Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List

The freeze is so cold between Naomi and Ely, both Iceman and Emma Frost are shivering from their silence.

I will never understand why gender is so important to mating rituals—it doesn’t make sense; love is love, attraction is what it is, and why should the arbitrary assignment of genital parts determine whether or not you want to be with a person?—
but the fact is, it matters.
I hate that, too.
But it’s true.

It became, for me, a pattern as common as plaid: I’d throw myself on someone, then throw him out. Shaun was different from most of the rest, because he’d actually thrown my actions back at me, yelling and crying as I dumped him, telling me that I was going to end up graduating NYU with a major in Fuck & Run. Because that’s what I was: an F&R boy.

Things that matter are not easy. Feelings of happiness are easy. Happiness is not. Flirting is easy. Love is not. Saying you’re friends is easy. Being friends is not.

Robin and Robin are in the middle of a fight over what Bill Murray whispers to Scarlett Johansson at the end of Lost in Translation—it’s one of those total couple-fights where you can tell they’re getting off on it even as they’re slamming each other. It’s fun to be in, I guess, but hell to be around.

We always see our worst selves. Our most vulnerable selves.
We need someone else to get close enough to tell us we’re wrong. Someone we trust.

It’s a total lie to say there’s only one person you’re going to be with for the rest of your life.
If you’re lucky—and if you try really hard—there will always be more than one.

I’ve never been one to take it slow—I mean, why wait?—but I think because Naomi and I are crashing so fast, Bruce and I are taking it slow. Like, nursing-home slow. Doing the things that end with -alking instead of the ones that end with -ucking.