The Inamorati Anonymous Member Character Analysis

The Inamorati Anonymous member is a man whom Oedipa finds wearing the Tristero horn symbol at a San Francisco gay bar called The Greek Way. The man claims to be straight but explains that he is drinking at The Greek Way because he is involved in the Inamorati Anonymous, a group of voluntarily isolated people who view their need for love and relationships as an unhealthy addiction. Curious about the symbol on his pin, Oedipa tells him all about her Tristero conspiracy. But the man later explains that the group’s founder saw the muted horn symbol on the watermarks of gasoline-doused stamps after a near suicide attempt. He disappears after going to the bathroom, but at the end of the novel, Oedipa calls him again from a phone booth near the freeway in San Narciso. Suspicious of their encounter, she asks him if Pierce Inverarity paid him to talk to her, but he simply replies that “It’s too late […] for me.” This is ambiguous: it could mean that he actually was paid off, or it could mean that he is afraid of breaking his Inamorati Anonymous vow by falling in love. Regardless, the Inamorati Anonymous man’s tragic but voluntary isolation seems like something of a logical endpoint for many of the novel’s men, who consistently refuse intimacy out of fear or because they are unable to communicate about their emotions.