as I walked through those gates and beheld the promise of the future, it seemed we would always exist there, forever suspended in the blissful, ecstatic, elated glow of each other’s adoration.
POST-COPULATORY PHASE: STAGE III
THE EMERGENCE AND INTEGRATION OF A NEW MALE INTO THE GROUP
The chances are that most of the females will agree with each other on which are the best males, since they all have the same information to go on.
—Richard Dawkins,
The Selfish Gene
I’d been thinking, as the days with Ray wore on, that the time had come for him to meet David and Joan and vice versa. It seemed a necessary step in all of my relationships—not only so Ray could know and understand me better by meeting my two closest friends but also, and perhaps more important, so David and Joan, my judge and jury, could provide an objective opinion about the person I was becoming increasingly involved with.
Or, at least, a semi-objective opinion.
Joan, I knew, would focus on all the practical aspects of whether or not Ray was worthy of me: Was he attractive? Articulate? Well mannered? Duly attentive and infatuated? A pivotal issue would be humor, about which she would declare at the end of the evening or the following morning one of two things: “Funny” or “Not funny.”
David too would address all those points, but his opinion would ultimately come down to one immutable thing: the bullshit factor. Being “one of them” himself, he’d once explained to me, it was only natural that he could be a better judge of a man’s character than I could: He knew the game and how it was played. David had a sixth sense about male falseness; could detect it in the most unobvious of circumstances and was rarely proven wrong.
And so I guess I should have paid attention when David asked me if I’d met any of Ray’s friends yet, which I hadn’t. But I was too preoccupied with Ray’s meeting my friends. It wouldn’t exactly be a carefree event for me since so much wasat stake, but I looked forward to it. I was confident that Ray would pass their tests with flying colors.
And so, obviously, was he.
“I was wondering when you were going to bring me home to meet the family,” he’d said when I asked him one night as we were leaving the office. It was one of the few nights we weren’t going to spend together—he had to see Mia and I had bills to pay. Ray looked in his date book after we got off the elevator and told me the few nights that week that didn’t work for him, and then we said good-bye—not kissing because we never kissed anywhere near the office.
Once I’d arranged the date—the following Thursday night—I told Ray.
“I’ll even cook,” he offered, and I readily agreed.
Ray in an apron would most certainly put him over the top.
But a week later, an hour before Joan and David were due to arrive at eight, Ray, who’d been holed up in my kitchen since the minute we’d come back to my apartment from work, cracked under the pressure.
“Maybe I should go home and change,” he said, pulling at his white shirt.
“Why?” I said.
“I don’t know. Maybe I should wear a tie. Or a different shirt. A blue shirt.”
“You look perfect. You always look perfect.”
“Are you sure?” He walked over to look at himself again in the full-length mirror on the inside of my closet door. “I want to make a good impression. I just—well, I really want them to like me.”
I walked over to him and put my arms around his waistfrom behind. “They will,” I said. Then I went into the kitchen and swallowed two mouthfuls of bourbon.
“So what do you think they thought?” Ray asked me the minute they’d left, full of his poached salmon and the delight of having regaled him with stories about my epic fear of water bugs.
“I think they liked you,” I said, making a trip to the kitchen with both hands full of dishes. Ray followed.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“But why?” He stood next to me at the
POST-COPULATORY PHASE: STAGE III
THE EMERGENCE AND INTEGRATION OF A NEW MALE INTO THE GROUP
The chances are that most of the females will agree with each other on which are the best males, since they all have the same information to go on.
—Richard Dawkins,
The Selfish Gene
I’d been thinking, as the days with Ray wore on, that the time had come for him to meet David and Joan and vice versa. It seemed a necessary step in all of my relationships—not only so Ray could know and understand me better by meeting my two closest friends but also, and perhaps more important, so David and Joan, my judge and jury, could provide an objective opinion about the person I was becoming increasingly involved with.
Or, at least, a semi-objective opinion.
Joan, I knew, would focus on all the practical aspects of whether or not Ray was worthy of me: Was he attractive? Articulate? Well mannered? Duly attentive and infatuated? A pivotal issue would be humor, about which she would declare at the end of the evening or the following morning one of two things: “Funny” or “Not funny.”
David too would address all those points, but his opinion would ultimately come down to one immutable thing: the bullshit factor. Being “one of them” himself, he’d once explained to me, it was only natural that he could be a better judge of a man’s character than I could: He knew the game and how it was played. David had a sixth sense about male falseness; could detect it in the most unobvious of circumstances and was rarely proven wrong.
And so I guess I should have paid attention when David asked me if I’d met any of Ray’s friends yet, which I hadn’t. But I was too preoccupied with Ray’s meeting my friends. It wouldn’t exactly be a carefree event for me since so much wasat stake, but I looked forward to it. I was confident that Ray would pass their tests with flying colors.
And so, obviously, was he.
“I was wondering when you were going to bring me home to meet the family,” he’d said when I asked him one night as we were leaving the office. It was one of the few nights we weren’t going to spend together—he had to see Mia and I had bills to pay. Ray looked in his date book after we got off the elevator and told me the few nights that week that didn’t work for him, and then we said good-bye—not kissing because we never kissed anywhere near the office.
Once I’d arranged the date—the following Thursday night—I told Ray.
“I’ll even cook,” he offered, and I readily agreed.
Ray in an apron would most certainly put him over the top.
But a week later, an hour before Joan and David were due to arrive at eight, Ray, who’d been holed up in my kitchen since the minute we’d come back to my apartment from work, cracked under the pressure.
“Maybe I should go home and change,” he said, pulling at his white shirt.
“Why?” I said.
“I don’t know. Maybe I should wear a tie. Or a different shirt. A blue shirt.”
“You look perfect. You always look perfect.”
“Are you sure?” He walked over to look at himself again in the full-length mirror on the inside of my closet door. “I want to make a good impression. I just—well, I really want them to like me.”
I walked over to him and put my arms around his waistfrom behind. “They will,” I said. Then I went into the kitchen and swallowed two mouthfuls of bourbon.
“So what do you think they thought?” Ray asked me the minute they’d left, full of his poached salmon and the delight of having regaled him with stories about my epic fear of water bugs.
“I think they liked you,” I said, making a trip to the kitchen with both hands full of dishes. Ray followed.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“But why?” He stood next to me at the
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