Sounds Like a Plot Worthy of ‘Friends’

A new boyfriend debut is, of course, the single most thrilling event to be shared among loyal and caring and inquiring-minds-want-to-know girlfriends. It’s what we live for. It’s what we’ve worked so hard for. It’s the beautiful manifestation of all that talking we did over all those years while we imagined and erased and imagined ... the One.

“So, is he the One?” Kathryn asks. “Oh, please,” Linda says, throwing her hand up dismissively. “He’s just someone ... I’ve been seeing,” she says. “A lot.”

Oh, my. Sure seems like the One to us. We are old friends, the sort who can go a year without seeing one another and then pick up right where we left off.

“He’s just stopping by for dessert,” Linda says. “I didn’t want this to be some high-pressure thing.”

“Of course not,” I say.

“No big deal,” Kathryn says.

Nosiree. We stir our noodles in silence. We can’t eat! We have so much to do! We have notes to prepare in our heads, silent strategies to develop and transmit over well-worn paths of girlfriend telepathy. A new boyfriend debut!

Holy Babe Convergence! We will have to move in quickly, assess, construe, deduce. We will need to see how he looks at her, we will need to note body language. We will need to find a polite way of garnering factual material, including any details of pivotal past relationships. We will need to move on to his relationship with his mother, its entire history and present state. We will need to know if he is good enough for Linda.

He enters. We stand and shake hands. He is open and friendly and easy and sweet; the first-impression factor is indeed quite high. He’s cute, he’s got curly hair, he’s a dentist who has the good sense to not, in our presence, utter the words root canal. His adoration for Linda is palpable, as is hers for him. But now the real work begins, the digging for morsels of background material that might provide keys to character.

I make an awkward joke about dental versus mental health and then somehow find myself talking about my husband’s new slippers, which feature a cartoon rendition of Sigmund Freud and which he refers to as his “Freudian slippers.” The new boyfriend smiles politely and says, “So your husband is a psychologist?” I confirm and say that Alex works downtown. He says, “Alex? “ He asks me where his office is. And when I answer, I watch the face of the new boyfriend go from Earth to Mars and back again. “My shrink!” he says. “That’s my shrink!”

Oh, my. Oh-my! I must say this is a first. His shrink!

Not that having a shrink is a red flag. We think shrink-having is a good sign in a man. But--my husband? “I haven’t seen him in a few years now,” he says. “Tell him I’m doing great, OK?”

“Um, I’m not sure I’m supposed to do that,” I say.

“Oh, my life is an open book,” he says. “Just ask Alex.”

We have been thrown off our game plan plenty of times and in plenty of ways, but never quite like this.

By the time we get up to leave, we feel as if the new boyfriend is a member of the family. A nice, normal guy with seemingly little to hide. “Tell Alex I said hi!” he says to me.

So when I get home I do. I look in Alex’s eyes for a glimmer, a smile or a split second of horror--just a sign. Instead, I am met with the blankest of stares. He won’t say anything. I am at once frustrated and relieved and amazed at his ability to keep so much intrigue locked in his head. He goes to the freezer, gets out a bowl and we sit through one, two, three silent scoops of mint chocolate chip.