GEORGE: I think we’ve had a relatively stable time. Hilly flew down to North Carolina, and I drove—got to know Hilly’s parents and brother.

HILLY: It was so much fun, for my dad especially, because Georgie showed up and I think they have similar interests. George had this documentary about Toscanini, and my dad was thrilled and we watched it with him, and it featured all these friends of my dad’s that he hadn’t seen in years, and it was so cute watching him. And then, I just knew he would love it, so I said, “Well, Dad, you think you could show George, you know, how you play your bassoon?” He said, “Sure!”

GEORGE: Her mom was wonderful, the best cook, and her brother’s hilarious. I’d gone into this thinking—because I’d heard stories from Hilly saying how “weird” they are—but it turns out that she’s the weird one. They’re totally normal.

HILLY: I’ve never really thought that my dad was weird, but my mom and brother have always thought that he was the weird one.

GEORGE: Hilly’s the nut, but it’s O.K.

HILLY: And then one night we played Trivial Pursuit, and I was so excited because George knew all the answers.

GEORGE: I did all right. Your mom won.

HILLY: I think we let her.

GEORGE: It was just fascinating to me to see a nuclear family that’s together, parents still married.

HILLY: It’s nice, though, isn’t it?

GEORGE: Yeah. Yeah.

DR. SELMAN: A happily married couple.

GEORGE: No kidding! You know the demon inside me, the Ugly Spirit—that’s a William Burroughs term—that part of me has always had thoughts like, I think a perfect arrangement would be like Taki’s. Remember that guy?

[HILLY nods.]

GEORGE: Well, he has his wife—I don’t know if this is still the case—but he was allowed to kind of see young girls. They’d come and go, and he’d always go back to his wife. They had this understanding. What’s your reaction?

HILLY: Sorry, I wasn’t listening.

GEORGE: And the Ugly Spirit says, I wonder if, a hundred years from now, a study will prove that the healthiest arrangement—not just for the man, but for the woman, too—is for the man to be allowed, once a quarter, to have a fling for a day or two. And then the woman would be like, “O.K., it’s June, go for it—but then that’s it for the rest the summer.” Maybe that would keep the relationship together and increase the longevity of the man.

DR. SELMAN: Actually, it’s the other way around, according to a theory, “sperm competition”—that in order for the gene pool to have turned out the way it did, that it was women, over the course of millennia, who were not monogamous.

GEORGE: So how about the man and a woman both be real upfront about it? Don’t women live longer? Maybe that’s what’s going on: They’re cheating and they’re living longer. And that word “cheating”— maybe that’s a misnomer.

HILLY: Wait, all of a sudden you’re Tim Robbins.

GEORGE: What does that mean?

HILLY: That whole theory—aside from your carnal desires—doesn’t make sense with any other values that you have in your life.

GEORGE: Me, personally?

HILLY: Yes.

GEORGE: I don’t get it.

HILLY: I mean, you’re so con-ser-va-tive and you’re anti-ab-or-tion—and so quick to judge other people, to condemn the movie Children of Men—

DR. SELMAN: She does have a certain point.

GEORGE: I tend to agree with you. I’m sort of happy with—we’re having—we’re going to bed together like once or twice a week. You said before that it should be at least once a day, and I really think that if you’re going out with someone for five years—and I’ve done some research into this, talked to some couples—and I never believe those surveys that say the average American man has sex 138 times a year. Maybe if he’s some 22-year-old, or if he’s on Cialis. I just don’t believe that people have that much sex. And I’m fine with it.

DR. SELMAN: So what’s your concern?

GEORGE: Well, the Ugly Spirit makes me have those fantasies!

HILLY: I can tell you right now, if I were married, I would have a lot more sex.

DR. SELMAN: With whom?

HILLY: With George. I’d want to.

GEORGE: Oh, interesting.

DR. SELMAN: And why is that?

HILLY: Or at least, I guess, engaged. Recently, I feel like I’ve been holding back personally—especially since, right before Christmas, I’ve just been in a really negative state of mind, feeling down about myself. And the fact is, I’m at this stage in my life and at an age—despite every other thing that happens every day—when that’s always going to be weighing on my mind. Just yesterday, we were talking about evil spinster bitches—

DR. SELMAN: You’re saying—

HILLY: If I were engaged, I would have a helluva lot more self-confidence.

GEORGE: Can you talk about the evil spinster bitches?

HILLY: I think they couldn’t really get by existing anywhere but New York. It starts around my age—actually, it starts in their late 20’s—and they convince themselves that they are really happy and their job comes first and they have lots of friends and their friends are really special and the problem with guys is that “they just don’t understand that my job is my priority, so I just had to kick that one to the curb! But my friends are just really great.”

GEORGE: And what do they start to look like when they’re around 45?

DR. SELMAN: We’re kind of off on a tangent ….

GEORGE: She’s worried she could end up like this.

HILLY: No, there was a time, yes, when I was concerned, but I don’t think I could ever become that—

GEORGE: Your mom said you’re going to become this crazy cat lady if—

HILLY: —if you were to run off and I would never hear from you again.

GEORGE: Uh-huh.

HILLY: It would be extremely difficult, and I can’t even begin to fathom it, but I would have to move on.

DR. SELMAN: Hilly, are you saying that you’ve been down?

HILLY: Yes, and it doesn’t really have anything to do with Georgie at all—he’s been an angel.

DR. SELMAN: Do you have any symptoms?

HILLY: Yes, my skin has broken out and I’m really fat and irritable.

GEORGE: What are you talking about? Please.

DR. SELMAN: How are you sleeping?

HILLY: I can’t wake up in the morning. I was invited to a Golden Globes party with every single celebrity you could ever imagine and I couldn’t even put my dress on; I was in bed by 9:45. I couldn’t even stay awake for the season premiere of 24.

GEORGE: You were supposed to wait, to watch that with me on DVD next year.

HILLY: That’s another story.

DR. SELMAN: Where are you getting the Prozac?

HILLY: My doctor.

DR. SELMAN: Maybe you need an adjustment or an addition—

HILLY: I just upped my dosage to 40 milligrams.

DR. SELMAN: Would you consider the introduction of a second antidepressant?

HILLY: No.

GEORGE: Yikes!

HILLY: I’ve been down that road, and the bottom line is: I’ve been taking antidepressants for way too long. And I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve come to rely on Prozac. But I’ve been doing really well on 20 milligrams—down from 80 milligrams a year ago. It’s just different circumstances, a little bit of everything—hormones, the weather—bringing me down.

GEORGE: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t noticed this at all.

HILLY: Oh, George, my God—I walk around like an animal, complaining that I’m fat in my big flannel pants—

GEORGE: You always seem cheerful to me. I’m at my computer and she’s in her room, she’s got this little miniature TV her dad gave her for Christmas, and I hear her cackling watching Will and Grace. Me, I have a flat-out sleeping disorder. I can’t go to bed before 7 a.m. Monday night I was working, and I got this call at 1 a.m.—“Hey, it’s my birthday, come on down to Siberia, yeah whoo!” So I go and get home at 7:15. So I guess that kind of sets my sleeping pattern.

DR. SELMAN: 7:15 in the morning?

GEORGE: Yes. I go to bed at 7 and get up around 1:30 p.m.

DR. SELMAN: Did you ever try the Lamictal?

GEORGE: No, I’m sticking with the Yankee Doodle marijuana. But I’m running out and I might get some Jack Frost. But I yelled at Hilly last night, out of frustration. I wanted her to watch Thunderbolt and Lightfoot with me and she wanted to putter around. And then you were looking for a cord for your TV and I was trying to work, and I just kind of yelled: “You gotta be quiet or I have to get my own apartment!” Sorry about that. My temper in my 20’s was sort of bad. I used to do this thing where if I was walking down the street and a car got too close to me, I would swat at it. One time I was crossing the street and this car got a little too close, so I kicked it, and the guy jumped out, came running after me, leapt up into the air—it was like this slow-motion martial-arts kick—and right before he was about to kick me in the chest, he pulled back. Then he went back to his car and he turned around and said, “Faggot!” And I happened to have a Chapstick in my pocket and I threw it at his head, and he ducked and gave me this funny look. Not like he was impressed, not like, “Well, touché …. ” He was just puzzled: “Chapstick?”

HILLY: I kicked a taxi once after some witch stole it from me. People are just animals. People can just be so downright despicable and just full of sleaze, and that’s what’s depressing.

DR. SELMAN: Well, George, you tell me you’re having insomnia. Maybe there’s something we could do for that. [to HILLY] You’re depressed.

HILLY: I appreciate your opinion, but I feel like I’ve been through similar stages, and I feel like things are about to turn around.

DR. SELMAN: Maybe we could sort of revisit the medication issue. Maybe there are better things out there.

HILLY: I don’t want to try anything else. I really don’t want to.

GEORGE: You don’t want to be a laboratory—

HILLY: And I won’t. It’s like when I was a little girl, when I said, “I’m not going to eat it,” and I would sit there with my mouth sealed shut—and my mom would try to shove the steak into my mouth. I won’t try anything else. I just won’t do it.

GEORGE: I feel the same. That’s why I don’t want to try Lamictal. If I had two months and something to make me feel really good—like a huge financial windfall or opium—then I might experiment with an antidepressant.

DR. SELMAN: Sometimes Prozac kind of loses its effect. It’s called the Prozac poop-out.

HILLY: You and your poop!

GEORGE: We’ve been really upset lately because there are these people in Brooklyn who make little mini-flags of the President and stick them into dog poop on the street, then take pictures of the flags in the poop and put them on the Internet.

HILLY: That’s another fine example of the sleaze that is all over this world. I mean, what a waste of time and thought and … and you made me watch that horrible movie.

GEORGE: Jackass Number Two. Sorry. O.K., we’re going to San Francisco tomorrow. Clang-clang-clang goes the trolley! Right? Guess that was St. Louis.

DR. SELMAN: How long are you going for?

GEORGE: Six days. She’s going for work, and I’m just going to—

HILLY: And my birthday!

GEORGE: And our fifth anniversary. And we’re going to hang out with my friend Bruce, who’s recently divorced, has kids, and has this amazing bachelor pad overlooking something or other—

DR. SELMAN: Where are you staying?

GEORGE: The Palace Hotel and then some fancier hotel. But Bruce has this plan for Saturday: He’s going to rally his friend Tim for a sail around the bay, go by Alcatraz, then go see the freaks on Haight Street. And then walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, see if this girl, Big-Breasted Amy, wants to go out. Cocktails at Specs, a trip down the crooked street at high speed, then he is going to take me to Telegraph Avenue, give me a couple hits of acid, and then we’re going to go to Muir Beach, walk through the Muir woods, hit the Mitchell Brothers porn palace and the Lusty Lady, which is a strip bar with these hipster tattooed—

DR. SELMAN: You’re going to do this all in one day?

GEORGE: I think it might be the weekend.

DR. SELMAN: Are you going to participate?

HILLY: Absolutely not. And I swear to God, if he even comes near George with acid, he’s got another thing coming, because I will not allow that on my birthday weekend. I will not spend my birthday with you sitting in bed and whining and complaining and begging for scratchy and shoulder rubs.

GEORGE: Why would I—

HILLY: You’re going to get up and you’re going to come with me to Neiman-Marcus and we’re going to take trolleys and we’re going to go to Chinatown, and were going to have a fun jolly nice time.

GEORGE: She seems fine, right? You don’t seem like you’re depressed.

DR. SELMAN: She says she’s depressed.

GEORGE: I like the dark side.

DR. SELMAN: You could try Lamictal—

HILLY: No! Stop! You’re like a pusher. I’ve met guys like you, but they don’t have doctors’ licenses.

GEORGE: He’s just trying to get you on something that might work better.

HILLY: I know, but I just—

DR. SELMAN: You might be able to go off Prozac.

HILLY: Listen, I don’t want to take another dose of something else—unless you buy me that really chic weekly pill-decanter thing from Asprey, but it’s like $900. It’s so beautiful.

GEORGE: Do you realize that in two months I’m going to have no money? And you still haven’t paid this month’s rent, your share, and that’s not going to happen, is it?

HILLY [wearily]: I’ll pay it. I don’t care.

[Silence.]

GEORGE: Well, tell about some good times recently.

HILLY: Oh, there’s this really cute thing that George does, we saw it on Conan O’Brien, with this girl from a movie called Hustle and Flow—she does a kind of home-girl cheer, and George has been imitating it.

GEORGE: Conan asked her, “Why are all these female rap songs about how, Oh I got what you want, take a look, here it is, but you’re never gonna get it?” So I do some version of that, and it makes her happy.

DR. SELMAN: Do you want to perform it right now?

[GEORGE performs the routine.]

GEORGE: This is what you want—but you’re never gonna get it ….

DR. SELMAN: You could say that to Hilly about not getting married, and you could actually mean it.

[To be continued.]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles:

George and Hilly published 01/15/07
George and Hilly published 12/11/06
George and Hilly published 09/18/06
George and Hilly published 08/14/06
George and Hilly published 09/11/06
George and Hilly published 08/14/06
George and Hilly published 08/07/06
George and Hilly published 07/31/06
George and Hilly published 07/24/06
George and Hilly published 07/17/06
George and Hilly published 06/26/06
George and Hilly published 06/19/06
George and Hilly published 05/29/06
George and Hilly published 05/15/06
George and Hilly published 05/08/06
George and Hilly published 05/01/06
George and Hilly published 04/17/06
George and Hilly published 04/03/06
George and Hilly published 03/20/06
George and Hilly published 02/6/06
George and Hilly published 01/23/06
George and Hilly published 01/16/06
George and Hilly published 12/26/05
George and Hilly published 11/14/05
George and Hilly published 11/07/05
George and Hilly published 10/24/05
George and Hilly published 10/17/05
George and Hilly published 10/10/05
George and Hilly published 10/03/05
George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05
But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05
But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05
Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05

HILLY: It might seem trivial to you, but we live in the kind of world where that kind of thing matters. And I don’t want to be with someone who is so cavalier that he feels his girlfriend’s feelings don’t matter, that he can just walk out with any tramp into any taxi at any time of night—

GEORGE: Can I just—

HILLY: That’s just insensitive and selfish!

GEORGE: Calm down! Listen, here’s what happened—

DR. SELMAN: Where do you think this is going to go?

GEORGE: No—we need to back up. We met my friend for dinner at the steakhouse—

HILLY: There’s no explanation; it doesn’t matter—

DR. SELMAN: Well, you know something, Hilly? I guess the question has been asked previously: How much are you going to put up with? You must have limits.

HILLY: Actually, I do have limits, and I’ve been thinking about them a lot more seriously recently— especially after this.

GEORGE: I thought you wanted to stay at the club and I needed to get out, and I just went home and as soon as I got home, I called you.

HILLY: Despite all of this, I do think that you made some progress, because it was the first time that you were able to leave that place before 3 a.m.

DR. SELMAN: How do you guys view the nature of your relationship?

GEORGE: The night at Bungalow 8—I mean, the place was like 75 percent sexy girls, and I happened to know a half-dozen of them. I was afraid to get too close to them, have a conversation— let me finish!—because I thought Hilly would come over and hit them over the head with a bottle of Grey Goose!

HILLY: Oh, that’s ridiculous.

GEORGE: You’ve done that before!

HILLY: I have not. I’ve slapped a few people, and that’s not that big of a deal.

DR. SELMAN: How would you feel if she left the place with some other guy?

GEORGE: What, like a gay guy?

DR. SELMAN: No, a heterosexual guy.

GEORGE: Umm, and went straight home like I went straight home?

DR. SELMAN: If you didn’t even know where she went.

GEORGE: Well, I don’t know. That’s a good question. All I know is that I had a window of opportunity to get out of there. I would have stayed, if someone would’ve come over to me and cheered me up, and I would have been back in it.

DR. SELMAN: Why wouldn’t you have said, “You know, Hilly, I’m not in the mood—let’s leave”?

GEORGE: I did say that!

HILLY: No, no!

GEORGE: I said that and I walked to the door, and you were still there talking to some friends. I waited a few minutes and then I said to myself, “I gotta go now or I’ll be here until it closes.”

DR. SELMAN: It doesn’t seem to me that she wouldn’t have been amenable to leaving.

HILLY: But then also, in 24 hours, I find out that, “Oh, by the way, that girl I shared the taxi home with …. ” I was like, “ What!?” The one thing that got him to leave Bungalow 8—and get home before freaking 8 o’clock in the goddamn morning and leave me behind to get raped and killed like that poor 16-year-old girl—was some ho. Just imagine how that makes me feel.

DR. SELMAN: How does that make you feel?

GEORGE: She was a nice—

HILLY: I don’t care what she was! I don’t care if she’s the Virgin Mary. I hate her.

DR. SELMAN: Why do you think this is funny, George?

HILLY: It’s horrible. I mean, it really makes me feel like—I’m not joking, George. It really makes me feel like, you know, maybe it’s time to, you know …. I don’t want it to be one of those textbook stories about, “Oh, she gave him the ultimatum and then walked away.” But you need to make some decisions and figure out—I know I talk about being jealous of other girls, I admit that readily, and it’s something I want to work on. But in terms of the respect, or lack thereof, that you give me, I think that maybe that’s something that you need to think a little bit more about and … I don’t know ….

GEORGE: Well, can I ask you one thing? Did you have a good time at the Hugo Boss party the other night?

HILLY: It was fun.

DR. SELMAN: What does that question mean, exactly?

GEORGE: It means that we’ve had some ups and downs, but overall we’ve had a pretty good summer.

HILLY: George, relationships aren’t about quid pro quo. Because I feel jilted because you left me alone stranded in a bar the other night, you can’t remind me of the fabulous evening the week prior.

GEORGE: I’m really sorry. I’ve already explained myself like 10 times to you.

DR. SELMAN: I would think it would be a common courtesy to anybody, that if you’re leaving before them—

GEORGE: I know. I was waiting for you for like five or 10 minutes, you were talking to some people, I’m sorry.

HILLY: It’s O.K.—you don’t have to apologize anymore. I’m not looking for that. I just want you to know the feelings that have been going on in my head. I wouldn’t be sitting here right now if I didn’t accept your apology.

DR. SELMAN: But why are you putting up with this, Hilly?

HILLY: Because I love George! And he puts up with a lot from me, too.

DR. SELMAN: What does he put up with from you?

HILLY: I don’t want to talk about it.

DR. SELMAN: If you don’t want to talk about it, Hilly, you don’t have to talk about it—but could you at least say why you don’t want to talk about it?

HILLY: No. I don’t feel like it right now.

GEORGE: The stuff that I put up with? Um—

DR. SELMAN: Well, she might not want you to reveal it. Do you know what she’s referring to?

HILLY: Can we talk about me next week?

GEORGE: It’s just that she drives me crazy once in a while.

DR. SELMAN: But you know relationships usually work if there’s some equality. We’re hearing about really bad behavior from you. And yet she hangs in and says: Well, you put up with stuff from her. We don’t hear any about of that.

GEORGE: I’ve tried time and again for us to find common interests.

DR. SELMAN: You have common interests.

GEORGE: Let me finish this, please. We’ve tried museums, going to church, Broadway plays, witchcraft. I’d just like to get into anything together. I guess we are both reading Taki’s prison memoir right now.

HILLY: Why is it that every day I come home, you’re sitting on the couch in that weird sort of like—he’s naked except for his boxers, kind of like a little pod child. He’s been sitting there for hours, he probably hasn’t been doing—I don’t know what he’s been doing—but it looks like he’s been sitting there kind of comfortable in that spot, yet comfortably miserable. And then I walk in and I’m exhausted after a day at work, and I just need time to sit and not talk to anyone, and then he gets up and goes into his room and shuts the door. Plays with his e-mail and whatever, and behind the door he’ll start screaming, “ Fuck! Mother fucker! What the fuck! Fuck!” And then silence. And I think, “O.K., based on previous experiences, I’m not going to interfere. I’m just going to wait here until I’ve been properly addressed.” So 10 minutes more goes by and I hear, “Goddamn motherfucking bastard! Why the fuck!”

GEORGE: It was the computer.

HILLY: So finally he’s like, “ Hilly! Get in here.” And I go in, he’s like, “Why is it doing this?” And he’s just typing all these gibberish e-mails to his friends. And he was referring to the margins. So I’m like, “O.K., George,” and I tried to grab the mouse, and he said, “ No, don’t!” And I swear he almost hit me. And I said, “George, just give me the mouse.” And I finally figured it out for him. And it’s like, to come home to something like that—do you really think I’d be bursting through the door: “Let’s go to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens!”

GEORGE: One thing she really likes about me is the pictures of me as a little kid. She’ll say, “You’re mean and grumpy and you get home at 6 a.m., but the real you is that little boy in his knickers with his poker-money pouch.”

DR. SELMAN: What you said before is that she liked the Hugo Boss party.

GEORGE: Oh yeah, we went to this great party, and I asked David Bowie for advice on whether we should get married, and he said, “I’m sorry, I have nothing!”

DR. SELMAN: You’re going on the assumption that she would marry you.

GEORGE: Yeah.

[ Silence.]

GEORGE: When I was in college, I remember reading something by D.H. Lawrence—the idea was that all this stuff we’re talking about, love and sex and all this stuff, you should just take it lightly.

HILLY: So get me a ring. Take it lightly. If we change our minds, I’ll give it back.

DR. SELMAN: So you would get married to George?

HILLY: I’d at least like to have a ring so we could take things a little more seriously. If it’s all so lighthearted, then what’s the problem? Maybe the taxi girl you’d prefer—I don’t know.

DR. SELMAN: Where’d did you go with her, anyway?

GEORGE: Look, there’s no way I’m going to be able to acquit myself on this—

DR. SELMAN: This is bad behavior.

GEORGE: I don’t— fine. O.K.

HILLY: Ohh! I know what did it. We showed up for dinner, and his friend Chris’ first comment was, “Wow, you two look like an Upper East Side socialite couple.”

GEORGE: That’s interesting. Good insight. Anyway, the fact is that Hilly is so cool, so great. I did say I love you, or whisper that, last night. And I know that no one else—let’s say no New York woman—would put up with this.

DR. SELMAN: You do?

GEORGE: I’m pretty sure. I’m a handful. The first night we decided to go out, I told her about my patterns with girlfriends: I always do something to screw it up somehow early on, and then I flip out. In college, there were girls from Mission Hills, very Hilly-like—I mean, no one’s like Hilly—but all real pretty. The first one, I actually stayed at Kansas University because of her. First night I met her, she said, “I’m gonna marry this guy.” Two weeks later, she informed me that we weren’t dating anymore. Two months later she told me, “If you call me again, I’m calling the police.”

DR. SELMAN: What happened in the relationship prior to Hilly?

GEORGE: It didn’t work out. I was cuckolded by her—and the one before that, too.

DR. SELMAN: Hmmm. I see.

GEORGE: But anyway, Hilly said that she too does things a month into the relationship to screw things up.

DR. SELMAN: Why would you leave her at Bungalow 8? Weren’t you afraid she might meet another guy and do the same thing to you the other two girlfriends did?

GEORGE: Well, I want to be careful answering this.

DR. SELMAN: You’ve certainly pissed her off enough to do something like that ….

GEORGE: I’ve never been worried about that. She’s not like the other girls. Maybe we should just forget this topic. But one’s dating history is somewhat relevant ….

DR. SELMAN: Yes—and also the reasons for failed relationships. The best predictor of the future is the past.

GEORGE: Well, here we are, and we’ve been in couples therapy for one year ….

DR. SELMAN: Don’t you think you could piss her off enough to go with some other guy? Since it’s happened to you before.

GEORGE: Look at that smile she just gave me. The answer is no.

DR. SELMAN: Why would you not think that?

GEORGE: I think that we’ve been through so much together that we’ve gone over these bumps. I think we’re in a different place now.

HILLY: So be nicer.

DR. SELMAN: Don’t you think it’s provocative to leave a club with another woman?

GEORGE: All right, I have nothing more—I’ve said all I can on this. It was a mistake, it happened, I was high on Vermont Green and I’d had beer and vodka—

DR. SELMAN: So now you’re saying that drugs made you do it.

GEORGE: I know, lousy excuse.

DR. SELMAN: What would have happened if you didn’t leave?

GEORGE: Nothing more to say about that. I’m sorry. But if you want to assess the situation some more, tell me what you think of us as a couple. Lay it on the line, give us the verdict. I’m ready.

DR. SELMAN: The verdict? This is not a courtroom.

GEORGE: Do you think we’ve gotten better or worse since she moved in? Give it to us straight.

DR. SELMAN: Does it matter what I think?

GEORGE: Yes! It matters.

DR. SELMAN: Why?

GEORGE: One could argue that by not answering that, you’re being passive. You’re just sort of going along with it.

DR. SELMAN: Well, what is your take on this? Because you are here, too.

GEORGE: I’ve said a whole lot.

DR. SELMAN: Do I think you have changed?

HILLY: I’m sorry to interject, but you know there’s only so much that he can observe in these sessions. For example, I haven’t even mentioned the fact that in the past two weeks, George has been, for the first time in ages, more outgoing. Tonight I’ve been spewing out all this stuff—

DR. SELMAN: So you think he’s functioning better?

HILLY: Yes, absolutely. I think overall, we’re better.

DR. SELMAN: It’s a big step, though, to get married. That’s something that’s completely different. It’s easy to get married to somebody; it’s not easy to get un-married.

HILLY: What about getting engaged?

[ Silence.]

HILLY: Start thinking a little more seriously about it. No definite date in mind! Nothing like that.

DR. SELMAN: So you want it to happen?

HILLY: I want to be engaged.

DR. SELMAN: Despite all of this!

HILLY: Oh my gosh, George, if you didn’t have a penny to your name, I would, you know, cancel my fall-winter order at Burberry and find a way to pay the rent and do whatever it takes—

GEORGE: I really do pay for everything. I have to fight to get your quarter of the rent. And this Con Ed thing ….

DR. SELMAN: You asked me my opinion. So it occurs to me that you’ve never been married, you’re 38 years old, you question your life. She is putting up with all of this from you. There are numerous examples of bad behavior. And it seems like you know Hilly is not turned off. So you could just turn up the volume.

GEORGE: I think I’m behaving much, much better every month we’re together.

DR. SELMAN: Do you agree with that?

[ Silence.]

HILLY: I don’t know if I can measure it on a scale like that.

DR. SELMAN: Has he ever left you in a bar before?

GEORGE: Once at Lotus, remember? You got really mad. Well, we made love last night; that was pretty hot—during Children of the Damned? You don’t like it when I bring that up. But that’s important? Sorry. Private?

DR. SELMAN: What could be private about making love while watching Children of the Damned?

GEORGE: On the topic of sex, you told us we should be having sex twice a day. My question is: O.K., I’m 38, we’ve been together for almost five years—isn’t that setting the bar kind of high?

DR. SELMAN: Did I say twice a day? Well, at least once a day.

GEORGE: Oh! Well, I know some people who’ve been together for a while and it’s more like once a month.

DR. SELMAN: Well, that’s their problem.

GEORGE: I don’t know—is that a problem? This friend of mine made it seem like it wasn’t a problem at all. And you said something about testosterone—does that come in pill form?

DR. SELMAN: Gel. You rub it on your skin. There’s also a drug out now to help you quit smoking. Chantix.

GEORGE: O.K. Can I have that and also get a prescription for … you don’t have any Viagra or Cialis samples do you?

[DR. SELMAN nods and gets some Viagra samples and hands them to GEORGE.]

[ To be continued.]

—George Gurley

Prior Articles: George and Hilly published 09/11/06 George and Hilly published 08/14/06 George and Hilly published 08/07/06 George and Hilly published 07/31/06 George and Hilly published 07/24/06 George and Hilly published 07/17/06 George and Hilly published 06/26/06 George and Hilly published 06/19/06 George and Hilly published 05/29/06 George and Hilly published 05/15/06 George and Hilly published 05/08/06 George and Hilly published 05/01/06 George and Hilly published 04/17/06 George and Hilly published 04/03/06 George and Hilly published 03/20/06 George and Hilly published 02/6/06 George and Hilly published 01/23/06 George and Hilly published 01/16/06 George and Hilly published 12/26/05 George and Hilly published 11/14/05 George and Hilly published 11/07/05 George and Hilly published 10/24/05 George and Hilly published 10/17/05 George and Hilly published 10/10/05 George and Hilly published 10/03/05 George ’n’ Hilly, Back in Couples, Turn on the Doc published 09/26/05 But Should We Get Married? Part III published 08/29/05 But Should We Get Married? published 08/15/05 Should I Get Married? My Hilly Joining Me In Couples Session published 08/08/05