Page 48 of A Solid Guide to Surviving a Situationship

It happened after sex.

We were lying in bed, the room still warm, with the kind of quiet that felt soft instead of empty. My body was relaxed, my guard down in a way it rarely was. Moments like that had a way of making everything feel certain, like whatever Victor and I were building was real.

Victor was scrolling through his phone beside me. Casual. Unbothered.

And then, out of nowhere, he said, “I still have Grindr on my phone, you know.”

I turned my head to look at him.

He didn’t look guilty. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t even look at me when he said it.

It was just… information to him.

“I don’t use it anymore. Just letting you know,” he added, like it was supposed to settle the igniting hurt inside me.

We had been seeing each other for two months.

Two months of dates. Of conversations. Of sleeping together. Of me slowly, quietly building something in my head that felt like forever.

But there it was.

Grindr.

Still in his phone—existing.

That sharp shift in my chest wasn’t loud or dramatic but was just enough to feel everything slightly unstable.

Because to me, Grindr wasn’t just an app. It meant access. It meant options. It meant that any given moment, someone else could be my replacement.

And I hated what that did to my mind—how it quickly made me question things.

Was I enough?

Was I temporary?

Was this real for him, or just convenient?

And I wanted to ask. I wanted to say something. Anything. I wanted to tell him that it bothered me. That it didn’t sit right with me. That I didn’t understand why it still needed to be there if what we had was real.

But the words stayed where they always did: inside my mind.

“Okay,” I said instead.

Just like that.

Okay.

As if I had agreed to something.

As if it didn’t bother me at all.

Victor nodded, like the conversation had ended before it even began.

And it actually did. But the feelings didn’t.

It stayed.

Quiet.