Larry, WPITW, Part Five

Read Larry, WPITW, parts one, two and three, here... here... and here. Part four is right next to part five so just look down for that one. I am posting next week's installment of Larry, WPITW for LAS and Woodrow because they are two of my favorite people and neither wants to wait until next week to hear what happens next. So here is part five:

Years ago, I took a Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator test.

I am an INFP.*

We are introverted but not shy, meticulous but easy going. We love other people, but we don't need them. We're sad that both teams can't win the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament because gosh those kids all worked so hard.

One thing my "kind" of people does effortlessly is assess a room full of people and choose the person who is least comfortable to talk to. INFPs like to make people feel wanted and welcome. We do this without even realizing we are doing it.

Larry banked big time on my doing this for him. He knew if he wanted a plan a trip somewhere he could call me and I could find ten people who wanted to go - mostly because I'd drawn people into the group and made them feel welcome, even if they didn't know how to play cricket or softball or whatever it was. I was once one of those people, so I knew. This was part of the reason Larry was scared of losing me - if he lost me, he lost the constant stream of new women to pick out and stick his dick into.

I apologize. That was rather indelicate. I know better than to end a sentence in a preposition.

After I got off the phone with Sri, Lola and Merry asked me to verify that no one was dead.

I verified.

Lola decided we should get on the train and ride it all the way to Coney Island so we'd have time to hash it all out. We figured once we were there, at the beach, we could sit and stare at the ocean and try to regulate the weather in our heads before heading back into the city.

I talked all the way there. I talked for two hours on the beach. Then I talked all the way home. More than once, the three of us were crying, which just proves that Lola was perfectly right to suggest we all go to the beach. No one notices there.

I gave them the summary version, which I will now give you. Be assured, however, that you really need the detailed version to get a full panoramic view of why Larry is the Worst Person in the World.

What I knew right then was that he had been dating both Bibi and Sri, and that horrible as that was, he had been lying to the both systematically about where he was and when - that he had been sending them identical text messages, that he had been doing shit like meeting A for lunch, lying about where he was going to dinner and asking A to help him pick out a shirt to wear to meet B. So Bibi would pick out what Larry would be wearing for his date with Sri. And that ain't the half of it.

I met Bibi and Sri later that night for drinks. (Many). We surmised that because we realized that Bibi and Sri look an awful lot a alike, there might be others. Both are under 5'2" and have straight dark hair. Both are muscular and thin and both have sweet, non-confrontational dispositions. We flipped through all those pictures in our minds and started calling anyone else who met the profile - and we were right every time.

Larry had been conducting nine "secret" relationships, overlapping at least two at a time, and at most, four at a time. The one of longest duration had been going on for 36 months; the one of shortest duration had lasted for three and a half months. All these relationships were LONG TERM and were more than merely sexual. All the women KNEW each other, and it was not uncommon for them to spend entire weekends together. I have pictures of all of them - all nine - together, with me, taken by Larry, with my camera.

All were steadfast in their belief that talking to other people about the relationship would negatively affect the focus of the group. Three of them were close friends. Of the nine, four were in love with Larry and wanted to marry him. Of that four, two were (and are, six months later) so distraught that they have yet to even speak to Bibi, Sri, me or any of the other women involved by anything other than email. One of them alluded to suicide. She is better now, thank you.

The Great Larry Debacle of 2007 began, as you may have surmised, because of Sri, the girl who had been dating him for the shortest duration. It turns out that Larry had simply miscalculated with her. He had been trying to get into her pants for year, and that day on the airplane, he had decided to go for it. Nine hours next to her on the flight ought to convince her, right? I mean, he had screwed Bibi twice that morning in Casablanca, but no matter. Plenty to go around. He texted Sri from the baggage claim and their romance was underway within the hour. Bibi never thought twice because hey, we all just got of an international flight. Of course Larry needs to get home and sleep. Of course he does.

The way Sri figured it out was this: after the camping trip, Sri noticed that Bibi and I were doing a hell of a lot of talking - whispering, texting and dashing off together to discuss. She began to wonder what it was all about. She also noticed that when were all out together, she seemed to get texts from Larry at exactly the same time as Bibi did. She did not dare think yet that Larry could possibly be multitexting, but it seemed odd to her that the two of them were always texting someone at the same time. Then she decided to try an experiment. Instead of having Larry drop her off at her apartment one night after a "date," she decided she'd ask him to drop her off at Bibi's apartment. She said she needed to borrow a sweater, and Bibi was expecting her.

In reality, Bibi was expecting Larry. Larry knew this. Larry promptly entered full panic mode, but there was little he could do. So he agreed to drop her off at Bibi's. Then he texted Bibi and said he'd be late. Sri knocked on Bibi's door to find Bibi ready for a date with Larry. The two of them looked at each other and... click.

They just knew.

They spent fifteen minutes crying and saying oh holy shit and then Bibi texted Larry: "why are you so late?"

Larry texted back: "be right there."

But he never showed. Eventually, Bibi texted him: "She's gone. Come over."

What happened next will go down in New York City sidewalk screaming hissy fit crazy history as the Great Larry Debacle of 2007. It is legendary. I am told it was un-fucking-believable.

I only wish I had been there.


* If you take then ten minutes to read that, you will know me about 97% better than you do now, and you may have a better understanding of why I behaved the way I did towards Larry during the Great Debacle.