Today’s hypothetical is about Dave, Don, and Jenny.
Dave and Don are college sophomores. They are both roommates best friends, having known one another since kindergarten; each considers the other his brother by another mother. Dave would never had made it through any of his high school math classes without Don’s help. He returned the favor by protecting Don from bullies in all through high school. In college they find they need one another less on a practical level, but that doesn’t matter; they genuinely love one another.
For Dave, college has been an unabashedly wonderful experience. He’s tall, built, handsome, and charming, and has happily gone from girl to girl. Don has not been so fortunate. He’s not ugly by any means, but he’s terribly awkward and shy. There’s been many a night in which Dave has listened to him bemoan his inability to get out of the friend zone with women. Dave would cheerfully and viciously mock anybody else who said things like that, but not only does he refuse to do that to Don, but he won’t tolerate others mocking Don thus in his presence, whether Don is around or not. He loves him, after all.
In the fall 2010 semester, Dave and Don take a course on Chaucer together; it’s outside Don’s major but he needs it as an elective, and as Dave is good at stuff like that, he enjoyed the opportunity to help Don out academically for once. Among their classmates was Jenny, who, like Don, had some trouble mastering the material. The three of them take to studying together, and Dave quickly realizes that Don was attracted to Jenny. So is he, but he doesn’t want to get in his friend’s way (and is getting plenty of action elsewhere anyway), so he never makes a move.
The semester ends. While all three of our characters are native to the same city they attend school in, Dave goes away for winter break, while Don and Jenny both stay home. Before Dave leaves, Don says that he’s more attracted to Jenny than he’s ever been to any other woman, he says. Dave encourages him to go for it, and soon; he’s got Jenny’s email and phone number, after all, and there’s no sense in waiting. Don says he’ll wait till the next semester to make his move.
Returning to campus after winter break, Dave runs into Jenny in the bookstore. Don is not there. They chat about their break, and Jenny mentions that there’s a party being thrown in her dorm on the first Friday night of the semester; she invites Dave to come with her. Dave hesitates, then asks if she wouldn’t rather go with Don. Jenny frowns at that. "I’m tired of waiting for him to make a move,’ she says. “I like him and I would’ve gone out with him if he’d asked me last semester, but he’s had plenty of time and plenty of opportunities and he’s wasted them all. If he doesn’t have the balls to ask me out, I’m not interested. Anyway, you’re cuter. So are you coming with me or not?”
What should Dave do?
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