“He says 'we' when the bill comes and 'just friends' when his coworkers ask — pick a pronoun.”

Here is my thesis: a situationship is a contract nobody signs but everyone enforces selectively. For four months he has been fluent in the first-person plural — "we should get the big table," "we're splitting this," "can we do your Netflix since mine's maxed" — the royal, cohabitational "we." But at his work happy hour last Tuesday, when a coworker asked, I became "a friend." Not even "a good friend." A friend. He has a toothbrush at mine, he has opinions about my throw pillows, he Venmo-requested me $23 for "our" groceries — and then downgraded me to acquaintance in real time. I'm not asking for a ring. I'm asking for grammatical consistency.

I simply find it interesting that a pronoun is now grounds for litigation. Yes, I said "we" about a dinner reservation, because two people were, in fact, eating. That is arithmetic, not a commitment. As for the happy hour — I said "a friend" because we have never once, in four months, defined this as anything else. She had every opportunity to raise the topic and instead chose to raise it here, publicly. Per my recollection, she also introduced me to her sister as "someone I'm seeing," which was news to me. I would gently suggest the inconsistency is mutual, and that the $23 was, to the penny, her half.