Chapter 8
It’s rare that I have a night alone in the condo.
My mom and Perry have tickets to see Iron and Wine.
Instead of going out and being social, I elect to stay in and be antisocial by inviting Romily over.
Usually we share a bottle of wine, scroll our phones, and at some point I end up asking her opinion about my relationship with Hal even though I know exactly what she thinks about it.
She’s not the sort of person who treads lightly.
I answer the door holding the bag of garbage I’m about to haul to the trash chute. Romily has a leather backpack slung over her shoulder. She cradles her MacBook in her other arm.
“You brought your laptop,” I say.
She eyes the garbage bag at my side. “Was I supposed to bring a bag of trash?”
“Actually, you were supposed to bring wine.”
“I didn’t have time to stop at the store. I’m going to a PowerPoint party after this.” Romily drops her bag on the armchair. “Want to come?”
“Do I ever want to attend one of those events?” I ask her. “Nothing says party quite like ten minutes of tier ranking Disney Channel original movies.”
“High School Musical 2 is S-tier.”
“I thought we were going to have a do-nothing kind of night,” I whine. Houdini wanders over to sniff Romily’s legs.
“Sit down,” she says, connecting her computer to my mom’s living room TV. “I want to do a dry run. Give me five minutes to rehearse this and I’ll take your trash out myself.”
On some level, there’s nothing I want more than to dive down some obscure rabbit hole in front of a captive audience.
The truth is, I’m afraid I’d like it too much.
It might remind me of how I’m not in school.
She’s been participating in these gatherings since the pandemic.
I envy the way she’s found a hobby that allows her to nerd out on data analytics while being social.
Romily’s favorite form of communication is presentation decks.
I’ve learned more about her interests, her experiences, and even her personal life from PowerPoint, as opposed to organic conversations.
The formality of giving an official speech with visual aids seems to offset her reticence to share.
With every slide deck, her presentations get more polished, more thoroughly researched.
She even started taking data analytics classes through Cleveland State after watching someone’s PowerPoint about her job in business intelligence.
I prop up the trash bag by the front door and plop myself down onto the couch.
On screen is a slide titled: “Transitioning a Nonexclusive Sexual Relationship: A Guide to Uncertainty Reduction.”
“We all know the process of evolving a friends with benefits, situationship, or even flirtationship to a committed romantic relationship is fraught with impediments,” she says.
“Today I will cover new typologies that describe the wide variety of ongoing sexual relationships in which there is no expectation of romantic feeling or exclusive commitment.” She pauses.
“That’s right. All happy committed relationships are alike; each unhappy situationship is unhappy in its own way. ”
“Hold on.” I put my hand up. “You identify as aromantic and ace”—I know this because of a previous PowerPoint—“but this is the topic you picked?”
“The theme of the party is Summer Lovin’,” she says. “And not engaging in it personally makes me well suited to provide an unbiased analysis.”
I’m tempted to challenge her assertion. Romily tends to substitute data analysis for empathy, which is probably why we rarely have real conversations. But I tuck my legs up under me and settle in.
“It might surprise you to learn that only fifteen percent of all friends with benefits successfully transition to romantic relationships.” She advances to a slide highlighting a 15 percent sliver of a pie chart.
“And only one half of those were intentional.” The pie slice gets brutally slashed in half.
“For the record, that doesn’t surprise me,” I say.
“Understanding the behaviors and strategies that correlate to your desired romantic outcome will improve the likelihood of happily ever after. Conversely, this presentation may help you come to terms with the more statistically probable scenario”—she advances to a slide with a stock image of a woman with her head in her hands—“failure.”
“Jesus, Romily. This is for a party?”
She continues, undeterred. “A recent study of emerging adults identified several new categorizations of friends with benefits, or FWB relationships, including real friends, serial hookups, ex sex, and mutual sexual fail-safe.”
The next slide helpfully lists out these terms.
“I’m sorry, ‘mutually sexual’ what?”
“We can plot these FWB types along the x-axis of emotional intimacy and the y-axis of romantic desire.” She pulls up a four-quadrant diagram.
I can’t help trying to place Hal and me somewhere near the “successful evolution” box.
“For individuals looking to transition their FWB arrangement into a committed romantic relationship, the upper right quadrant is the sweet spot. But only if the feelings are mutual. When the desire is one-sided”—she advances the slide, adding a giant black circle to the upper left quadrant labeled with the word Lovelorn—“any attempt to convert the FWB to a romance is doomed to fail.”
Romily pauses and gives me a pointed look.
“Is there actually a party tonight?” I ask. “Or did you whip up this diagram for my benefit?”
“There is a party. And this is useful information for you. Both things can be true.”
My relationship with Hal doesn’t look good on paper. And Romily prefers to focus on the “on paper” part of life.
“Lovelorn isn’t a scientific term, you know.”
“Let’s discuss the factors that lead to a successful transition into romance,” she says, briskly moving the presentation along.
“Participants in the study were asked about their relational maintenance behaviors, or ‘RMBs.’ What are the things they do or share to keep relationships close? Now here’s where things get exciting. ”
“Is the exciting part where you explain what a mutual sexual fail-safe is?”
She pulls up a slide with a long table of rows, columns, and numbers I can’t make sense of.
“Do you know what the most critical RMB is for individuals who want to evolve an FWB relationship into a romantic one?”
“I can’t remember what RMB stands for,” I say.
“Self-disclosure is the most critical behavior,” she says. “Partners who engage in self-disclosure tend to have higher rates of successful romantic transition.” She waits for a reaction from me. “It means opening up about yourself.”
“That’s your big conclusion?” I point at the screen. “That required ten different citations?”
“It’s not my conclusion. It’s literally science,” she says.
“But here’s the problem: we must consider both individuals’ perception of the current state and potential future state of the relationship.
” She shows the quadrant graph again. “Two people in the same relationship can interpret its position on this graph very differently. And their feelings may shift over time. The greater the difference between the two individuals’ perceptions of their relationship, the more likely it is to fail. ”
“That’s so many words to say ‘unrequited.’ ”
I force myself not to think about where Hal would place us on this matrix. I picture the two of us with our hands over the diagram like a Ouija board, moving a planchette slowly from quadrant to quadrant, both of us subtly pushing and pulling it to validate our own truths.
“When one person perceives romantic potential and is therefore willing to ‘wait out’ the partner, it’s called ‘relational compromise.’ It never works.” She clicks forward to another stock photo of an anguished woman.
“Relationships are mostly compromising,” I point out. “It’s not inherently negative to compromise.”
“The audience isn’t supposed to argue with the presenter,” Romily says. “I’m simply synthesizing the results of this study.”
“Okay, but no one wants to have the ‘What are we?’ conversation,” I say. “Even if you both want the same thing, it’s, like, the most awkward thing you can do with another person.”
“I’m glad you point that out.” She advances to the next slide, titled “Why We Don’t Self-Disclose,” which features a photo of a woman plaintively looking out a window.
“It’s not because of awkwardness,” she says.
“People avoid self-disclosure because they believe it could negatively impact their self-image and current relationship status. It’s self-preservation. ”
“No,” I say. “It’s human nature. We can’t just go around divulging our most vulnerable feelings at all times. I think romance requires a little bit of mystery. You hold some things back and the other person discovers them.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “The longer the unilateral romantic feelings continue, the more distressing it is to end the relationship. That’s why self-disclosure is critical.
Identifying a mismatch in perception at an early stage will save the extended pain of relational compromise and allow the individual to find a compatible match. ”
Romily advances to the final slide, which features a stock photo of two people holding hands, backlit by a dramatic sunset.
“I welcome feedback,” she adds.
“The diagrams were helpful,” I say, knowing that, going forward, I’ll probably be unable to have a conversation with a man without identifying our quadrant. “There are a lot of photos of women in distress.”
“The idea is to make the visuals directly relevant to the audience.” She tilts her head. “Did you find it relevant?”
“Yes. And extremely subtle.” I stand up from the couch. “Now grab the trash.”
“Friends with benefits doesn’t mean there’s a menu of benefits for you to select from.
” Romily carries the bulging garbage bag down the breezeway to the communal trash room while I trail a step behind, tackling the pile of neatly broken-down cardboard boxes (courtesy of Perry, who does that sort of thing without being asked).
“I just feel like we used to be more adventurous,” I say. “Maybe we’ve gotten too comfortable.”
“No. Actually you’re not comfortable. That’s your problem. If you felt comfortable, you’d just ask him to ti—”
“Hey!” I exclaim, racing in front of her. “Let’s not name sex acts in the hallway. My mom’s neighbors have amazing hearing.”
“If you felt comfortable,” she repeats, “you’d have this conversation with him, not me.
” Romily opens the door to the closet that hides the trash and recycling chutes and we’re hit with the rotten-sweet smell of garbage fumes.
“You know who is comfortable? Hal. He gets all the emotional benefits of having a girlfriend without the commitment.”
“No. See, you make these pronouncements like you know the objective truth. Relationships have nuance. They can’t all be boiled down to a bullet point summary of a research survey.
” We quickly toss everything down the chutes without inhaling the air in the closet.
“And I don’t want a committed relationship right now. I’m living in purgatory.”
I feel like one of the distraught women from her slide deck.
“You’re trending toward snuggle buddies,” Romily says as we walk back down the hall, letting the closet door slam. “Pretty soon he’ll be treating you like a stuffed animal.”
“What makes you such an expert if you’ve given up dating and relationships?”
“I haven’t given up, I’ve freed myself. It’s wonderful. My posture has never been better.” She stops in front of my mom’s door. “And I know these things because I research and observe. Knowledge is power.”
I reach to turn the doorknob. It doesn’t budge.
“Shit.” I jiggle it, as if that will help. “Perry must’ve set it to automatically lock again.”
“You don’t have your keys?”
“To take the trash thirty feet down the hallway? It’s not supposed to lock!”
“When will your mom be back?” Romily asks.
“I dunno, late? They’re seeing a show at the Bluestone.”
“Maintenance?”
“It’s after hours.” I stare at the beige door. A bead of sweat forms at my hairline. “And my phone’s inside the apartment.”
“Mine, too. And my car keys.”
Two minutes later, I’m trying to pick the lock with Romily’s bobby pin by jamming one end into the bottom of the lock and wiggling it with absolutely no success.
I have a vague memory of my dad teaching me this at some point—he sometimes had to open lockboxes and safes for clients whose relatives died without giving them the keys.
Something about moving the pins and listening for soft clicks?
Why didn’t I pay attention to what was probably the handiest life skill my father showed me?
I press my ear against the door, trying to convince myself that I have, indeed, heard a “soft click.” But mostly I hear a couple of pairs of footsteps echo down the breezeway. Terrific. Probably one of the old ladies who filed a noise complaint about me last year.
I give the pin another firm jab into the lock.
“Fuck! Ow.” I shake my pinched finger. I’m sweating in the muggy evening air.
I make another attempt at forcing the pin deeper into the lock as I hear the footsteps slow to a stop behind me.
“It works better with two bobby pins.”
“What does? Dad, what works better?”
I know these voices now. I don’t even need to look up.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” Romily says. “She lives here.”
“Oh, I know,” Nick says, the slightest chuckle in his voice. “You’re locked out?”
“My mom and Perry went to a show.” I look up at him, a sudden flash of hope popping into my brain. “I don’t suppose my mom already gave you a spare key because you’re so handy and responsible?”
“No. Just the Bundt pan. Kira, you remember Sam, right? From the pool?”
God, I hope Kira recognizes me. The last thing I need is to reintroduce myself to a child because I’m that unremarkable.
“Can I try?” Kira asks. She attempts to hand Nick the two pizza boxes she’s holding. “I wanna try it.”
“No. I don’t think anyone should try to pick it,” he says, looking at me. “It could damage the lock.”
He’s probably right, but I hate conceding anything when I’m already in such a pathetic position—kneeling outside the door, tiny piece of metal digging into the pad of my thumb, a sheen of sweat on my back.
“Want to come over to our place until they get home?” he asks. “We have air-conditioning. And pizza.”
So much for my bitch sesh.
“The cheese one is mine,” Kira says, protectively clutching the boxes.