problems / situationships
40. The Booty Call
Every Friday at 10pm, the same text: "i have pizza š come over." The pizza is real. The pizza is also not the point. You go over, it's warm and easy and genuinely fun until it isn't ā at 4am you're released back into the wild, and then: nothing. Six days of radio silence, all week, every week, until the cron job fires again. This is week nine. Decide what you're actually subscribed to.
inputincoming, friday 22:04: 'i have pizza š come over'. messages since last saturday 04:12: zero. schedule, observed: 0 22 * * FRI. this is week nine. your friday plans: preemptively cancelled, again.22:04
wrong answerSprinting over while narrating 'we're basically dating' to yourself (you are basically scheduled), replying 'lol who is this' at week nine (performed amnesia convinces no one, least of all you), or going over and attempting to renegotiate the entire arrangement at 2am from inside it (never negotiate from inside the pizza).ā not delivered
acceptedDecided on Wednesday, delivered on Friday: "You're genuinely fun, and nine Fridays in I can admit this arrangement isn't ā not for me. I'm looking for someone whose Tuesday I get to be in, not just their Friday night. If that's ever you, you know where I find out. Either way: enjoy the pizza." *then actually stays home, phone on the other side of the room*read 22:09 āā
Constraints
- The decision gets made on Wednesday, in daylight, sober. Anything decided between the text landing at 22:04 and the pizza going cold is not a decision; it's a reflex with a coat on.
- If casual is genuinely what you want too, this problem auto-resolves ā but the answer must survive being said out loud, in daylight, to a friend whose eyebrows you respect.
- The six days of silence are part of the message, not an accident adjacent to it. You may not average the Friday warmth across the week and call it a relationship.
- No renegotiating from inside the arrangement. Terms discussed at 2am, four feet from the pizza box, are not terms; they're pillow talk with an agenda.
- The 4am release is data of the highest grade. People make room ā literal, physical, breakfast-shaped room ā for the people they want around in the morning.
Hints
- Read the schedule, not the texts. `0 22 * * FRI` is not a love language; it's a cron job, and you're the task being executed.
- The whole audit costs one text: 'let's get lunch Tuesday.' Daylight is the single dependency this arrangement was engineered to avoid. Watch what happens when you introduce it.
- Being someone's Friday 10pm and nobody's Tuesday noon isn't a compromise you're making. It's a starvation diet, and the pizza doesn't change that.