The student exemplifies the idea of society unable to accept and understand homosexuals, which is brings about the inability to accept gay culture. The idea of struggling to come to terms and the hardships of being able to be free to display sexual preferences within society are prevalent through the narrator and his actions. The theme of middle aged morality also come into play within the novel. As being survivors of the AIDS epidemic, the narrator, Frank and the landlord feel a sense of guilt and grief of out surviving many their common friends and lovers. Because of this, it prevents the narrator and the landlord ability to form healthy relationships with other men, because they are scarred from the hurt. The landlord spends a majority of the story putting ads into newspapers and blind dating many men who always turn out to be much too young and never looking for commitment. The explanation for wanting to put in ad in to the personal is stated by Frank. “Now we realize we’re not looking for sex anymore – we’re looking for fidelity. Tenderness! Intimacy! And that’s why he’s going to put an ad in the Personals” (55). The combination of out surviving many good friends has put the landlord at a struggle because he no longer knows where to look, to find older men that are his age. Many of them died from AIDS during the epidemic or continually look toward younger men who will satisfy their needs without the threat of commitment. This chronic loneliness that both the narrator and the landlord suffer through creates unrest among the two of them. Their only desire is to live their lives with someone to serve as company and love. During the course of the novel, the concept of stages of grief is introduced. The stages are denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. The narrator, as well as other characters in the story, slowly passes through these stages in trying to deal with death. During the story, the theme of dealing with grief overcomes the narrator, the landlord and Frank. Premature death grief results from the guilt that they try to deal with because of the AIDS epidemic. Many of their friends, for example one named Nick is overcome by the disease. When told about his HIV, Nick “looked like a deer caught in a car’s headlights for weeks... he even chased the doctor who had given him the news into a grocery store...one day and stood there in Produce screaming at him that he was wrong” (115). The idea of dealing with someone who should not have died is something that all of the homosexual men have to deal with because of AIDS.