I’m back in the Shakespearian triadic struggle. Here, once again, we’re not quite dealing with a love triangle, but essentially that’s what this is. I’m always there somehow, between two people wondering about proper positioning. The positioning in question involving hubris, obsessive inquiry, passion and paranoia. In any given triangle, one or more parties will inevitably be broken down to the point of bidding adieu. This applies not only to our more emotionally heightened scenarios, but also among unsuspecting males, when suddenly one of the boys ghosts the group, often later to be found off the coast of some much more interesting country, with a much more beautiful girlfriend than the other two would have expected. This heterodom of which I care to comment, however, is expectably ultimately of little to no interest to me, but it further illustrates my initial point that in even the most innocuous of two-mans, trifectas, trinities, three-ways and triplets, a mounting friction invariably lurks.

The solution is clear to me, where to others it is not. We need A Fourth. When it comes down to it, people work better with each other in even numbers— in pairs, like Noah’s Ark. This theory has its roots in Dodgeball Law, wherein the last school child picked at the start of the game is, on top of bing picked last, all the more humiliated by the fact that they are being assigned to a team already stocked with sufficient membership. This creates a deeper sense of unbelonging in the child, and is known to lead to serious interpersonal developmental road blocks such as studying music theory.

Toby called a meeting. So here we’ve all gathered after months of hubris, obsessive inquiry, passion and paranoia allegedly to discuss the matter of Toby’s acceptance. He made a group chat with Gina and I in which he apologized for trying to poison himself, thereby nearly depriving us of his presence in our lives, which to him would have certainly constituted a travesty for us.

Well really, Gina wouldn’t be pleased to hear about a dead Toby. I never wanted dead Toby, but Jesus— He looked so rough and sad. It seemed like the right thing for him at the time. I don’t know; maybe some people do know what’s right for them. Apparently he didn’t though. Now Gina and I have to watch him cry into his Salmon salad that I recommended to him, despite it giving me severe bowel movements six or seven months ago. He likes poisoning himself. Maybe I’m just trying to be a helpful person.

“I’ve just accepted it, you know?” he blubbers. He goes for a medium bite of spinach and half of it falls off his fork, resulting in the mouthing of a small bite of spinach, which strikes even someone with such advanced gender politics as myself as effete. Effete, because he continues speaking, and crying as the spinach rolls around his mouth, dancing over his lazy tongue, creating a sound so horrible and unnatural, that I suddenly have new feelings surrounding his living or dying.1

“I’ve just accepted that I don’t need someone else to carry me through things. Like, I’m a fully developed person, you know?”

Gina nods her head. I try understanding what the ever living fuck he is talking about. “So like, you’re fucking with the single life and shit?”

Toby looks at me as if I’d just burned one of his Dr. Martens. I’m worried for a second that he’s not really over Gina like he said he was in the group chat, and that this whole dinner might be a trap. Is he going to lambast me with asides and implications? Surely he knows Gina and I are together now. Why wouldn’t he know that? Have we told him? Why hasn’t Gina told him, if she hasn’t that is? But then he speaks again, and all but answers my question.

“I mean, I’m not exactly having a good time.”

Gina gently taps him on the shoulder trying to console. He actually jerks away as if bing stuck by a thumb tack through his shirt. “Okay,” Gina raises her eyebrows the way people do when they’re still surprised by the unseemly behavior of someone they love, but haven’t known for very long.

Toby composes himself and swallows his spinach. By this point, I’m trying to twist my brain into feeling compassion for the boy. He’s done nothing to warrant my hard feelings, but I hate men. And I hate sexually competing with men, because they are beneath me.2 Thus I find it difficult to emotionally engage with purulent, attention-starved boys without the faintest trace of an inner constitution. That is a job for teachers, therapists and gym instructors.

“Well, Toby. I’m sorry to hear that.” I take a sip of my iced vanilla latte, realizing it has gone untouched for half an hour. The ice melted, mixing water and milk into a perverse diarrhea-inducing concoction. I let it fall out of my mouth onto the cafe floor. Nobody really does or says anything about it. I do not offer to clean it up.

“Jim, I can’t stop thinking about something you told me a while back.”

And could this be our proverbial beat in the script? The real reason why he called us out here today?

“You said Gina was obsessed with me before her and I started dating. And that’s why I asked her out.”

I guess this was his idea of like, dropping a bomb. It made me wish I also had a salmon salad, so I could take a bite apathetically, as if I hardly registered what he just said, and couldn’t be bothered.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said that?” Gina asks, a smidgen surprised.

“Yeah you did. Before she and I started dating, you said she quote unquote ‘really likes me.’ That she was obsessed with me. And I believed you.” He’s making difficult eyes at me, so I look elsewhere.

“Well, maybe I said that because I thought it was true. Anyway, I guess I don’t know why you’re mentioning something like that now.”

Gina’s head swivels to him precisely. “Yeah Toby, what the fuck?”

“You liked Jim the whole time. Nothing we had was legitimate.”

“That’s the conclusion you draw?” Gina scoffs.

Feeling now like I have to reassure this guy or else he might flip the table, sending Gina’s lavender gin cocktail, and his nearly full salmon salad careening into someone’s personal space. “Toby, that’s not true, man. Take it easy.”

Toby laughs evil style. “Jim, I would prefer if you stayed out of this.”

“What? You brought us all here, bro!” I yell.

“Because I wanted to get—” he forgets why he gathered us all here today. He takes a breath. One point for the boy; he’s trying to collect himself.

“Gina, you hurt me. Jim, you hurt me. And I just had to like, get over it all by myself and I poisoned myself and then nobody said anything to me for like, months. Then my dad died and I just—” Toby trails off into another bout of tears. This passing of a family member was unbeknownst to us. “I don’t have anyone.”

Gina furls her eyebrows. “Your dad actually died? You’re not just saying that?”

Toby is now trying to hide his face just under the table top. He pops up for a second. “Yeah, he’s fucking dead, Gina, okay? Jesus.”

“Sorry. Sorry. That’s really sad, Toby.”

Toby sits up again. “Really sad? Yeah. No fucking shit. No duh. He fucking overdosed in the living room.”

“That is sad,” I think to myself. Then I think, “If I offer him a hug, Gina won’t view me as unfeeling towards him, but when he refuses my hug, she’ll realize that one of us is truly a more broadly caring person, and the other is like, uh, just some horned up Male Loneliness TikTok Pseud. Because like, she knows that I’m annoyed by Toby right now, so like, offering him a hug in this time of need would be like, sacrificial on my end and whatnot.”

My muscles tense up. Why am I thinking like this? I don’t need to defend my honor here. Gina and I are dating. This poor chud got the short end of the stick, and I sincerely feel for him.

“Uh, would you like a hug?”

“Not from you, Jim.”

Gina stands up. “Alright, Toby. I see what you’re doing. I’m sorry you’re not doing well, and your dad passing and shit, but I think us all meeting was a mistake.”

I stay seated. Gina tugs on my shirt. “Jim, come on.”

“Let’s just stay a little longer?”

“Jim, he hates you.”

Toby tries sounding offended. “I don’t hate Jim!”

“Yes you do, Toby.” She sounds more peeved than I feel.

Well, I don’t hate Toby, but I could sure benefit from seeing him cry some more. Gina is half-faced away, one leg in the direction of the door.

“Gina, wait. Just sit, please,” Toby begs.

Gina sighs and pulls out the chair, setting her purse on the table and finishing off her lavender gin cocktail. I wanted to try it, but whatever.

“Toby, what do you want?” she asks calmly as she settles into her seat.

Toby’s jaw is ever so slightly askew and his eyelids open wider than they’ve been so far, staring at her. He taps his finger on the table rapidly. His salmon salad rattles. He speaks, or rather, he chokes. “I just want to be friends again.”

Gina and I make split second eye-contact to get a read. It is true that Toby doesn’t have friends. I have been known on rare occasion, to adopt a friend. In this case it is difficult, because he used to lovingly penetrate the woman who I now lovingly penetrate, and his penis is without a doubt larger than mine. 3

“Getting sober makes it really hard to have friends.” He says it softly. Soft Toby. He glances at Gina’s empty cocktail glass. Then at her.

“Yeah but, Toby, we drink,” Gina says gesturing as though she shouldn’t have to say this. I appreciate her generous assumption that Toby’s plea was also extended to me.

“A lot,” I say. Tonight, I haven’t got a drop in me. Without at least a beer, everything is unsettling past 8 PM.

“Yeah, but I already know you! Have you guys tried meeting new people recently? It’s fucking hard.”

“Community college or something? Hinge? There are ways, man. You can figure it out,” I spurt out. Gina is aghast.

“Fuck off, Jim. I want to be in your life.”

“That’s weird, man.”

“How is it weird?”

“Man, I’m dating your ex. Why the hell would I want to be friends with you? Why the hell would I want to see Gina hanging out with you? You take me for some cuck?”

Toby looks confused, but I cannot grasp what is confusing about this sentiment, and this makes me angry. So angry in fact, that I consider saying something cruel to the boy. He nonverbally asks Gina to help him out here. She feels obligated to say something.

“Well, I don’t think it’s that weird, like, in principal. But I don’t think being close friends is a good idea right now.”

Ignoring the obtuseness of her non-statement, I lean forward. “Right. Right. Like, gays, lesbians and the like, you know, we all like, date each other and shit and like, it’s all just kind of incestuous or whatever. But you…” I gesture to Toby’s arms. “You’re like, just not in on that world, and you don’t play by those kinds of rules. Simply put, man, I think you’re weak. I think you feel powerless, even though you objectively have a better socio-economic standing than most people, presumably neurotypical? You got a good face and you’re like, what, fucking six two? So but like, you’re just a man, you know? So you’re fucking fine, dude. Like really. Making friends? Don’t lie, man.”

“Six three.”

“Okay.” I stand up. People are watching.

“Making friends isn’t fucking hard for you. All you gotta do is tell people your dad just died and boom! Tell them you poisoned yourself on purpose. Boom! You’re in! People inherently trust you because you’re six two and white with soft, sad eyes and a fucking mustache. And it’s really easy, man— It’s really fucking easy for people to feel bad for you, because you’re like, you know, God’s favorite, so you’re not supposed to struggle, and it makes people upset when you do.”

“Six THREE!”

“Have you even tried AA? Dating apps? Dude, a lot of people are like, just biologically and sociologically inclined to follow you around. Do you understand? Maybe you find it difficult to sustain relationships because you just randomly want to talk about your feelings all the time, no matter the setting or group of people present, perhaps? And and and and you GET to do that, because you’re a fucking white dude who is six two and can literally just do anything you fucking want. I know these things, man, okay? Aside from being like normal sized and kind of faggy, I basically get the same privilege. But I’m like, hella mentally ill and yet I treat my friends with like, respect and shit, okay? And hey maybe I’m just a more considerate person than you because I’m not as pretty! Whatever. You just really do genuinely seem to think that everything that happens around you is happening TO you, as in, like trying to harm you. But really, the world just does actually fucking revolve around you! It really does. And no; you can’t cry your way back into my girlfriend’s pants, you fucking dildo.”

Toby stands up angry. I throw my watery vanilla latte on him. It splashes off his shoulder and onto an old lady behind him. She screams. Gina stands up and punches me in the chest. Dripping Toby comes around the Table to get me. Gina moves out of the way. The green haired nonbinary who served us is already on hold with 911. Some guy yells “beat his ass!” and I hope he’s talking to me, because feeling supported is a crucial component in knowing when one is correct.4

Toby can’t quite get me because, well, it’s a circular table. He can’t reach over the middle to grab my shirt. I giggle a bit. He throws a fork at me. Misses. It hits a woman in the back of the head. She yelps. Someone in the cafe shouts, “Security!” People look around wondering for a moment if this dainty joint really does come fully staffed with its own private armed force. To the dismay of various duller patrons, the kitchen staff are not keenly invested in front of house affairs, and the manager is probably just doing what managers do in bathroom stalls when you hear keys jingling from in there.

“Are we fucking serious?” Gina throws a butter knife at Toby. It hits him in the shoulder, bounces off. He cries out, “Gina, what the fuck?”

I laugh a little bit. “Shut the fuck up, Jim,” she snaps. I can’t stop laughing. She throws a plate at me. It shatters on my head, knocking me over. I hit the ground weird and it all goes black.