Here’s a particularly evocative snippet from ‘A Bottle of Gin’ by Robert Bloch.
Collins hung up quickly. He'd made a damned fool of himself again. But it was no use. He couldn't tell Edith what he meant to tell her. About the djinn. about the way he loved her.
It was loving her that drove him to drink in the first place. That feeling of inferiority. She was always so calm, so cool. So unapproachable. And he was just a little museum clerk.