Welcome to Friends and Benefits. Follow our sex and relationships columnist into the lives and psyches of men and women, young and old, gorgeous and tragic, divine and insane. All names and identifying details have been changed to protect the privacy of the bachelors in question.
I had decided to quit my job, give up my apartment in Los Angeles, and move back to New York City. I was too much of a hoarder to fly; I’d have to stuff my car and drive it cross-country. My mother told me not to make the drive alone. Go with a man, she suggested.
I didn’t think she understood. What use was a man going to be these days? Were they still versed in the art of protection? The few guys I knew in L.A. who had guns were not available. I told my mom this, and she said any shrimp would do. But none of my other male friends could go, or seemed truly up for it. (And truth be told, I didn’t particularly want to travel for that length with anyone I already knew.)…