Alexander, on life changes.

Alexander: I have begun to eat meat again and stopped recycling; it’s doing wonders for my creative flow.

Alexander, on June.

Alexander: And my semi-obscure French word for June is rightfully, in my opinion anyway, “frisson”.

Two friends, on recourse.

Alexander: All male members of our race are DEAD TO ME.

Cecily: Your only recourse is to become a lesbian. Or a monk. Or both.

Alexander: I’ll be a lesbian insofar as I don’t have to see any tits.

Two friends, on marriage on a cliff.

Alexander: Isn’t there something so much more romantic about getting hitched in a setting devoid of human touch — a place not shaped by anyone’s ideas and ideologies but your own? When you decide to let nature be your cathedral, your love becomes the architect.

Cecily: No! I want our relationship to be strong enough to blossom in reality — a reality shaped by previous architects and heavy expectations and other people’s disdain.

Two friends, on parents.

Cecily: At least your parents know who you are.

Alexander: They’re from Texas. They have no clue how to handle the malaise-riddled, bilingual, gender non-binary gay man that shares their genetics. They’d die of aneurysms if they met the people with whom I keep company: charlatans, musicians, career hedonists, trust fund druggies, and the older men with whom I seek to fill my paternal void (usually via sex and misplaced feelings).

Two friends, on the doctor.

Cecily: I was looking at wedding rings this morning.

Arnaud: Why?! Butterflies’ fingers are too thin for rings dear. You must be ill. Go and see a doctor.

Cecily: I need a ring. What if I get old and nobody loves me enough to keep me company, and all I have left is old copies of Vogue magazine and thoughts about what could have been if I had shared my life with somebody? Maybe the doctor will marry me…

Two friends, on shirking identity.

Charles: I do not want to be Charles anymore.

Cecily: Charles has light and shade. Sometimes he’s so dryly drôle, at other times wracked with deep malaise, at other times, he simply makes dad jokes. You’re a universe. Don’t deny the world your universe. What does it matter if being Charles hurts you a little? You don’t keep long-term friendships anyway.