After a year together, he told me he didn’t want to hire anyone new anymore. A lot of clients, lying, said the same. Men seemed addicted to pledging monogamy and then violating their unsolicited promise. I think the lie made them feel important, or they thought it was necessary to access something otherwise denied—condom-less sex, lower rates. But I believed Roger. From the start of our relationship, I didn’t doubt that he told me the truth. He was reflective enough to understand his motivations, and he shared them with me because his own gratification impelled him to. (For the international date, he encouraged my intervals of solitude and freedom “so that the time we are together is the best possible.”) Since he found fulfillment in psychic and emotional unburdening, deceiving me was not in his self-interest. It would have been closing a door he needed open.