project/beach-house

Act II: Enter Ray. In his own words, Ray is a meat-and-potatoes man. He’s the happy product of successful male socialization: independent, self-reliant, and able to handle his own problems. He was not like the guys Joni usually dated—struggling, self-absorbed, emotionally undependable, alcoholic artists who weaseled out of relationships by saying things like, “Let’s not try to define this; can’t we just see where it goes?” and “It’s because I like you that I can’t be with you.” Ray, on the other hand, made it clear that he was interested. He called when he said he would, was never late, and put a lot of thought into planning their dates. “He actually paid attention to what I said. He asked me questions about myself and remembered the answers. I was used to a scene where you can have sex with someone for six months and never even broach the subject of what that might mean or where it might be going. Ray didn’t play that game. He liked me and wasn’t afraid to say so.”

Ray’s openness, his consistency, and his emotional generosity brought Joni a sense of peace and security she had never known in a romantic relationship. She found his ability to intuit her needs positively enchanting, and the fact that he seemed to have so few needs of his own was also a plus.

I soon re­al­ized that in­evitabil­ity of ev­ery re­la­tion­ship: the things which ini­tially draw you to each other be­come the ex­act things that ir­ri­tate you the most. I’d loved Andy’s non­con­for­mity, which be­came ir­ri­ta­tion at the lack of struc­ture in his life. He’d loved my in­de­pen­dence, which be­came an an­noy­ance at my re­mote­ness. In the early days, he ex­plained away my late­ness with my free-spirit­ed­ness. Af­ter a while he thought it was self­ish­ness. I used to love that he wanted to make ev­ery­one laugh be­cause I thought it was a sign of his gen­eros­ity. At some point I saw it for what it re­ally was – need­i­ness. I re­al­ized he saw ev­ery so­cial in­ter­ac­tion as a minia­ture gig and there­fore an op­por­tu­nity for ac­cep­tance or re­jec­tion. His mood was so de­pen­dent on how he felt these con­ver­sa­tional per­for­mances went and I hated be­ing wise to it.