French novel from the twenties (which happens to be freely available in French on wikisource), recommended by @eveline for the Loser Canon list. And indeed it belongs there: war veteran Victor wants money, fame, women and, overall, friends. War veteran Victor also doesn't work, assumes everyone is a potential friend and as measly as he is. This is a short, funny read.

The writing is pretty dry and with small comments slowly reveals a portrait of Victor. The quite lucid man has standards, a high opinion of himself, contempt for many, and the inability to accept responsibility for himself. He confuses his (perceived) ability to grovel for a gift that no one knows how to enjoy - and this feels like an injustice. Another great injustice resides in all the efforts he makes not to be mean or dishonest, which never meet any reward - the man is full of what he hasn't done.

Bové provides a modern archetype halfway between Ignatius from A Confederacy of Dunces and the terminally online incel: Victor has built a mental prison in such a way that every attempt to get out adds a layer of bricks by confirmation. The one-night stand doesn't want him at her place while she is at work. Surely, the woman he thought was now his mistress must not trust him! Yet his first look in the room was for the dresser in which he assumed she was hiding her savings. (Alright, he gets laid; he is not really an incel, maybe a proto-incel).

I once read a Danielle Steel. The notable thing I remember is that everything described was mediated through the eyes of the Other: things were not this or that, rather, they looked like this or that to an unnamed someone (in Steel: an unnamed passer-by (I'd wager a woman) looking at the protagonist and the bachelor of the story interacting). It is similar in Bové: Victor daydreams of being seen by passers-by and being admired by Others. The actress mistress he imagines falling for him only has value because she draws looks; the real treasure is the many eyes locked on him when she is at his arm.

This very desire lays the trap shutting him in solitude:

Le lendemain matin, vers cinq heures, Lucie m’éveilla. Elle était déjà habillée. Je n’osais la regarder car, à l’aube, je ne suis pas beau.

The morning after, around 5, Lucie woke me up. She was already dressed. I didn't dare to look at her because at dawn, I am not good-looking.

(His continuous attempt to live out a simulacra of himself overflows. The sky is at some point described as "cold blue. The moon had geographical drawings on it.")

Every encounter marks him. He is a man in a desert for whom every shadow on the horizon is a promise. But Victor is also a fearful man, and meeting someone means a chance to be killed as well as a chance to make a friend for life. Victor reads the simplest courtesy as a sign of love right after having considered all the ways this Other could have mocked, trumped, robbed or killed him. He gets overinvested in every crumb of relationship and remains ready to drop it at the first sign of something that would offend his misery:

— Qu’as-tu ? Es-tu triste ? questionna-t-il.

Ma tristesse, qui jusqu’à présent n’avait pas cessé de grandir, s’évanouit. L’intérêt que Billard me portait était une réalité, alors que mes réflexions n’étaient que des divagations de malheureux. Je le regardai avec reconnaissance.

— Oui, je suis triste.

J’attendais des plaintes, des confidences. Je fus déçu : il me conseilla de réagir.

— What is it? Are you sad? he asked.

My sadness, which up until now kept growing, suddenly vanished. The interest Billard was taking in me was real, unlike my thoughts, these foolish ramblings. I looked at him with gratitude.

— Yes, I am sad.

I expected sympathy and secrets. I was disappointed: he advised me to take action. 

He takes good care of his misery by mixing up what is and what could be and picking the worst interpretation every time. This is a man driven by apprehension, not even by fear (from there springs up the humour). 

In one memorable scene, Victor enjoys looking sad near the Seine and letting people believe he is about to kill himself until another man comes to him and confesses the same desire - he suddenly has to try and convince him life is worth living, and ends up white-knighting the suicidal man and eventually laments his ingratitude.

So the character is ridiculous, and, at the same time, very touching - because I would lie if I said I didn't recognize, here and there, some thoughts I have had in the midst of a sad bout of loneliness. This is a story of common cowardice when sadness caramelizes, as often, into the pleasure of wallowing.