Swipe, Sip, Screw: Then Re-Read the Book That Ruins Your Excuses

I cracked He’s Just Not That Into You open again last weekend; right after a Hinge date that dissolved into a 2 a.m. “U up?” and an Uber ride home with my mascara halfway to Goa.

Funny how a nineteen-year-old self-help relic can still slap harder than a Sunday-morning hangover. Greg Behrendt’s line about “busy” being the relationship Weapon of Mass Destruction kept ringing between my ears like last call at Bonobo: if a man’s got time to post his protein-shake reel, he’s got time to send a two-second “Home safe?” voice note.

See, I’m that annoyingly self-aware woman; therapy folder colour-coded, attachment style memorised, boundaries laminated. Apparently that reads less “soft girl” and more “bold, dangerous clarity,” because ambiguity is still the hottest kink on Bumble. The more I know what I want, the more certain men flirt with the grey area. And I’m not anti-grey; I’m the queen of consensual one-night curriculums. I hook up for growth spurts: the crypto bro who rewired my investing brain, the stand-up comic who level-upped my roast game, the finance guy who taught me compound interest in every sense. If you can’t add a new tab to my skill-set spreadsheet, you don’t earn the swipe.

Couldn't find anything better.

But here’s the kicker: even when I know a situationship is built on borrowed time, I still cave for that one-percent miracle. Why? Dopamine economics. Hinge sprinkles compliments like casino tokens: one rose here, a “lol you’re cute” there: and suddenly I’m refreshing Delivered ticks like slot-machine cherries. Greg warned me years ago: “Stop making excuses for him; his actions are screaming the truth.”  Yet I still catch myself translating silence into Morse code: He’s decompressing after leg day; he’ll text once magnesium levels stabilise.

Everyday evidence piles up. He suggests “let’s chill after your friend’s party” instead of booking dinner, translation: he’s scheduling around a possible better offer. He hits me with the Bumble “Compliment” sticker but never graduates to an actual plan. He re-shares my thirst-trap story yet leaves my last three texts on Deliveroo-blue. I see the pattern, screenshot it for the group chat, label it “case study,” and then classic I answer his late-night FaceTime anyway. Because hope is cheaper than closure.

Reading the book again felt savage precisely because it’s so simple. When a guy is into you, he shows up: “He calls, he shows up, he wants to meet your friends… if a dude isn’t calling you, you already have your answer.”   No neon ghosting protocols, no anxious-avoidant conspiracy boards, just presence. Flip side? A man who sprinkles affection emojis but skips the basics is exactly what Greg labels: “a man made up entirely of your excuses.” 

The part that gutted me this read-through was Liz Tuccillo’s pep-talk to herself: “Better than nothing is not good enough for you.”  For sometime now I’ve worn “situationship savant” like a quirky badge: “I’m chill, as long as we’re honest.”

Spoiler: we’re rarely honest.

We just exchange limited-edition ambiguity for temporary intimacy and call it modern. Meanwhile my friends and I trade red-flag stories like hobby coins: the engineer who vanished until Mercury retrograde ended; the DJ who claimed phone anxiety yet livestreamed daily; the vegan activist who borrowed my Netflix and my peace of mind.

And yes, the book’s most meme-able punch line still glitters on the page: “Don’t waste the pretty.”  Pretty isn’t contour: it’s the mental bandwidth I burn drafting unsent paragraphs in Notes, the post-hook-up oxytocin hangover that kills my productivity until Wednesday, the audacity to choose vulnerability in a world that bargains with vagueness. If your contribution to my life is a half-hearted “hey stranger” every lunar eclipse, you’re overdrafting my pretty.

So what do we, the emotionally literate, libido-positive crowd, do with this? We refine the filter:

• Swipe literacy. If his Hinge prompt says “Looking for vibes,” believe that he’s selling minimal effort, no buyer protection.

• Quick maths. Three unanswered texts = ghost. One last-minute “come over?” after six days MIA = value mismatch.

• Orgasm ROI. Casual sex is brilliant when respect is mutual. If post-coital check-ins feel rarer than balcony seats at Beyoncé, cash out.

• Hope audit. Whenever I rationalise silence, I now re-read the underlined bit: “Men are never too busy to get what they want.” 

Here’s the epilogue I whisper to myself and to you, scrolling this on your commute between matches: There are men (and women, and people) who’ll treat clarity as foreplay, who find directness sexy, who text back not because they’re free but because they prioritise. Hold out for obviousness. Let textbook ambivalence swipe past.

Your bed and your brain deserve partners who RSVP to both.

I’ll keep sipping margaritas, screwing responsibly, and yes, rereading that pink-and-green paperback whenever my self-respect needs a protein shake. Because what’s hotter than sexual chemistry? Consistency. And that’s one match worth waiting for.