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Fellowship of the Ring

What do you do when that someone new belongs to someone else?

by Natalie
posted on November 21, 2007

Credits: Zela Lobb

I’ve never been one to take something that didn’t belong to me—even when it’s “OK.” For example, when downloading Radiohead’s pay-what-you-wish latest album, In Rainbows, I opted to fork over a voluntary three pounds rather than snag it for free. (Whether my action was the result of my conscience, or paranoia that Thom Yorke himself would be compiling a naughty/ nice list of his fans, is up for debate.) The point is: It’s this very trait that surfaces the moment I find out someone I’m interested in is already involved. While some girls seem to greet this news as a challenge, I’ve always had an automatic “on to the next” reaction. It goes without saying, of course, that said reaction is contingent upon said person putting his “couple card” on the table.

Two weekends ago, Jules and I attended our friend Josie’s housewarming party in the Mission. She’d recently moved into one of those Singles-style apartment buildings you don’t think actually exist in real life, complete with an idyllic backyard perfect for the weekend barbecue action that tends to flourish in the Mish. While Jules seized the open-house opportunity to snoop around the insides of everyone’s apartments, I decided to find a home for the bottle of wine we’d brought. Depositing our Cab among a motley crew of housewarming spirits in Josie’s kitchen, I grabbed a plastic cup, drained the last of the lone open bottle of vodka into it and was settling for a splash of soda when my eye fell on a solitary ravaged lime. I debated giving it a squeeze, telling myself that the liquor would kill whatever germs the lime had acquired in its dying hours, when a voice behind me said, “Looking for these?” I turned around to find a guy holding a bowl of freshly sliced limes in one hand and a bag of ice in the other. I was so distracted by the iceand-lime score (a miraculous feat at a house party) that it took me a moment to register that my cocktail savior was also extremely handsome, in a Ryan Gosling kind of way.

“Your timing is impeccable,” I said, accepting the ice and lime. “You don’t even want to know what I was about to do.” I cast a suspicious eye on the withered lime, lying sad and lifeless on the table like a curbed Christmas tree on January 2. “Where did you get those?”

“I live next door,” he smiled. “My name’s Riley, by the way.” We spent the next hour chatting near the iPod—remarking on everything from the eclectic soundtrack (a distinctively houseparty blend of Timbaland and forgotten bands from the ’90s) to work (he’s a teacher) to travel (my yearning to visit Buenos Aires, his hope to someday live in Provence). I was smitten. When Jules finally found me, a couple of hours had passed. “Where did you get that masterpiece?” she asked, eyeing my dressed-up drink.   I introduced her to Riley, and after a few minutes of small talk he abruptly excused himself. “I’m afraid I have to go,” he said. “Natalie, it was so great to meet you. I hope to see you again soon,” and with that, he was off.

“Sorry! It looks like I scared away your boyfriend,” Jules said. I was about to respond when Josie popped her head in to say hello. “You have a boyfriend, Nat?” she squealed. “Who is he?”

“Oh, I just meant that cute guy she was talking to all night,” Jules interjected. “But I think I scared him away.”

“Not Riley?” Josie asked, confused. “You know he’s married, right?”

A few nights later, the girls and I were sharing a pizza at Little Star as Jules caught Sia up on our night. “I knew it!” Sia said, as if she’d predicted the ending of an M. Night Shyamalan film halfway through. “I knew there had to be a girlfriend or something when he left without getting your number.” Then she asked, in a preschool-teacher tone, “Did you check for a ring?” I assured her   I had, half-expecting to receive a smiley-face sticker on my wineglass.

“I mean, what kind of a slimeball doesn’t wear a ring, talks to someone the entire evening and doesn’t even mention his wife?” Jules asked, disbelievingly.

Taken?” I asked. “That’s like putting a sandwich in front of someone who’s hungry and installing an invisible fence around it. And I know he likes me because he got my email from Josie and emailed me this morning to ask if I wanted to grab coffee. I guess we could be friends, right?”

Jules and Sia exchanged a skeptical look. “Okay, let me break it down for you,” Sia said. “If a guy doesn’t somehow drop into the conversation the fact that he’s married within the first half hour, then 60 percent of the time, he’s a sleaze; 20 percent of the time the marriage is shaky; and 19 percent of the time he’s networking—1 percent of the time, it’s an innocent oversight and he actually wants to be friends.”

“Maybe he’s the 1 percent?” I said. I realized that I tend to think of myself as the 1 percent—mostly when it comes to bad things, like the odds of suffering horrific side effects from cough syrup, but also when it comes to people. I don’t usually feel like part of the majority, so it makes sense that people I hit it off with would also be part of the 1 percent club. Was it so revolutionary to believe that Riley and I were evolved enough to build a new friendship despite the fact that one of us was taken? Sia interrupted my interior monologue. “No, Nat. I just put the 1 percent in there to point out that that’s never the case.”

“Okay, pop quiz,” Jules jumped in. “If Riley were wearing a ring in a really crowded yoga class, would you still scoot your mat over for him because you wanted to make a new friend?” “Yes,” I lied.

“And have you at any point since finding out that he’s married envisioned the imminent collapse of his marriage? Because friends don’t do that.”

“That’s awful!” I said, hoping she didn’t realize I’d evaded the question.

Despite the girls’ assurances that this “friendship” was about as likely to succeed as Britney’s new album—doomed by either my unconscious intentions or Riley’s yet-to-be-determined motivations—I accepted his invitation for an afternoon coffee at Café de la Presse. After we’d mutually decided to forgo coffee for a glass of wine, Riley broke the ice. “It’s funny, I was kind of nervous to meet up with you,” he said. “Really?” I asked, hoping he was about to reveal he was recently separated. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if I   mentioned this, but my wife, Jamie, is a photographer and she’s been traveling a lot. I’m realizing I’m totally dependent on her socially. I’ve been trying to sort of build my own scene—but making new friends is trickier than I remember!” He smiled. “That’s very true,” I said, noting that all of my married guy friends were either ones I had met when they were single, ones whose wives I was already friends with or ones who didn’t look a thing like Ryan Gosling.

“It sounds pathetic, but I was really excited when I met you. I even called Jamie in New York and woke her up to tell her about you! How pathetic is that?” Not as pathetic as my wondering whether the girls next to us are thinking we’re a really cute couple, I thought. I really did enjoy talking to him, and I could always use another friend—but I couldn’t yet see him that way and wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to. Would I have to break up with Riley before our friendship even started because I couldn’t keep my pheromones reined in? He got up to use the restroom, and our waitress swung by the table to check in.

“Are we done here?” she asked. “Um, I’m not really sure,” I said.

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