Tony and I have gone to more than a couple of Troy Thomason shows together over the years. The funny thing is that we’ve almost always gone in threes.

Back during his first divorce, he was in need of an instant social network. Since somebody in ours had died an unexpected death, there was an opening. When Julianne and I went out, it was frequently to Troy Thomason shows because we just weren’t the kind of people that went out much.

So the three of us went to music shows. It was kind of an awkward thing to be hanging over Julie while Tony’s world was falling apart. But it could have been much more awkward than it was. He really didn’t seem to fear being a third wheel. And Julie and I were spending so much time together (and were missing Walt) we appreciated the company.

Flash forward a year and Julie and Tony are together and I’m the third wheel. This has “awkward” written all over it, but it truly wasn’t. Okay, it was at first. When you’re spending time around an ex-girlfriend, particularly one you were with not long ago, there is the natural inclination to be affectionate. But once I got accustomed to the fact that being affectionate with her was his duty and privelege and not mine, things went swimmingly.

Our visit to Delosa, sadly, involved the third iteration of thirdwheeldom. We had hoped to visit Tony, his wife Lara, and their son Anthony. But since Tony and Lara are getting a divorce, we decided to meet up with Tony at a Troy Thomason show in outer Corinth.

He seems surprisingly sanguine about it. They are apparently on good terms. That he has a son only a bit more than a year old is something of a mixed bag. That’s more child support, but he did at least get a kid of his own in the deal instead of just as a step-parent. Not sure if he’s going to continue to pay child support on his step-kids, as he did for a while after the first divorce.

When Tony broke the news to me, I actually thought of Sheila Tone and how she would point out that his family particulars rarely seem to happen to people in the economic class in which I was raised. Two failed marriages to a single woman almost ten years his senior with a kid in juvey jail.

What’s kind of strange to consider is that he is going to be single now for the first time since he was something like 21, when he married Lara the first time around. In between his marriages to Lara, he dated Julianne.

Several years ago, it was a similar adjustment with Julie. She had been together with my predecessor for a year, me for over four years, and then Tony for another four (or five). Then, suddenly, she was single. And she’s been single ever since. I had always sort of assumed that she would latch on to somebody pretty quickly. Were it not for her contrary example, I would probably assume the same of Tony.

But Tony is overweight, twice-divorced, and has at least one but possibly three kids’ worth of child support to pay. He has a good job and makes good money, but it’s quite the situation to step into. Julie has gained a little weight since I dated her, but she has no children and a good job as well. But she has the emotional scars that he lacks. It’s hard to say what’s more damaging.