The Other Man

The Hat Prize by Jason Schneiderman

The Hat Prize by Jason Schneiderman

I was so excited for our second date that I bought a new sweater. It was a really cute sweater. I was late to meet Michael because I was buying that sweater. But unlike our first date, the chemistry seemed wrong from the moment I arrived. The restaurant was a Greek restaurant. I always forget that I don’t really like Greek food. When we sat down, my Prince Charming announced that he was about to take a Valium. I thought: Couldn’t you just tell me you’re taking an Advil? Valium? I watched a filmstrip in fifth grade about the dangers of Valium. You can’t even kill yourself with Valium. Addictive, retro, lame.

The night I met Michael, we talked all night. On our first date, we talked so long the maitre d’ had to let us know that the restaurant was closing. But now I was searching a menu for the least offensive option while the man across from me took a drug popular among 1950’s housewives. Our conversation couldn’t find a groove. I’d told my friends about him, which I figured was the jinx. I’d ruined it.

I’d been playing hard to get. My friend had just read The Rules (remember that book?), and I was no longer falling into bed on first dates. On our first date, he’d walked me to my door, but I didn’t invite him up. I walked him to the subway instead. I thought it had been a good move, but now I was doubting myself. I should have gotten laid and been done with it.

Things were going so badly that I was on the verge of excusing myself and just walking out of the restaurant. I was trying to formulate the words in my head. Sorry, this just isn’t working? Too vague. Too formulaic. Look, I’m just not feeling the connection I did last Friday? Also unworkable. And what would I do if I left? I didn’t want to leave. I just wanted him to be the guy I remembered.

He ordered an appetizer, and then he broke the awkward silence. “I should probably tell you I have a boyfriend.”

A boyfriend?

Seriously?

What’s the line from Party Girl? Ah, yes. You lower my real estate.

I’d just gone through this—though technically, I had been the boyfriend. I had spent my study abroad year dating a man named Alexei. He had cheated on me with roughly half the men in St. Petersburg. I had been completely duped, and it had been humiliating.

Well, at least I no longer had to excuse myself. “A boyfriend?” I said. He sheepishly nodded. “Have I been unclear?” I asked him. “Have I somehow sent you mixed messages? Were you not under the impression that this was a date?” I could feel the Joan Crawford in me rising. I was sitting up straighter, speaking with a level of disdain that I usually reserve for the what-I-should-have-said-but-would-never-be-so-bold-as-to-actually-say aftergame. I unleashed all the vitriol I had. When I finished, I sat back, self-righteous and wounded.

“You’re being so nice about this,” he said.

Nice? I was doing my best to be a total b***h about this.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Fernan.” He said.

“Is Fernan a name? Shouldn’t it be Fernando?”

He laughed. “It’s actually Fernan Fernandez.”

I laughed too. How could I not? I figured that the evening shouldn’t be a total waste. “Can I still have s*x with you?” I asked. To be honest, I wanted to see his apartment as much I wanted to have s*x. I really liked seeing people’s apartments.

“I was hoping you would ask that,” he replied.

* * * *

He had the best apartment I’d ever seen. It was a two-bedroom off Columbus Circle in the building where Bela Bartok had died. The s*x was fantastic. His taste in bedding was exquisite. His bedroom was cozy and perfect. I wanted to stay in his bed forever. My apartment had a bathtub that filled up with raw sewage and had to be bailed into the toilet. I had been showering at the gym for weeks. His bathroom, with its white porcelain tub and sliding glass doors, was heaven.

As I came out of the shower the next morning, he was on the phone with Fernan Fernandez. Michael was telling him about me. Or rather, he mentioned my existence, and listed my qualities. It was as odd as it sounds.

As I listened to them talk, I realized that they weren’t talking. They were just recounting events. I thought to myself, why don’t you two just exchange calendars and get it over with? But now that Michael was taken, and there was no risk of actually having to fall in love with him, we went back to the easiness of our first date. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t auditioning a man for life partnership. For the first time in my life, I fell in love.

It happened gradually. Michael and I would often spend two or three nights a week together. Sometimes I’d spend the evening at his place, and sometimes he’d come to my place. He would leave my apartment at six A.M. to get back to his place to shower and change and be at work by nine A.M., which I found consistently impressive. Michael seemed to find all of my faults endearing. I am an incredible klutz, and Michael never minded when I spilled coffee—which I did every single morning we were together. I had a habit of basically living in my bed, and even after Michael was poked by the sharp end of a compass (I’d been drawing circles) while trying to sleep, he never objected.

We never seemed to stop talking. Once when we were walking around Central Park with our Sunday morning coffees, I made some sententious statement or other and Michael asked me who had said that. “I did,” I said, slightly annoyed. “If I’m giving you someone else’s idea, I’ll tell you. If it’s not footnoted, it’s mine.” I was in my first year of grad school; I was belligerent and insecure.

Michael responded, “You’re the first guy that’s ever been smart enough for me.” I was a little insulted.

“Have you been dating morons?” I asked. (Twelve years later, I’ve met many of Michael’s exes. There is one whom I’m quite fond of, but for the most part I can confirm: Yes, he’d been dating morons.)

Michael also seemed to enjoy my mean streak. Once when we were discussing writing, he explained that for him writing poetry was a personal project. He told me that it was about self-expression and personal growth. I looked at him incredulously. “That’s,” I said, “what bad writers say when they can’t get published.”

Inexplicably, he found this endearing.

* * * *

I kept the subject of Fernan off limits. Michael’s roommate had developed a strong dislike of Fernan, and Michael often wanted to defend Fernan to me against the accusations of his roommate. Channeling Jeanne Tripplehorn in Sliding Doors, I had to point out that I was trying to be his boyfriend. “I’m not impartial here,” I would say, “You talk about him to someone else.”

Still, despite our growing affection, and increasing time together, there were times when Fernan would visit and I would have to disappear. I would meekly retreat to my post-apocalyptic apartment with its bad plumbing, aggressive rodents, and eviction threats. I would spend the time waiting for my life to restart when Michael would put his real boyfriend on a plane back to San Juan.

If I’d been following my own plan, those weekends without Michael would have been my most active husband hunting time. I’d explained my plan to Michael: Until Fernan was living in New York full-time, Michael was my pretend boyfriend. Since it’s a proven fact that people in a relationship are always more appealing to single people, I would be using the extra attraction boost from having a pretend boyfriend to attract a real boyfriend. But of course, I spent most of our time apart wondering when I could see him again.

During one of the blackout weekends, I was having lunch with a friend when my jaw locked up. I was explaining my plan and suddenly I experienced intense pain in my jaw and I could barely move it. Clearly, my body knew how ridiculous the plan was, even if I didn’t. Thank God for chiropractors.

* * * *

Over time, Michael and Fernan’s relationship went into an irrevocable downward spiral, and it suddenly seemed like he wanted to complain to me about Fernan all the time. Again, I had to insist that I was not an impartial observer—I had a vested interest. I wanted Michael, but only if I could get him free and clear.

I began to insist on two points: 1) If you break up with Fernan, you do it because you don’t want to be with him, not because you want to be with me. 2) I’m not plan B. Don’t think that breaking up makes us instant boyfriends.

Michael wrestled with his feelings. It was almost impossible not to talk his relationship through. We discussed almost everything, and this one piece of our lives—perhaps the most consequential piece of our lives—was under conversational quarantine.

* * * *

The night that Michael called me to tell me that he had broken it off with his boyfriend, he said all the right things. It was as though I had coached him. And of course, I had.

“It’s over,” he said, “and I know that doesn’t mean that you’re my boyfriend. I didn’t break up with him to be with you—I did it because he wasn’t right for me.”

I cut him off. “We have to go to a Kentucky Derby party tonight. What do you have that we can put on your head? There are prizes for hats.”

“I have a double-headed dildo,” he replied.

“Awesome,” I said. “Bring it. We’ll run them through a pair of my briefs, and you can wear that for a hat.”

We met up, and as we waited for the subway to Brooklyn, I wondered how long I would have to keep up this back-to-square-one charade. I’d been so focused on being certain that I had him free and clear, I wasn’t sure how to actually have him. He looked down the track, waiting for the light, and holding a brown paper bag containing the illicit makings of his hat.

“You’re my boyfriend,” I said. I just blurted it out.

“What?” he said.

“You’re my boyfriend,” I repeated. “I know I said we’d have to wait and all, but you are. You just are.”

“Okay,” he said.

He won the hat prize by a landslide.