There was nothing about José that made him seem particularly special to the casual observer. He in fact seemed average by nearly every obvious measure, from his height to his eye color. While perfectly ordinary, it would still be fair to say that he was described by some to be reasonably handsome. In fact, he bore a decent resemblance to Michael Aranda, if Michael Aranda had adopted Ash Ketchum as his style icon.
To fully appreciate José, one needed only to look the tiniest bit deeper. First, he was bright. Thanks to his laid back demeanor and unpretentious manner of speaking, it was easy at first to underestimate exactly how intelligent Jose was. As frustrating as he often found his job, he also consistently performed it better than most of his peers. He possessed great creativity and the artistic talent to share his rawly beautiful visions with the world. While he was nihilistic and thus struggled to see meaning in his own life, he never made others feel like they lacked value. His sense of humor tended to be a bit dorky, a smidge sassy, and a lot self deprecating.
That was actually the most endearing yet heartbreaking thing about him. Perhaps because the people who ought to appreciate him most didn't always do that as well as they should, José was often oblivious to his ample charms. José was actually flat out clueless, but that was about to change. He was about to learn just how exciting, overwhelming, and sometimes scary it could be to have many women all discover his appeal nearly simultaneously. José was about to find out he had a harem.
There were three women at the core of José's harem, and besides their shared yet varied degrees of interest in José, they really didn't have much in common. Mariah was the classic beauty, with the build of a dancer and the grace to match. She was the sort that insecure women tended to irrationally hate, which was all the more absurd when you recognized she also possessed genuine kindness and humility. Her life was largely happy, thanks to plenty of love from a close knit family, and a deep satisfaction in raising her young child.
She admired José mostly for his stability. Her previous lovers had taught her that men could be unreliable, but José was dependable. Even when he grappled with insecurity and depression, he was still someone you could count on to be there. That might not have been something she found especially attractive in her youth, but now that she was a mother, it was the most appealing quality a man could possess.
Kayla was more edgy and loud, in both attitude and sense of style. She had a deep bond with her family, too, but had no immediate desire to start one of her own. She tended to enjoy her men on a very basic, animalistic level, and often had titillating dating stories to share. Her co-workers found her entertaining due to her candidness, outrageous antics, and fondness for gossip.
As much as she mercilessly teased José, she was drawn to him courtesy of his ability to give just as much sass back. Kayla had a strong personality, and needed a man she couldn't steamroll. She wasn't naturally inclined to give all her attention to one man, but the fire in José had her tempted to do so.
Emma was pretty, but in a more understated way than Mariah, and she lacked the brazenness of Kayla. She had all the presence of a mouse, maybe because she was the youngest of the bunch and hadn't had enough time to shed her naivete and to cultivate much confidence. Maybe it was due to the piety instilled by her religious upbringing. For whatever reason, she was mega levels of nice and ridiculously helpless- so much so that it was perceived as fake.
