Poly

“So, uhhh, I like, ran into Casey the other day.”

“Cool bro,” Alfie said, eyes glued to the screen as his fingers moved expertly across the controller.

“Have you met his friend Brandon?”

“Nope.”

Derek sunk into the couch, playing with one of the fiber threads, twisting it around the end of his index finger until the skin turned purple. Then letting it release and watching the color flood back into his fingertip.

“They’re cool. They’re cool. They’re…”

“They’re what?”

“Ah, it’s stupid, never mind.”

“You can tell me.”

“I don’t—They’re…”

“I swear to God, Derek if you say ‘cool.’ One more time.”

“They’re… different. I don’t. Ah, forget it.”

“You know you can talk to me.”

“Do you ever think about…”

There was a long pause as Alfie waited for him to finish. The only sound was the gunfire on the game in front of him.

“Was there a point you were going to make there, champ?”

“Oh! Uhhh yes.”

“Your charming eloquence is one of the reasons I keep you around. YES!”

Alfie threw down his controller in victory.

“You know I have trouble with…”

“And after all these years, you know I’m used to it.”

Alfie clicked through the menu to start a new game. Derek took a deep breath.

“How would you feel about maybe having other… friends?”

Alfie paused the game and turned to Derek, giving him his full attention for the first time.

“You don’t want to be friends anymore?”

“No! It’s not that. I just wondered. Perhaps. If we could have… additional. Friends.”

“You want to open up our friendship?”

“Forget it.” Derek tried to turn back to the screen in front of them, even though he was only watching Alfie play and didn’t have a controller of his own.

“No.” Alfie rarely looked this serious. His boyish eyes were rapt with concern, and he flipped his bangs back so he could get a better look at Derek. “If something isn’t working in our friendship, I want to talk about it.”

“What’s not working?”

Derek went back to working the couch thread with his finger.

“I really like hanging out with you. We have fun. But, you know, you want to stay in and play video games all the time, and I think it would be cool to have other friends to do other things with. Talk about other stuff with.”

“You’re bad at talking.”

Derek looked away.

“I mean—look, clearly something is on your mind. But do you really think being… polyamicable… is the solution here?” Alfie said the word as if it tasted like stale, three-day-old pizza. “Those people are so annoying.”

“They can be. But everyone is annoying in their own way. They could be on to something.”

Alfie leaned back on the couch, considering this. He couldn’t imagine life without Derek. They spent most of their free time together. They lived together. They knew everything about each other. To share that with another friend…

“There’s a reason friendships are monogamous,” Alfie said. “Society would fall apart if people had multiple friends. How would you know who to hang out with? What would you do about jealousy? Who has the time to properly nurture multiple friendships??”

“I mean, there’s a thriving community of polyamicable people who do it.”

“How???”

“Communication. Generosity. Maybe sometimes variety is a good thing.”

“You’ve really thought this through.”

Derek looked away, unable to meet Alfie’s eyes.

“How would this even work?” Alfie’s voice was starting to get louder, higher, a little rushed. His words tumbled over his emotions. “If you’re friends with multiple people, who do you live with? How do you know who to hang out with?”

“Well, some friend groups—”

Alfie winced at the term. Derek continued.

“Some friend groups all hang out together. Some people have what they call a ‘best friend.’”

“Oh, so now we’re ranking them?”

“Can we just go back to the videogame?”

“You’re the one that brought it up.”

Derek sighed.

“You know how you can date multiple girls all at once and no one ever gets mad? No one expects you to pick one of them.”

“Well yeah, but that’s different. Sex and romance are involved. That’s not the same as friendship at all.”

“But that way you can get different needs met by different people.”

“Sure. Everyone has different sexual needs and sexual compatibility. That’s just logic.”

“What if people have different friendship needs?”

“What friendship needs of yours aren’t being met, Derek?”

Derek wanted to crawl into the couch.

“I don’t know, like. It would be nice to talk to someone about culture.”

“Culture?”

“Yeah. I want to be able to talk to someone who won’t have that judgey tone.”

“What judgey tone?”

“The one you have right now.”

Alfie mashed his hands against his face. He rubbed his eyes until they burned. Then he looked back at Derek. He took a deep breath, trying to speak calmly and keep an open mind.

“So, culture. What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know, like…” Derek sighed, fixating his gaze on the ceiling. He tried to figure a way out of this conversation without completely blowing up his life. “Like someone who wants to go to museums and stuff.”

“I can go to a museum.”

“We have never done that before.”

“Because you never told me you wanted to.”

“Because it wouldn’t be fun with you.”

Alfie did not respond. The two of them sat in silence for almost a full minute.

“I need a beer.”

Alfie went to the fridge and brought back two. He handed one to Derek and sat back down.

“You think I wouldn’t be fun at a museum?”

“It’s just always the same stuff with you. We hang out. Eat pizza. I watch you play video games. Sometimes we scroll through our phones or go to the bar and pick up girls.”

“More like you watch me pick up girls for the both of us because you can’t do it yourself.”

Derek nodded. Alfie took this in, starting to see his point.

“Am I a bad friend?”

“No, Alfie. I want to stay friends. You mean so much to me. I just think that having other friends would make it possible for me to not feel so dissatisfied by our friendship.”

“You’re dissatisfied…”

“Don’t take it personally. I don’t want you to change. I have fun with you the way you are. I just think with some variety we’d have a chance at lasting a long time. Which I want to do. Until we are old and driving those motorized scooters around the nursing home together.”

“And I could have other friends too?”

“If you wanted.”

“What if we try it and I don’t like it?”

“Then we can go back to what we had before. I just think… You know, life is short. Might be more fun with more people.”

Alfie picked up the controller and turned back to the TV. He started up the game again.

“Maybe I can find someone who will actually play with me.”

Derek smiled. “Yeah exactly. You deserve to get your ass kicked by someone who actually knows what they’re doing.”

“This could be fun.”

“Glad you think so.”

“I love you, bro.”

“I love you too.”

Derek sipped his beer in silence as he watched Alfie rack up kills.

“So how do adults in this city even meet new friends?”