In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

92 5 Deal­ ing with the Legal Busi­ ness, Take Two Take a look at this link,” said the email from my ­ friend Sarah. “It’s a re­ al­ ity show look­ ing for ­ straight women and their gay male ­ friends.” “Are you and your ­ friend the real Will & Grace?!” read the web­ site to which the link took me (I quote it ver­ ba­ tim). “Are you a gay guy liv­ ing with your ­ straight best girl­ friend? Are you a­ straight girl whose best ­ friend hap­ pens to be gay? Do you fin­ ish each ­ other’s sen­ tences? Have you al­ ready for­ warded them this flyer and are on the phone freak­ ing out? Gay guy and ­ straight gal ‘couples’ who have out­ go­ ing per­ son­ al­ ities, ac­ tive work and so­ cial lives and most im­ por­ tantly......a super close re­ la­ tion­ ship. Cou­ ples from all walks of life are en­ cour­ aged to apply in­ clud­ ing pro­ fes­ sion­ als, crea­ tive types, and ex­ ec­ u­ tives. Room­ mates are a plus but not nec­ es­ sary.” “Should we go?” she wrote. “I don’t know,” I an­ swered. “I don’t like the punc­ tu­ a­ tion of this an­ nounce­ ment. Also, we’re not room­ mates.” “Thank God.” It was 2007, and the show, we found out when we ar­ rived at the audition, would be, un­ sur­ pris­ ingly, about friend­ ships ­ between­ straight women and gay men and was to be ­ called Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys. The au­ di­ tion ba­ si­ cally in­ volved us gos­ sip­ ing with each other on cam­ era about the guy Sarah had gone out on a­ couple dates with who had been an amaz­ ing ­ kisser but who, she had dis­ cov­ ered, re­ fused to open a bank ac­ count be­ cause he was Dealing with the Legal Business, Take Two 93 cer­ tain that in the com­ ing world col­ lapse every­ one was going to go back to the bar­ ter ­ system, so that was that for him. “Do you have any ques­ tions about the show?” the guy run­ ning the au­ di­ tion asked when we were done. “Are we going to be voted off ?” Sarah asked. “I don’t think I could han­ dle that.” “No. There won’t be any vot­ ing.” “Are we going to have to live in a house with other peo­ ple?” I said. “No, you can stay in your own house.” “Good, be­ cause I hate other peo­ ple ­ enough al­ ready with­ out hav­ ing to live with them.” But af­ ter­ ward, ­ though we ­ waited for our ­ phones to ring, we kept hear­ ing noth­ ing, so we had to as­ sume the pro­ duc­ ers had made the bi­ zarre de­ ci­ sion not to use us. When I got a call in Jan­ u­ ary of 2010, there­ fore, I was sur­ prised to hear the voice on the other end of the line iden­ tify it­ self as that of the di­ rec­ tor of Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys. “Yeah,” she said, “the pro­ ject took a while to get off the­ ground, but it’s been ­ picked up for next sea­ son, so I’m call­ ing some of the peo­ ple who were inter­ viewed to see ­ what’s up and try to fig­ ure out the right cou­ ples to cast. We’ll be shoot­ ing from Feb­ ru­ ary ­ through April.” We ­ talked for a while, and when I men­ tioned that since my pre­ vi­ ous inter­ view I had got­ ten en­ gaged her ears ­ perked up (at least such was my tele­ phonic im­ pres­ sion). “Con­ grat­ u­ la­ tions!” she said. “Have you set a date for the wed­ ding yet?” “We’ve tried a ­ couple times,” I an­ swered, “but we keep hav­ ing to can­ cel. So our plan is to do it at some point this year.” “Would you be will­ ing to get mar­ ried on cam­ era?” “Gee,” I said, think­ ing ­ quickly. They ­ hadn’t cho­ sen the cou­ ples yet, and the op­ por­ tu­ nity for them to shoot a gay wed­ ding would have to weigh heav­ ily in our favor. “If we could do it with­ out inter­ fer­ ing with the ac...

Share