She considers me a typical Dominican man: a sucio, an asshole. See, many months ago, when Magda was still my girl, when I didn’t have to be careful about almost anything, I cheated on her with this chick who had tons of eighties freestyle hair. Didn’t tell Magda about it, either.
-- Yunior (Chapter 1 paragraph 1)

Importance: The first paragraph highlights many character traits that are constantly shown through Yunior. Yunior cheats on the majority of the women that he enters into a relationship with. Yunior also mentions his Dominican roots, which comes up constantly throughout this and all of the other stories.

She wasn’t the only one with counsel. My boys were like, Fuck her, don’t sweat that bitch, but every time I tried I couldn’t pull it off. I was into Magda for real. I started working overtime on her again, but nothing seemed to pan out. Every movie...
-- Yunior (Chapter 1 paragraph 10)