payment page
“So, do you want to go get a drink?” he asked when they got back to the car, as if being polite were an obligation that had been imposed on him. It seemed obvious to Margot that he was expecting her to say no and that, when she did, they wouldn’t talk again. That made her sad, not so much because she wanted to continue spending time with him as because she’d had such high expectations for him over break, and it didn’t seem fair that things had fallen apart so quickly.
After the movie date, Margot is already inclined to think that for some reason Robert is not happy with her. He was mostly silent on the drive to the theater and did not hold her hand or touch her during the movie. She thinks she has perhaps insulted him by dressing comfortably, but without knowing what he is thinking, she can only assume the worst—he doesn’t want to see her again. When he asks about getting a drink, she thinks it “obvious” that he doesn’t want to. Her reaction to this thought reveals something about why she accepted the date in the first place: she created “high expectations” that his behavior calls into question, and it is not “fair” that her predictions for the relationship appear to have been incorrect. Her reaction is not to the date, or Robert, or their relationship—it’s about the confidence, now in doubt, with which she made a culturally conditioned prediction about her desirability and Robert’s response.
“I told you I was a sophomore!” she said. Standing outside the bar, having been rejected in front of everyone, was humiliating enough, and now Robert was looking at her as if she’d done something wrong.
. . .
“But you did that—what do you call it? That gap year,” he objected, as though this were an argument he could win.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she said helplessly. “I’m twenty.” And then, absurdly, she started to feel tears stinging her eyes, because somehow everything had been ruined and she couldn’t understand why this was all so hard.
When the bouncer at the underground bar refuses to admit Margot, Margot feels embarrassed for Robert as well as for herself. An odd argument ensues in which Margot first apologizes for a fact (she is twenty), after which Robert accuses her of having lied to him about her age. In fact, Robert had simply assumed that a sophomore who did a gap year must be at least twenty-one, and his accusatory tone makes Margot feel even more shamed, and in public at that. But what is most interesting about this exchange is that Margot wonders “why this”—that is, dating—“was all so hard.” Her confusion brings tears to her eyes, provoking Robert’s protective instinct. He hugs her—and she gladly lets him do so—and kisses her head, making her feel special and, for a moment, allowing her to believe that perhaps everything isn’t ruined after all. Yet Robert’s next action, the aggressive and unpleasant kiss, quickly upsets Margot’s ongoing efforts to understand how to manage Robert’s expectations of her.
