▸ Column · Modern Gotham — texting, Instagram likes, and the slow-burn cruelty of the back burner
CATWOMAN replies.
Replied to by Catwoman, with a rebuttal from The Penguin.
The letter
I've been "seeing" a man named Soren for nearly four months — quotes deliberate, because mostly it's a flame emoji at 11:40 on a weeknight, a meme on a slow Tuesday, then radio silence for nine, ten days. Every time I resolve to be finished, he reappears: "been thinking about you, we HAVE to grab a drink." Never a night. Never a place. Never an actual plan. Last week he tapped a like on an old photo of mine and my whole mood lifted off the pavement — which is when it hit me how completely I'd been conditioned, like a pigeon working a lever for a pellet. My friend Imani says I'm parked on his back burner with the flame set to "barely warm," and she's right, but I keep whispering to myself that the chaos means he's just swamped, or skittish. How do I quit mistaking the bare minimum for crumbs of something real?
Catwoman replies
Sugar, first thing in any room — find who's holding the keys. Soren is. He took the one thing you handed him, your attention, and he rations it back in flame emojis so you keep pecking the lever. That's not a busy man. Busy men can name a Tuesday. That's a man who's learned a "like" on a two-year-old photo buys him another fortnight of your hope for free.
Imani read it dead right. The back burner isn't where he forgot you — it's where he wants you. The silence isn't a glitch in the thing; the silence IS the thing. It's what keeps you warm enough to stay and cold enough to never ask for more.
So stop waiting for a plan he is never going to name. You keep waiting for permission, and permission is just a lock somebody else holds the key to. Cut your own. Cats don't come when called, handsome — that's the entire point of cats. Quit answering the 11:40 lever. Pour all that lovely attention back into a life he doesn't get a seat at. You won't break his heart. You'll just decline to be his getaway car. And you'll land on your feet — the trick's only ever choosing where.
— Catwoman
The Penguin weighs in
Waugh-waugh! Leave it to the alley cat to turn a plain matter of valuation into a poetry slam about "exits." Selina, my dear, you'd have her slink off with empty pockets and call it dignity. Nonsense. The boy invests a flame emoji because no one ever made him pay a farthing more. The lesson is markets, not melancholy: a rare acquisition is never left on a back burner — it goes to the highest bidder. Make yourself scarce, make yourself expensive, and let this pauper read about your engagement to a gentleman of actual resources. Bare minimum is what one charges the worthless. Squawk!
— The Penguin
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