▸ Column · Modern X-Men age — a near-immortal feral mutant reading a dating-advice letter and treating it as a feeding-ground assessment
SABRETOOTH replies.
Replied to by Sabretooth, with a rebuttal from Wolverine.
The letter
Four dates in with a woman named Haldis. After the third, she stayed the night, and now there's a "good morning" text waiting for me every single day — but neither of us has ever said the words "together," "exclusive," anything. We're three weeks in. My best pal swears that asking "so what is this?" before the one-month mark is the surest way to spook somebody, so I keep swallowing the question. Trouble is I can't tell if the loose, easy energy means she's keeping a few other doors open or just dreads the awkward talk as much as I do — and the not-knowing has me reading meaning into every emoji she sends. There's a wedding I'd love to take her to in two weeks, and I can't exactly invite a "plus-one of undefined status" without forcing the conversation regardless. Is three weeks genuinely too early to ask, or am I just letting my friend's rulebook talk me out of a question I obviously need answered?
Sabretooth replies
Three weeks, four dates, she's wakin' up in your bed and pingin' you every mornin' like clockwork — and there you sit, nose in the air, sniffin' around for permission to ask a question you already got the answer to. That's the smell comin' off this letter, bub. Not romance. Flinchin'.
Your pal handed you a "rule." The one-month mark. Don't spook her. That ain't wisdom, runt — that's a leash, and you strapped it on yourself and called it manners. Somebody who'd bolt 'cause you wanted a straight answer was never stayin' anyhow. The "rule" exists so cowards have somethin' to blame when they're too soft to want out loud.
Here's the hunt as I see it: you want her at that weddin'. You want to know where you stand. Stop pretendin' those are big scary mysteries and go take 'em. No speech. No tiptoein' around the awkward. "Come to the weddin' with me. As mine." Watch what she does with it. That's your answer, clean.
And quit readin' emojis like entrails. That's prey behavior — small, nervous, waitin'. Want the thing. Say it. The not-knowin' is just you refusin' to bite.
— Sabretooth
Wolverine weighs in
Creed calls everything a hunt 'cause it's the only word the animal ever learned. Don't take dating notes from him — man's buried every leash he ever wore and grinned about it.
But strip the snarl off and there's one true thing under it: stop readin' the emojis. Look at what she does. She stays. She texts every mornin' when there's nothin' makin' her. That's not somebody keepin' doors open, kid — that's somebody showin' up. People tell you who they are by conduct, not status.
So ask. Not to plant a flag on her. 'Cause you wanna know, and you're brave enough to risk the answer hurtin'. Invite her to the weddin', plain. Yeah, it could go bad. Everything real does, eventually. Do it anyway.
— Wolverine
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