Page 100 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

Making plans like I was already part of his life.

And then, just as easily… nothing.

No warning. No shift I could point to.

Just a silence that made me feel like I had said something wrong, even when I hadn’t said anything at all.

I started choosing my words more carefully.

Shorter replies. Less emotions. Less of me. Just in case today wasn’t a version of him that could hold it.

Because I never knew which one I was going to get. Like lottery—a game of uncertainty.

It was either the one who made me feel like I was forever or the one who made me feel like I was asking for too much just by existing.

And when he finally did reply, hours later, it was always the same.

‘Hey.’

Like nothing had shifted. Like I hadn’t spent the last few hours overthinking. Like I hadn’t shrunk myself.

And I would meet him there.

Every damn time.

Because somehow, I kept choosing the version of him that felt certain—the one who made me feel like I was easy to love, even when loving him started to feel like learning rules that changed every day.

“Okay, first of all—he did not look like that on Tinder.”

Honey’s voice cut through my musings.

The bar came rushing back: the low lights, the quiet hum, the glass still in my hand.

I blinked, turning slightly as she slid into the seat beside me like she had always been there.

“And I’m not saying I was catfished,” she continued, already mid-story, “but if the police asked me to identify him, I’d have to say ‘sir, that man doesn’t exist’.”

I let out a small laugh, the first real ones I’d felt all night.

“Correction,” she said, raising a finger. “I was delayed by deception.”

Honey gestured behind her.

“This is Michelle—the emotional support I needed after being lied to.”

Michelle stepped forward with a grin, sliding into the seat on Honey’s other side. “Hi! I witnessed Honey getting catfished. It was traumatic.”

I nodded at her. “James.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said. “And just so you know, the Tinder guy used a photo from like… 2013.”

Honey scoffed. “2013? Baby, that man was using a filter from a different era. I showed up expecting ‘mysterious chinito with soft boy energy,’ and what I got was—” she paused, searching for the right words, “—a man who looked starved for five years and still felt he’d eaten enough.”

I huffed a laugh into my drink.

“So that’s why you’re thirty minutes late?”

“Thirty?” Honey repeated, offended. “That was a character-building experience. If anything, I’m early for the next phase of my life.”