The more noble a peer, the better his or her behavior. The more important and responsible a person, the less of a chance for a scandal involving infidelity, telephone nooky, and a hand-rolled Cuban cigar. Alas, Mister McEwan. Life is messy, and full of unpleasantness. As the trees in autumn shed their leaves not in neat piles, but in untidy waves of decay, occasionally you may find that disappointment can be harboured behind even the best things in life.
Life's a birch, and then one dies.
Being a man's man and maintaining something of a reputation as a 'bully boy' myself, I would appreciate your advice on an appropriate and dignified manner in which to inform persons, particularly those parental in nature, of this fact, in order to reduce the occurrence of incidents in which a person of the female persuasion is presented as an apparently apt solution to the, to me, non-problem of my ongoing gay bachelorhood. I anxiously await your tutelage. Sincerely, Childless in Chelsea Heights P.S. Do give my regards to Chauncey. It was divine running into him again after all these years - dressed like a man, and all. My lad, One advises you to do nothing.