‘I was thinking about it a lot, and I think we’re… too similar?’ said César, his round dark childlike eyes narrowing as if in confusion at his own words. ‘I think we are the same type, and a relationship should be more… opposites.’

‘No, but —’ I made a sound between a laugh and a death rattle. ‘I’ve been in relationships where we were opposites. That — doesn’t — work!‘ Instinctively, my voice turned into Elaine from Seinfeld saying ‘sex in a bathtub? That — doesn’t — work!‘ The reference went over his head.

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Hooking up with a straight man is a weird experience. I wouldn’t recommend it. The Jared who surfaced the next two times I saw him that summer was a different creature from the slick, self-assured guy I had always seen at Mike’s Open Mic. Both times, he came to mine on stressfully short notice — thirty, forty minutes; hey I’m on my way back east could swing by yours if you’re around? — and was awkward, taciturn and tightly coiled, practically looking over his shoulder for enemy spies hidden behind the bedside table.

            Neither of these encounters had the thrill of that night at his flatwarming. I almost felt I’d been the victim of false advertising. That I was now discovering not a second, but a third Jared, a third Russian doll. The anxious, true Jared.

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