On the few occasions I chatted with him over AIM, he reminded me of a guy I dated in college named Burke. (Well, it's his last name, but it's what everyone calls him.) Nobody could believe I even spoke to him, let alone went out with him, because he was basically a dick to people at every opportunity. But he was really clever about it, and seemed incredibly witty and well-read, so I struck up a conversation with him at a party once and it turned out he was basically a nice person who was socially awkward and lonely and insecure, and used his sarcastic wit as a defense mechanism -- pick on someone else before they pick on you.
But we got to be good friends and eventually started dating (Pedro was trying to "find himself," apparently he thought he should start by looking in the B-cups of every co-ed in his building). He turned out to be a really sweet, attentive, and devoted boyfriend -- even though he knew I wasn't interested for the long haul. He was five years older than me, and he was good friends with Pedro, so he basically considered himself in the role of "keeping me warm" for him, which my feminist half instinctively rails against, but in actuality turned out to be a lot of fun. I don't know what he was so insecure about. I mean, his cock was huge.
So essentially what I am saying, here, is that if Onstad were confident in his brilliance, he probably wouldn't need us to tell him how great he is. But he isn't, so he does. Not that I'm criticizing. After all, why the hell do you think I come here? If I were any more insecure, I'd print out y'all's responses to my posts and hang them on my wall.