The Man Date by JENNIFER 8. LEE (8?)

THE delicate posturing began with the phone call.

The proposal was that two buddies back in New York City for a holiday break in December meet to visit the Museum of Modern Art after its major renovation.

“He explicitly said, ‘I know this is kind of weird, but we should probably go,’ ” said Matthew Speiser, 25, recalling his conversation with John Putman, 28, a former classmate from Williams College.

The weirdness was apparent once they reached the museum, where they semi-avoided each other as they made their way through the galleries and eschewed any public displays of connoisseurship. “We definitely went out of our way to look at things separately,” recalled Mr. Speiser, who has had art-history classes in his time.

“We shuffled. We probably both pretended to know less about the art than we did.”

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Rule # 1: Wine by the glass is fine. Sharing a bottle is not.

Rule # 2: Meeting for Dinner is O.K. Brunch is not.

Rule # 3: A walk is fine. As long as one guy carries a ball. Oh stop. I know what you’re all thinking.