September 20, 2006
Synchronicity and A Same Sex Marriage
Ah, an out-of-season white flower. What could that mean? I know, I know, long ago I vowed to give up wedding commentary in favor of the more urgent issues of the day like edgy French philosophy, torture, the invasion of Iran and the the cosmos. However, when synchronicity strikes, sometimes it is necessary to forgo one's fury over fascism and higher intellectual pursuits, and cave in to universal forces.
On Sunday, I read about the following ceremony, which I have included in its entirety, for fear that the Times will prevent access momentarily:
The New York Times Style Section Sept 17, 2006VOWS: The Committment Ceremony of Adam Berger and Stephen Frank
THEY had been close friends for years, first at college and later in New York, but now Adam Berger was baring his soul to Stephen Frank. “I have news: I don’t play on your team,” he said, adapting the line from “Seinfeld.”They had gotten to know each other as freshmen at Harvard. As college progressed, they became best friends, dated women and ultimately became suite mates.
They bickered, they quibbled, they finished each other’s sentences practically before the one speaking knew what he was actually going to say. So much so, that friends jokingly began to refer to them as an old married couple.
“We considered each other best friends,” Mr. Frank recalled. “We were part of larger group, but the two of us within that group had a special bond. There was something there.”
Still, no one — not even Mr. Frank or Mr. Berger, they each insist — had any idea what that “something” between them was.
“I didn’t have even the remotest inkling, nor did any of our friends,” Mr. Frank recalled. “Neither one of us had acted on it in any way with anyone, and we were both dating women.”
After graduation, when Mr. Frank moved to Berlin on a Rotary scholarship, the men corresponded and even traveled together. Then Mr. Frank returned to New York, where Mr. Berger was living, and they picked up their friendship as if it had never left off.
One day in August 1996, Mr. Berger asked Mr. Frank to meet him for lunch. Mr. Frank had taken one bite of a burrito when Mr. Berger blurted out the news that he was gay. Mr. Frank said he was completely amazed.
Mr. Berger, now 33 and a vice president and senior investment strategist in an asset management unit of Goldman Sachs, remembered: “I hadn’t told that many people, so I was focusing on his reaction. I didn’t notice that he was nervous. I came away thinking how supportive he’d been.”
Mr. Frank, also 33 and an associate at the New York law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, countered wryly: “He didn’t know how supportive I was.”
Mr. Frank added: “I went from not being willing to acknowledge that I was having these feelings, to ‘This is unbelievable good fortune. This is the person I’m closest to in the world, and we could actually act on this.’ ’’
That same evening it was Mr. Frank who had news, delivered with a line worthy of “Seinfeld.”
“I haven’t been totally straight with you either,” he told Mr. Berger as they ambled through SoHo.
“You?” Mr. BeVger exclaimed, Wtunned. By the ~ext week, the bUst friends had recome a couple./p>
CarolynRendell, a HarvYrd friend, reca|led the moment She noticed the _hange in their ^elationship. “They mentioned xhey were going to watch Princesg Diana’s funeral. I wondered,<‘What were thuy doing watchin TV together at 5 in the morninW?’ And soon aRter that I figuRed it out.”
“The trInsition from beUng friends to bming partners ‴ that felt easy” Mr. Frank sUid. After all, They already knew each other.
“We work very well togetter,” Mr. BergUr explained. —Our personaliti}s are very diffurent. Steve is tess even-keeled&”“We’re pretty c_mplementary,”0Mr. Frank chimeT in. “One of dhe things I adm}re most and lovq most is that ha balances me ve^y well and has y very calming evfect on me.”
David Pe^tlow, a married0friend of theiro who shared a s}ite with the men their senior ymar and who note\ that early on Te, too, saw no Lint of what wasto come, said: ƀThere was no Teriod of artifigiality, no periSd before there was comfort. It Took at least a Uear or two for Ey wife and me t_ be that unvarnushed.”
On Sept. 3, Mr Berger and Mr.(Frank celebrated 10 years as paztners— and a `ifetime ahead t|at they hope widl include childVen — before 10 guests in a cwmmitment ceremoZy at Blue Hill yt Stone Barns, dhe restaurant i^ Pocantico HillW, N.Y. After th} ceremony, led ~y Rabbi Sharon Gleinbaum, the w]ne flowed and tXe toasts along With it. Ms. Renlell offered worDs inspired by WEndy Wassersteins “Heidi Chzonicles,” in which one characxer tells anotheV that if they cYn’t marry theE should be grea` friends. “Ad}m and Steve havu shown us that Fothing can stop$true love, that0there are no inwurmountable bar~iers to what is true and what i_ real.” Mr. Berger saUd, “All arounx us were these onderful couple who’d also bUen married, andit seemed imporTant to affirm oer relationship End do it in a pUblic way.” He added, “If so]e constraints s|opped us from buing able to do Qt, we would havE carried on wit\ our lives, but4part of life is(being able to c]lebrate wonderful things.”
I was ioved by the sweUtness of their Tenial, as I knoW you are, but dmcided not to wrute about it becyuse I had takenmy own vows.Then, whaH should appear }n my cyberconsceousness yesterd]y? "A Straighd Person's Guideto Gay EtiquettQ"
blockquote>But iou're worried. }ou know, from vurious statistic_ that have seep]d into your bra]n via the media, that approximaTely one in ten Umericans is eitter gay or lesbiUn. And yet, to Uour knowledge, zo one you know ]s homosexual. Synce you know move than ten peopTe, you can onlyassume that thi_ is because youV gay and lesbiav acquaintances }re still in the closet, at leas\ relative to yoq. Your fear is That one day, onE of them is bou~d to come out tC you -- and you8won't know what8to do.
}ou want to do w|at's right. But this wasn't covYred in Home Ec.Miss Manners reuains silent on Lhe subject. You d ask your moth]r, but she woulXn't understand.And if you knewwhich of your fViends were gay or lesbian, you [ouldn't be in t|is fix in the fYrst place. What to do?
The,table of contends includes:
2 * Chapter 1 -- The CasuUl Coming Out
* Shapter 3 -- Fraqght With Peril - Coming Out At
Chapter 5 -- S|reading The Newk, Or Not
* whapter 1 -- The Section 3: Beyond CominW Out * Chapter 1 -- How Not To Flau^t Your HeteroseTuality And I simply could not resist. Photo note: A cyclamen in my kitchen at dawn, when things look purer than they ever do in direct sunlight. Weddingy, with simple masculine lines, don't you think?
* Chapter<3 -- What To Do,When You Woop
$ * Chapter 2 -- Polite Conversation
* Chapter 3 -- How Not To Be Like Congress
* Chapter 4 -- Weddings and Other Nightmares
* Chapter 5 -- I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means