Sometimes, You Can't Change

"Knowing me by now, the reader can easily imagine how dusty and hot I got, trying to catch a glimpse of nymphets (alas, always remote) playing in Central Park, and how repulsed I was by the glitter of deodorized career girls that a gay dog in one of the offices kept unloading upon me." From that quote in the book, we see that H.H. just holds a special place for a particular kind of girls. He is, and many will agree, a troubled man in the eyes of society.
A breakdown at work caused him to be hospitalized for a year in the Canadian Arctic! H.H. was among others with various problems and doctors doing hard labour in the extreme cold. While there, his problem is unknown to the other patients and doctors. He's distracted by this unfamiliar atmosphere and thus doesn't think about the things that usually occupys his mind. He dreams about the translucent sky that hovers above him and analyzes his bizarre environment of glacial drifts and drumlins. As soon as he gets fed up with this absurd project that actually took over 22 months, he returns to civilization. And therefore, he returns to himself.
Escaping his usual area of residence wasn't going to change H.H.'s abnormal behaviour. H.H. deep down knew of this fact too. He knew that his old ways and attractions weren't going to change. They were a bad habit, but more so a part of him.
Getting help from psychiatrists certainly did not help. H.H. played around with their methods, having learnt their techniques and ways of diagnosis. He made up wildly detailed, fantasized dreams and described them to the pyschiatrists, confusing them. After having looked at his files and seeing "potentially homosexual" and "totally impotent" listed under his name, H.H. was sincerely amused. He had tricked the pyschiatrists and was proud of it.
In H.H.'s case and many people around the world, change is not possible when it is so deeply rooted in them. Some kinds of change are easily accomplished at a young age when we know not of the many ways that exist and when we're the most vulnerable. There have been parents and fundamentalist religious organizations that have tried giving regular therapy and electric shock therapy to their homosexual children with the help of doctors. This has proven to be ineffective. You can't change a person's sexual orientation. You can't tell someone: "try not to be gay." That's the equivalent of saying: "try not to be born in Canada" (when they're already born). Practically nothing will work; no escaping your environment, no shock therapy. And if it does work, you'll be immensly unhappy. Therefore as we're reading "Lolita" and wondering about H.H., we have to dispose of ideas of change for him. We can't tell H.H. to try not to be attracted to nymphets.