The Rosie Effect

7

My thoughts about being a father had progressed in the following sequence:

1. Prior to my late teens, I assumed that fatherhood would occur as my life proceeded according to the most common pattern. I did not contemplate it in any more detail.

2. At university I discovered my incompatibility with women, and gradually abandoned the idea, due to the improbability of finding a partner.

3. I met Rosie and fatherhood was back on the agenda. I was initially concerned that my general oddness would be an embarrassment to any children, but Rosie was encouraging and clearly expected us to reproduce at some point. As the actual creation of children had not been scheduled, I forgot about it.

4. Then everything changed as a result of a critical event. I had planned to discuss it with Rosie, but had not given it any priority, again because nothing had been scheduled and also because it reflected badly on me. Now, due to lack of planning, a child was almost inevitable and I had not disclosed important information.

The critical event was the Bluefin Tuna Incident. It had occurred only seven weeks earlier, and the memory of it returned as soon as Rosie raised the topic of fatherhood.

We had been invited to Sunday lunch with Isaac and Judy Esler, but Rosie had forgotten that she had scheduled a study-group meeting. It made sense for me to proceed alone. Isaac had asked for my recommendation as to venue. My automatic response was to select a restaurant I had visited several times before, but Rosie had persuaded me to do otherwise.

‘You’re way better at restaurants than you used to be. And you’re a foodie. Pick somewhere interesting and surprise them.’

Following substantial research, I selected a new Japanese fusion restaurant in Tribeca and advised Isaac.

On arrival, I discovered that Isaac had booked a table for five, which was slightly annoying. A three-person conversation involves three pairs of human interactions, three times as many as a two-person conversation. With familiar people, the complexity is manageable.

But with five people, there would be ten pairs, four involving me directly and six as an observer. Seven of these would involve unfamiliar people, assuming that Isaac and Judy had not coincidentally invited Dave and Sonia or the Dean of Medicine at Columbia, statistically unlikely in a city the size of New York. Keeping track of the dynamics would be virtually impossible and the probability of a faux pas would be increased. The scene was set: unfamiliar people, a restaurant I had not visited before, no Rosie to monitor the situation and provide an early warning. In retrospect, disaster was inevitable.

The additional people were a man and a woman who arrived in advance of Isaac and Judy. They joined me at the table where I was drinking a glass of sake, and introduced themselves as Seymour, a colleague of Isaac (hence presumably a psychiatrist), and Lydia, who did not specify her profession.

Seymour was aged approximately fifty and Lydia approximately forty-two. I had been trying (with minimal success) to eliminate a habit acquired during the Wife Project of calculating body mass index, based on estimates of height and weight, but in this case it was impossible not to notice. I estimated Seymour’s BMI at thirty and Lydia’s at twenty, primarily due to their difference in height. Seymour was approximately 165 centimetres tall (or, more descriptively, short), about the same height as Isaac, who is thin, while Lydia’s height was approximately 175 centimetres, only seven centimetres less than mine. They formed a striking counter-example to Gene’s assertion that people tend to select partners who resemble them physically.

Commenting on the contrast seemed to be a good way to get the conversation started and to introduce an interesting topic on which I was knowledgeable. I was careful to attribute the research to Gene to avoid appearing egotistical.

Despite my not using any pejorative words for height and weight, Lydia responded in a manner that appeared cold.

‘To begin with, Don, we’re not a couple. We just met outside the restaurant.’

Seymour was more helpful. ‘Isaac and Judy invited us separately. Judy’s always talking about Lydia, so it’s great to meet her at last.’

‘I’m in Judy’s book club,’ said Lydia, addressing Seymour rather than me. ‘Judy’s always telling us stories about you.’

‘Good ones, I hope,’ said Seymour.

‘She says you’ve improved since your divorce.’

‘People should be forgiven everything they do three months either side of a divorce.’

‘On the contrary,’ said Lydia. ‘That’s exactly what they should be judged on.’

Lydia’s information that they were merely two people who had coincidentally been invited to the same lunch was in line with Gene’s theory. It gave me an opportunity to reenter the conversation.

‘A victory for evolutionary psychology. The theory predicts that you would not be attracted to each other; I observe evidence that is counter to the theory; more detailed examination of the data supports the theory.’

I was not seriously offering a scientific analysis, but using scientific language for the purpose of amusement. I have considerable experience with the technique, and it usually results in some level of laughter. In this case it did not. If anything, Lydia’s expression became less happy.

Seymour at least smiled. ‘I think your hypothesis rests on some invalid assumptions,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a bit of a thing for tall women.’

This seemed like very personal information. If I had shared what I found physically attractive about Rosie, or women in general, I am sure it would have been judged as inappropriate. But people with better social skills have more leeway to take risks.

‘Luckily,’ Seymour continued. ‘Or I’d be limiting my options in a big way.’

‘You’re searching for a partner?’ I asked. ‘I recommend the internet.’ My extraordinary success in finding the perfect partner as a result of random events did not invalidate the use of more structured approaches. At this point, Isaac and Judy arrived, increasing the conversational complexity by a factor of 3.33 but improving my comfort level. If I had been left alone with Seymour and Lydia for longer, I would probably have made some sort of social error.

We exchanged formulaic greetings. Everyone else ordered tea, but I concluded that if I had made a mistake in drinking sake, it was too late to recover, and ordered a second flask.

Then our waiter brought the menu. There was an array of fascinating food, consistent with the research I had undertaken on the restaurant, and Judy suggested we order one plate each and share. Excellent idea.

‘Any preferences?’ she asked. ‘Isaac and I don’t eat pork, but if someone else wants to order the gyoza, that’s fine.’ She was obviously being polite, and ordering the gyoza would have made their meals less interesting than the others due to reduced variety. I did not make that mistake. When my turn came, I took advantage of Rosie’s absence to try something that would normally have provoked an argument.

‘The bluefin tuna sashimi, please.’

‘Oh,’ said Lydia. ‘I didn’t see that. Don, you might not be aware that bluefin is an endangered species.’

I was aware of this fact. Rosie ate only ‘sustainable seafood’. In 2010, Greenpeace had added the southern bluefin tuna to its seafood Red List, indicating a very high risk of it being sourced from unsustainable fisheries.

‘I know. However, this one is already dead and we will only be sharing a single portion among five people. The incremental effect on the world tuna population is likely to be small. In exchange we have an opportunity to experience a new taste.’ I had never eaten bluefin tuna and it had a reputation for being superior to the more common yellowfin, which is my favourite food component.

‘I’m up for it, as long as it’s definitely dead,’ said Seymour. ‘I’ll skip my rhino horn pills tonight to make up.’

My mouth was open to comment on Seymour’s extraordinary statement but Lydia spoke first, giving me time to consider the possibility that Seymour was making a joke.

‘Well, I’m not up for it,’ she said. ‘I don’t accept the argument that individuals can’t make a difference. That’s the attitude that’s stopping us doing anything about global warming.’

Isaac offered a useful if obvious contribution. ‘Plus the Indians and Chinese and Indonesians wanting to have our standard of living.’

Lydia may or may not have agreed. But she was talking to me.

‘I suppose you don’t think about what sort of car you drive or where you shop.’

Her supposition was incorrect, as was the implication that I was environmentally irresponsible. I do not own a car. I ride a bike, use public transport or run. I have relatively few clothes. Under the Standardised Meal System, only recently abandoned, I had virtually zero waste in food and I now treated the efficient use of leftovers as a creative challenge. But I consider my contribution to reducing global warming negligible. My position on rectifying the problem seems to be unattractive to many environmentalists. I had no desire to spoil our lunch with unproductive arguments, but Lydia seemed to be already in irrational greenie mode, so, as with the sake, there was no point in holding back.

‘We should be investing more in nuclear power,’ I said. ‘And finding technological solutions.’

‘Such as?’ said Lydia.

‘Removing carbon from the atmosphere. Geoengineering. I’ve been reading about it. Incredibly interesting. Humans are poor at restraint but good at technology.’

‘Do you know how abhorrent I find that type of thinking?’ said Lydia. ‘Do whatever you like and hope that someone will come along and fix it. And get rich doing it. Are you going to save the tuna that way too?’

‘Of course! It’s highly possible we could genetically engineer the yellowfin tuna to taste like bluefin. Classic example of a technological solution to a problem created by humans. I would volunteer for the tasting panel.’

‘You do whatever you want. But I don’t want us, as a group, to order the tuna.’

It is incredible what complex ideas can be conveyed by a human facial expression. Although no guide was likely to include it, I believe I was correct in interpreting Isaac’s as For fuck’s sake, Don, don’t order the tuna. When our server arrived, I ordered the scallops with foie gras de canard.

Lydia began to stand up, then sat down again.

‘You’re actually not trying to upset me, are you?’ she said. ‘You’re really not. You’re just so insensitive you don’t know what you’re doing.’

‘Correct.’ It was easiest to tell the truth and I was relieved that Lydia did not consider me malicious. I saw no logical reason why a concern about sustainability should be a predictor of what I assumed was an objection to the treatment of farmed poultry. I consider it wrong to stereotype people, but it might have been useful in this situation.

‘I’ve met people like you,’ she said. ‘Professionally.’

‘You’re a geneticist?’

‘I’m a social worker.’

‘Lydia,’ said Judy, ‘this is getting too much like work. I’m going to order for the whole table, and we should all start again. I’ve been dying to hear about Seymour’s book. Seymour’s writing a book. Tell us about your book, Seymour.’

Seymour smiled. ‘It’s about growing meat in laboratories. So vegetarians can have a guilt-free burger.’

I began to respond to this unexpectedly interesting topic but Isaac interrupted.

‘I don’t think this is the right time for a joke, Seymour. Seymour’s book is about guilt, but not about burgers.’

‘Actually I do mention lab burgers. As an example of how complex these issues are and the way deeply rooted prejudices come into play. We need to be more open to thinking outside the box. That’s all Don’s been saying.’

This was essentially correct, but it started Lydia off again.

‘That’s not what I’m complaining about. He’s entitled to an opinion. I let the evolutionary psychology stuff go before, even though it’s crap. I’m talking about his insensitivity.’

‘We need truth-tellers,’ said Seymour. ‘We need technical people. If my plane’s going down, I want someone like Don at the controls.’

I would have assumed he would want an expert pilot rather than a geneticist flying the plane, but I guessed he was attempting to make a point about emotions interfering with rational behaviour. I noted it for future use as perhaps less confronting than the story about the crying baby and the gun.

‘You want some guy with Asperger’s flying your plane?’ said Lydia.

‘Better than someone who uses words they don’t understand,’ said Seymour.

Judy tried to interrupt, but Lydia and Seymour’s argument had acquired a momentum that excluded the rest of us, even though the topic of conversation was me. I had some familiarity with Asperger’s syndrome from preparing a lecture sixteen months earlier when Gene had been unable to meet the commitment due to a sexual opportunity. Consequently, I had helped to initiate a research project looking for genetic markers for the syndrome in high-achieving individuals. I had noted some of my own personality traits in the descriptions, but humans consistently over-recognise patterns and draw erroneous conclusions based on them. I had also, at various times, been labelled schizophrenic, bipolar, an OCD sufferer and a typical Gemini. Although I did not consider Asperger’s syndrome a negative, I did not need another label. But it was more interesting to listen than to argue.

‘Look who’s talking,’ said Lydia. ‘If anyone doesn’t understand Asperger’s, it’s psychiatrists. Autism, then. You want Rain Man flying your plane?’

The comparison made no more sense than it did later when Loud Woman drew it. I certainly would not have wanted Rain Man flying my plane, if I owned one, or a plane in which I was a passenger.

Lydia must have assumed that she was causing me distress. ‘Sorry, Don, this isn’t personal. I’m not calling you autistic. He is.’ She pointed to Seymour. ‘Because he and his buddies don’t know the difference between autism and Asperger’s. Rain Man and Einstein—it’s all the same to them.’

Seymour had not called me autistic. He had not used any labels, but had described me as honest and technical, essential attributes for a pilot and positive in general. Lydia was attempting to make Seymour look bad for some reason—and the complexities of the three-way interaction between us had now exceeded my ability to interpret them.

Seymour addressed me. ‘Judy tells me you’re married. I’ve got that right?’

‘Correct.’

‘Stop, enough,’ said Judy. Four people. Six interactions.

Isaac raised his hand and nodded. Seymour apparently interpreted the combination of signals as approval to continue. All five of us were now involved in a conversation with invisible agendas.

‘You’re happy? Happily married?’ I wasn’t sure what Seymour’s questioning was about, but I concluded that he was a fundamentally nice person who was trying to support me by demonstrating that at least one person liked me enough to live with me.

‘Extremely.’

‘In touch with your family?’

‘Seymour!’ said Judy.

I answered Seymour’s question, which was benign. ‘My mother phones me every Saturday; Sunday, Australian Eastern Standard Time. I don’t have any children of my own.’

‘Gainfully employed?’

‘I’m an associate professor of genetics at Columbia. I consider that my work has social value in addition to providing an adequate income. I also work in a bar.’

‘Mixing comfortably with people in a generally relaxed but sometimes challenging social environment with an eye on the commercial imperatives. Enjoying life?’

‘Yes’ seemed to be the most useful answer.

‘So you’re not autistic. That’s a professional opinion. The diagnostic criteria require dysfunction and you’re enjoying a good life. Go on enjoying it and stay away from people who think you’ve got a problem.’

‘Good,’ said Judy. ‘Can we pull some food now and have a pleasant lunch?’

‘Screw you,’ said Lydia. She was talking to Seymour, not Judy. ‘You need to pull your head out of your diagnostic manual and go into the street. Go visit some real people’s homes and see what your airline pilots do.’

She stood and picked up her bag. ‘Order whatever you want.’ She turned to me. ‘I’m sorry. It’s not your fault. You’re not going to undo whatever trauma happened in your childhood. But don’t let some fat little shrink tell you it doesn’t matter. And do me and the world one favour.’

I assumed she was going to mention the bluefin tuna again. I was wrong.

‘Don’t ever have children.’