THE ODD COUPLE

It was disdain at first sight. Forty years later, they're still best friends.

- Will Schwalbe

By the time I was a junior at Yale, in 1983, I'd already met everyone I cared to know. I was friends with most of the other gays and lesbians. I knew the theater people. I knew absolutely everyone in my major-there were only a few of us who had chosen to get degrees in Latin and Greek. And I knew a splattering of visual artists, a handful of comparative lit majors, the odd philosopher and three mathematicians.

I also knew those I didn't want to know. The jocks. And they didn't seem to want to know me. In the dining halls, they filled boisterous tables. They wolfed down epic platters of scrambled eggs. They wore baseball caps backward and moved in packs. The jocks and I were like planets in different orbits, circling one another but not colliding. I felt that if we did, I would be obliterated.

All of that changed dramatically when I collided with one jock in particular: Chris Maxey, known to everyone as Maxey. From the start it was clear that Maxey and I should not be friends. What was less obvious was that I was much more prejudiced against him than he was against me.

Everything began with a visit from my friend Tim. That's when he told me that he was in a secret society for seniors. Had I ever noticed a granite building on the edge of campus? That was the hall where they'd been gathering twice a week all year. Now they were in the process of choosing 15 juniors to replace themselves. Those juniors would inherit the hall and would meet there throughout the coming year twice a week for dinner.

"We try to bring together the 15 most different kids we can find so you'll meet people who are nothing like you." He asked if I would want to join.