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“Here’s the thing,” said Decker. “I feel like, okay, there’s a movement right now where—and it’s kind of lowkey—but men are waking up to the advantages that women have over men.”
“Wait, what?” said Essence, rounding on him, shaking her head. “What advantages?”
“I mean, like the social and emotional advantages,” said Decker. “Traditionally, men were socialized in this way where it cut off half of our humanity. And it wasn’t that we were incapable of feeling a whole array of emotions, but we were taught it wasn’t manly to feel them, so we stifled them, and then we just had these sad half-lives of desperation, you know? Like, I remember, I was at my grandma’s funeral with my dad, and tears were streaming down my face, and my dad told me he couldn’t even do that anymore.”
“Do what?” said Niles.
“Cry,” said Decker. “He’d stopped it so often that he’d lost the capacity for tears. Isn’t that sad?”
“It is,” said Essence, nodding.
“So, I’m just saying, I feel like men are starting to realize this. They’re like, ‘Hey, I want to be able to express vulnerability and sadness and shit.’”
“No, you’re right,” said Essence. “No, that’s true. I mean, even when I was dating guys ten years ago, I can tell you that they were way less in touch with their emotions. That is true, and it is a good thing.”
Niles shrugged.
“What?” said Decker. “You going to tell me you’re too manly to have emotions?”
“Kind of?” said Niles. “I just, uh, yeah, I’ve never been like that. It’s not like I can’t cry or whatever. I just don’t.”
Essence rolled her eyes.
“What?” said Niles. “What’s that reaction?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“Not nothing,” he said.
“It’s just that you’re kind of a male cliché, that’s all,” she said with a shrug.
Niles looked down at himself and then back up at her. “What part of me is cliché? I think I’m very distinctive, actually.”
“Just your entire attitude in general,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Just this whole, ‘Oh, no, the world wants to tie me down and break my spirit, and I am a wild adventurer. Do not tame me.’” She was mimicking his deeper voice.
“That’s how I sound?” Niles was grinning at her. “Yeah?”
Decker slapped his left hand onto the bar. “Can I have a beer?”
“So, you’re sleeping on my couch?” she said. “Not driving?”
“Guess so,” said Decker. “I mean, you could go home with Niles, right? That’s obviously happened before.” He was sarcastic about this.
“Whoa,” said Niles. “Whoa, I am very much off the market at the moment, and why did you tell him about that? It was like ten thousand years ago. It was nothing.”
“I didn’t tell him anything,” she muttered. “Thanks for confirming it.” She glanced at Decker. How could he tell? “Niles’s normal voice sounds like a flirting voice, doesn’t it? I was thinking that, too, and maybe he should stop doing that to people, especially if he’s so off-the-market—”
“So, wait, he guessed?” Niles interrupted. “And does my voice sound like that? Really? Did you think I was flirting with you?”
She rolled her eyes.
“Wait a second,” said Niles, crowding closer to her.
“Beer,” said Decker to Jeff. “Yuengling.”
“Two,” said Essence.
Jeff started pouring beers.
