Sometime in the late eighties, I was invited to a New Year’s Eve party given by my roommate’s new boyfriend’s parents. They lived in a big Society Hill rowhouse, which was utterly fascinating to me; I had never met adults who lived in the city who weren’t poor. (Where I was from, when you made enough money, you always moved to the suburbs.) The boyfriend’s mother was an artist and his father was a partner in a big law firm. “A senator is going to be there!” my roommate told me, to impress upon me how rare would be the air at this shindig.

I may have brushed past the Senator on the staircase, but I had eyes only for my roommate’s boyfriend’s younger brother, who was dreamy. He was tall and thin with thick dark hair and a beard. He quoted poetry and wore a leather jacket. He was an English major. To me, he was like a Jewish Byron. Later that evening we walked down to Penn’s Landing, and he kissed me for the first time at midnight under the fireworks. I was smitten.

We dated for a year or so, hanging out in his parents’ house while they traveled, and in their beach condo when they were at home. He was a lot of fun, and the real estate perks were not unwelcome to a young woman living with two human roommates and a colony of rats. I can’t remember why we broke up. We never fought. We just sort of moved on.

Seven years later, we were both in the same city briefly, and we got back in touch. He had graduated from law school and was working as an assistant district attorney; I was commuting back and forth to a consulting gig in Chicago. We started dating again. He was still fun. Something had changed, though; he had become a Republican, and I, after three years in the Peace Corps, was more or less a Liberal.

I tried to ignore his conservative rantings, but one day he was going on and on about how wonderful Newt Gingrich was, and he went too far. I looked at him and just knew it wasn’t going to work out this time, either. “I can’t believe you’re on their side! Who ever heard of a Jewish Republican, anyway?” I said.

“Arlen Specter,” he shot back, thinking of course of his father’s friend who had been at the New Year’s Eve party where we first met. “He’s Jewish and Republican.”

NOT ANY MORE.