Vignettes #16

In the mid 80s I was good friends with a couple. Eva was the daughter of the richest family in town and had recently joined our film club, her boyfriend Wolfgang was not rich, but a descaendant of an old German noble family. They were a very nice and normal pair, we got along well and met very often. But they did have some upper class friends which I didn't always feel comfortable with.

On one occasion the three of us visited another couple, he was a middle-aged well-dressed guy, she was a bit younger, more our age, and quite pretty. We sat together having drinks, and I soon noticed that each of this couple was bitching about the other, especially when one of them wasn't in the room. Later they explained that they had arranged a temporary separation in their relationship so that each of them 'could develop themselves'. Of course, they were still and all 'good friends'.

After we left I asked my friends how they had come to know these people, and Wolfgang told me that the guy was the psychotherapist who leads the men's group he was going to. A bit dumbfounded I said: "What do you need to go to a men's group for?"

Wolfgang's explanation was: "Well, in this age with women demanding and receiving more rights, we men need to re-evaluate our own status and communicate with each other so that we can emancipate ourselves, too."

And then he told me: "William, you're still single at the moment, but as soon as you find a girl for yourself, you'll need to go to a men's group, too."