Robin Howard

There is no such person as Robin Howard. Or there is no such person that I know. But many of my friends used to think there was because I talked about Robin Howard all the time:

"I just came back from a great weekend with Robin Howard," I'd say.

"Oh, Thanksgiving was awesome," I'd say, "Everyone in my family was there. Mom, Dad, Brandon, Robin Howard."

"Robin Howard and I went to this amazing show!" I'd say. "We had dinner in the city and took the train home. It was the best."

Eventually, of course, most of my friends met Robin Howard.

"This is Rob an' Howard," I'd say.

"Ohhhh," my friends would say, extending a hand. "You're two people!"

My family met Rob and Howard when they moved to Kansas City from New York for a few years. We went to the same church and soon became best friends. In two years, they were invited to our Thanksgiving tradition, which hadn't added a new member in more than a decade.

By the time I came out, Rob and Howard were already back in New York and I was in school in Boston. Besides my family, they were two of a few people that I wanted to tell face-to-face that I was gay. I took the Chinatown bus from my city to theirs and practiced what I would say (It turns out, I learned during this period in my life, there is no convenient way to segue into: "I'm gay"). To preface my big news (which did not surprise them), I put a package of rainbow Skittles in front of each of them.

The next year, when I went to graduate school in New York, Rob and Howard let me live with them. Once a month, I left my "rent" check (which was very small and which they only let me contribute after I told them I couldn't live with them without paying it) on the kitchen table, sometimes with a vase of fresh-cut flowers. We watched sitcoms together at night and ate dinner together around their dining room table. Sometimes Rob and I played Scrabble and he beat me--every time. When we cleaned the apartment, we blasted country music and danced around in our pajamas.

Rob and Howard (who got married two years ago on their 18th anniversary) also have the distinction of having seen--up close and personal--Tiffany and me fall in love. They took pictures of us before we went out on our first date. We went on double-dates. And on weekend mornings, we ate breakfast together at the diner in Brooklyn Heights and laughed our asses off.

Maybe you have a lot of friends. I have a handful. But the ones I have are the best. And Rob and Howard are two of them.

Or one.

Depending on how you say their names.