Andrew Benson

Andrew Benson is a former partner whose importance to Brett Bohlinger emerges through the way she remembers their relationship: she remained powerfully drawn to him while struggling for his approval and losing touch with her own identity. In retrospect, Brett places him among the emotionally detached men she had learned to regard as familiar, making their past a measure of both her vulnerability and her growing self-understanding.

Identity and Relationship

Brett’s recollections establish Andrew Benson as a man she had dated and whose pull remained potent even after she began a relationship with Herbert Moyer. While walking Rudy, Brett considers why she did not spend the night with Herbert and concludes that, dog or no dog, Andrew would have been impossible to stay away from. The comparison distinguishes the force of her attachment to Andrew from the attentiveness Herbert offers: Brett does not attribute her former desire to Andrew’s superiority as a lover, but to a bond whose emotional pattern still exerts pressure on her.

The Pattern of Approval

Brett describes Andrew Benson as cold and detached, placing him alongside Charles Bohlinger as a figure whose approval she desperately tried to earn. She believes that pursuit cost her her true identity, yet still left her feeling that she had fallen short. Her account makes the relationship consequential not simply as a past romance, but as part of a repeated struggle to secure affection by reshaping herself around another person’s judgment.

Contrast and Narrative Significance

Herbert Moyer becomes the contrast through which Brett names what was damaging in her history with Andrew. Herbert’s kindness and attention sometimes feel suffocating to her, prompting the fear that emotional distance is what she has mistaken for normal. Brett nevertheless insists that she will not let the past ruin her future. Later, she recognizes that with Herbert she can be herself and be adored as she is, calling this her first healthy relationship. Andrew’s role in the story is therefore largely retrospective: Brett’s memories of him expose the old terms on which she sought love, while her contrasting experience with Herbert gives her a clearer basis for choosing differently.