Acknowledging Puck

I worry about the impact I have upon people.
I know, I shouldn't.  I should relax, be me.
But, I infect people, and affect them
deeply, profoundly, just by knowing me,
I alter them. Or, this is ego and vanity,
run amok, drawing phobia from coincidence.
I may overestimate, inflate the merit
of certain evidences. The girls who spurned
my advances, to marry men essentially me,
in appearance, intellect, even temperament.
Maybe, I was only middle-link in their chain,
not prototypical. And I wonder, of the friends
who gave up religion, forfeit education,
changed party affiliation and preferred
brand of detergent, not upon my urging
but after incidental conversation,
meaningless musings unmeted
seemingly & passively caught up in my ponderance.
Inside me, a certain devil, oft called Puck,
a villainous and dastardly demon soul,
an infamous spritely trickster, benign.