Even in kindergarden, me 'n' Blair 'n' Jimmy had been best of friends, and we just sorta stayed that way, all through college. You never saw one of us without seeing the other two. Our friends used to kid us, with What is it with you guys? You gay or something? But we weren't. We just three bests who decided to keep a good thing going. After graduation, we got a small apartment together. Found jobs that were entry-level, but promising, and we worked hard to get up into middle management. We all put in long hours, but it paid well, and before long, we'd bought this sweet one-bedroom condo out by the ocean… even though it seemed like we never had time to enjoy it. Most nights, when we got home, all we wanted to do was throw a frozen pizza in the microwave and then crawl into bed and get some sleep. Okay, easy to what you're thinking. Three guys? One bedroom? Gay! But we weren't. We were more like… I dunno… 3-in-1 oil. One soul in three bods, y'know None of us ever considered life without the other two. It was… unthinkable. We were just a good fit, man. But you know how life can be. You look around and you start to think, okay, got the career thing down. Maybe it's time to grow up and take on some responsibility. You know, get married, settle down, raise a family. Problem — for us anyway — is that we'd never had a girlfriend. We'd never even gone on a date. Hate to admit it, but we were, at twenty five, still virgins. I know, pretty pathetic, huh. Well, turns out that someone at the office knew someone who knew this girl, so we figured what the heck, it's only a blind date, right? Still, we were all nervous as a cat in a room full of dogs: We musta changed clothes six or seven times before deciding on stuff that looked presentable enough. When she opened the door and saw the three of us, it musta been… well, kinda surprising for her. But we looked good, that's for sure. Not to sound immodest, but when you live on the beach, and all that swimming in the ocean and fresh air… well, you cant help but look good, man. And we did, truth. Visions of hot times probably danced through her head like a bunch a high schoolers at a rave. But we were determined to be perfect gentlemen: we'd said it was dinner and a movie, and it was dinner and a movie. We paid for dinner, like, you know, a guy's supposed to, and we let her pick the movie and then even paid for the tickets and the popcorn. After the flick, we went to this great little dance bar we know, has a terrific view of the ocean. We treated her like a freaking fairy princess. It was the most romantic night of our lives, man. Had a really sweet time. Finally, it was getting on late, so we drove her home and escorted her to the door. We promised nothing was gonna happen, and we held to that, solid. It was a little awkward kissing her good night — we'd never, you know, actually kissed a girl before — but we managed without making too many accidents along the way. And she laughed and said she'd had a great time and we should do it again. We went home feeling pretty gosh darn good. We musta parsed that date a hundred ways from Sunday and decided that, yep, we'd done it right. We went to bed that night and dreamed about that girl and maybe even a whole future together. Sweet. But of course,well… it all had to go south. Following Monday, all these things about what did or did not happen that night started flying all over the place. "Wow! Three guys? One girl? Damn, dude, you must have made that chick real happy!" It was embarrassing. And she didn't help matters much, gotta tell ya. We dunno if she was trying to show off to her friends what a great catch we were or what, but even they start sending us IMs that were just… cruel. Like, "Hey, if she gets pregnant, how ya gonna know who the father is?" What do you mean, how would we know? We'd know! We would be the father! Is that so hard to understand? Honest, there was no need to make it all… we dunno… dirty or something. It made the whole evening just feel… cheap. So we never called her back. And y'know, once burned, twice shy: we just dropped out of the whole dating thing after that. Somehow life's just easier when you've decided confirmed bachelorhood is the right way to go. Our friends still kid us — So you guys finally admitted you're gay, huh? — but we just brush it off. If the right girl comes along, we'll know, but we're not gonna worry too much about it. If we want a quiet evening at home on the couch with a beer and a bowl of popcorn and a Netflix account, then we will. No need to take on something just because everyone else is doing it. And we dont need to be the victims of a bunch of ugly rumours, thanks. It's like,well, sometimes, y'know, Genet is right: hell is other people.