literally. Figuratively. He's a weird guy, but he's not actually a murderer."

Just in case that needed to be clarified, apparently. Speaking of being absentminded, he's so busy looking at Ned as he walks and talks that he nearly runs into a bench. Walking with a bag of peas over your eye and not looking where you're going apparently isn't a great combination in terms of depth perception, especially for someone like Ginsberg who's already more than a little clumsy.

"But I'd be okay with you being a bad influence. In other ways, I mean. That was meant to be flirtatious but I don't think it worked."

At least he had the good sense to say that a little more quietly than his normal speaking voice, but he's just come to accept that all his attempts at flirtation are, by and large, failures.