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The apartment will be luxuriously empty: the perfect opportunity for Ari to use her noisiest vibrator. That was the plan, anyway.
“If you want to assign blame, take it up with Plato.” Ari dries her hands on the towel, debating whether to take the bait. “Plato?” “The Symposium? Aristophanes’s speech?” “You’ll have to refresh my memory. I went to public school in Arizona.”
“Your soulmate gives you the greatest possible sense of belonging,” he says with genuine conviction. “They heal your existential wound. It’s the basis of modern love.”
“You honestly think there’s one person somewhere on this planet who can fulfill every single need you’ll ever have?” “Yes. And eventually you’ll get sick of searching for your underwear at two in the morning!” His accent is poking through again. “You’ll start looking for the person who won’t bore you. Who makes sacrifices for you even when you don’t deserve it. Who you want to hold all night until your arm falls asleep. Who’s required by law to bring you matzo ball soup when you get a cold. No one with an eggplant emoji next to their name is ever going to care about you that way.”
“Congratulations. You’ve figured out how to avoid any shred of intimacy that you could possibly share with another human being.”
In fairness, Grandma Pauline never asked to be responsible for another child at age forty-eight when Ari’s mom realized she “just couldn’t do this anymore” and took off with a Phish Head.
“To be fair,” Gabe says, holding up his hands. “Ari does have a thing for bossy people who think they know everything.”
a dating app notification splashes across Ari’s lock screen. Any one of these matches could be The One! Tap here to find out who. “Ugh,” she says, wrinkling her nose at the message. “How do I tell this app I don’t want ‘The One’? I’m not even ready to have totally forgettable rebound sex yet.”
real
“You’re the only person I’m nice to. If you weren’t around, I’d have no redeeming qualities.”
Witnessing “new to poly” couples steer themselves through the volatile waters of opening up their relationships for the first time, Ari feels a profound sense of relief that she can walk away from any of them, at any moment. And there’s a Josh-shaped indent underneath all the new conversations.
She’s so fucking frustrating in the way she forces him to be exactly what she needs while disregarding what he wants, or how he feels about any of it.
“Your buddy already got a number,” he says in an obnoxiously chipper tone of voice. What’s the Chill Girl response to this? Interesting! I didn’t realize we’re both attracted to women with breasts the size of oranges!
An adult wearing mittens. This is who he’s losing his goddamn mind over?
You want to entertain someone? Get back up onstage and don’t call me.”
“I literally met someone an hour ago.” His voice is low and hoarse. The train is close enough to the station to create a rumbling sound. “But you’re not gonna sleep with her, are you? You’re going to take her out for an expensive meal, find one stupid imperfection, and text me about it.”
Ari turns to face him—to make a joke or play it off. But there’s no clever line at the ready. She has nothing to say. Because some random Hinge match will never look at her in this specific way that breaks her heart and melts it back together in the space of one breath.
Sure, every so often when she’s enraged or can’t stop crying or when the weed isn’t dialing down the feelings from an eleven to a manageable four or five, the compartment explodes and litters the other chambers in her brain with emotional shrapnel. She takes a day off, watches every filmed version of Pride and Prejudice, consumes a couple edibles, and starts the containment process over again.
“You know,” he says, “Zeus ordered Apollo to rearrange the entire human body so people could have sex face-to-face. When they found their missing half, it healed their existential wounds.” “So, that’s why I’m such a disaster.” She turns away from the mirror. “I’ve been bleeding from my existential wound this entire time.”
If you’re not moving forward, you’re moving backward. I think they only pass around that memo to men.”
“That’s the thing,” she says. “Who am I going to text about you?”
I’m not, in fact, spending all my time feeling a combination of bitter and heartbroken and angry and sorry for myself. I’m also sending emails.
The caption reads, “Enjoying the nation’s #1 erect phallus.” Does it have some meaning beyond a mere dick joke? Has she met someone? Is it code?
She’s managed to trigger a specific kind of loneliness that only happens when you alienate everyone who knows you—really knows you. Cue the self-loathing. Yep, there it is.
“I think”—he swallows—“I think there’s a part of me that still loves you.” There’s a pause long enough to make her hope that the next word is and. “But I’m not going to slip back into some inane conversation with you like we’re buddies. We’re not going to have any late-night phone calls anymore. I’m not your coffee date. I’m not your shoulder to cry on.” He inhales sharply. “I deserve more than that. Even if it’s not with you.”
Someone just stabbed me in the chest
This shirt will be forever associated with the time a maudlin Billy Joel hit grabbed him by the throat as he cried in front of his mother into a bowl of egg whites.
“If you want to watch someone you love grow into the person you know they can be, that’s when you get married.”
He couldn’t look more miserable if he tried—and it’s possible he did try. What kind of pretentious snob shows up to a giant fun run and puts in their earbuds before the race even starts? My pretentious snob. Hopefully.
Ari: Sometimes I say ridiculous things just so you’ll get this really specific look on your face where you’re kind of annoyed but mostly amused and it gives me more joy than making other people actually laugh. You do this thing with your mouth when you’re deciding what to say next and I find it really hot and I never told you that. I get this Pavlovian smile response every single time I get a text from you, even if it’s just one word, because you still make me a little nervous and excited. I want to give you shit about the clown costume forever. It’ll never get old for me. I want to buy the
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SCREAMIINNNGGG
“Can we try that again?” she asks when he slowly eases her down to the ground. “I feel like I wasn’t ready for that.” “That could be the pull quote for our entire relationship.”
