Herb is a Jewish labor economist from New York City who worked for the EEOC and took up acting after he retired; Gay, who is Christian, is a former military historian from Atlanta with an artist’s spirit – she dances, acts, writes, teaches ESL, is a Phi Beta Kappa and a descendant of Pocahontas to boot.  Long-time friends of my family, they are a remarkable pair.  They have two sons.

Gay:
We used to  sing in the car.  When we were courting.  You know? (sings.) “One alone, (Herb instantly joins in, they sing together.)  to be my own/just [da-dum]/know his caresses…”  And, “In the gloaming, oh my darling.”  And that has such a poignant second verse: (sings.)  In the gloaming/Oh my darling/Think not bitterly of me/Though I went away and left you/Left you lonely/(Herb joins in.) Set you free.”

Herb:
I learned that in high school.

Gay:
(Continues singing.)  “What had been/could never be/It was best to leave you thus, dear/(Herb joins in.) Best for you and best for me.” (Herb laughs fondly.)  Well, anyway.  It was such a relief to me to - at some point it occurred to me, “we don’t have to break up!”  You know?  We could get married!  And that would be such a relief!  Not to have to go through all that breaking up business again!  Which is so painful!  I don’t know why I connect it with the song; well, it was probably one night when we were going along and we were singing that second stanza about, “it was best to leave you thus, dear,” and I was thinking, “we don’t have to do that!”  You know?  “We don’t have to do that!  We can get married!”

RF:
Is marriage still necessary?

Herb:
Frankly, the important thing is the relationship.  I’ve felt that for a long time.  I’ve had a lot of therapy, and I came to that conclusion.  The important thing is the relationship.  And it doesn’t matter if the relationship is in terms of marriage or not marriage.

Gay:
I agree on that.  But I do think that that long-time partnership is really, there’s nothing that can replace that.  I think it’s really a good thing.  Not that people can’t have full lives as single people, certainly they can.  You talked about the romance of the cultural differences; and to some extent, I think that that’s a heightening of the romance of the sexual differences.  I suppose it’s possible, since same-sex couples do have romance and do have lasting relationships, I suppose it’s quite possible to have enough of a difference in some sense – in roles or in personalities or in cultures or all of those things – so that you have that romance; but I remember somebody saying to me, a counselor, early in our relationship, saying, “well, you know, the nature of a sexual relationship is that it’s between two different people.  And two different organisms.”  And I do think – well, that doesn’t have anything to do with marriage, I guess.  But there is something endlessly romantic and exciting and that gets to the core of you, I think, about this closeness across barriers – of personality, of culture, of gender, of whatever, you know – that just melts the barriers away and yet the differences are still there and the differences are what make it exciting.