Social as well as philosophical of course: the problem. All very well if Emily knows or suspects, or if Janine, or Max, Leah, even Gary, maybe. But what about people in general, the public, the whole of Dublin talking. And with that idea in mind he almost wants to forget the idea, throw both of them over and find some nice normal girl instead, someone without any radical intellectual commitments or bizarre sexual proclivities, yes, someone normal. Get married, give Christine a few grandkids. Overhear the other legal wives saying pleasantly: She’s so nice. To spend his life making conversation with such a person, working to finance the lifestyle of such a person, would, of course, represent a kind of spiritual death for him. But perhaps that would be preferable to the kind of social death that awaits him now. What will he tell people, what will he say. What does he think he’s doing. Not to hold anything above anything else, to keep everything equal: a delusion, not even a fantasy, a burdensome quasi-administrative task at which he can only repeatedly fail. Encountering in everyday situations new irreducibly complex dilemmas, thickets of intersecting desires and preferences. Having to meet the needs of the moment, every moment, forever. But why. Why should it be so difficult. He likes her, likes the other, and they both like him. To hold a little space for that. Surely everyone knows and accepts privately that relationships are complicated. Forget anyway about what people think. If it were anyone else after all. He would be the first to say what harm, no one else’s business, good for them. Why should you care, what are you so insecure about. No one is taking your beloved monogamy away, don’t worry. [...]