▸ Column · Modern syndicate-era Gotham; a city advice column read by both the gala set and the gutter.
CATWOMAN replies.
Replied to by Catwoman, with a rebuttal from The Penguin.
The letter
I finally got my own place in Gotham at thirty-four — first time in my life nobody else has a key — and I love it like a held breath I'm not ready to let out. My girlfriend, Solveig, just found a two-bed with a balcony we could split, and she's already mocked up the furniture in some app, she's that thrilled. But every time I picture handing in my lease and folding my life into hers, my chest cinches shut. Not because I don't love her — because I'm not done being alone yet. When I floated "maybe next year," her face fell and she asked if I was quietly planning to leave, which is the opposite of what I meant. Now she forwards listings and I leave them on read, and the quiet is doing more harm than any honest talk could. How do I tell her I'm all in on us but not ready to share a bathroom, without her hearing a soft breakup?
Catwoman replies
Here's the leverage, handsome: you've got the one thing nobody hands back once you surrender it — a door that opens for your key and nobody else's. You clawed your way to that at thirty-four. Don't you dare apologize for liking the view.
Solveig isn't the villain here. She's just scared, and scared people read silence as a verdict. That's the actual crime in your letter — not the balcony, the leaving-on-read. Every listing you ghost, she's writing the breakup you swear you don't want, and signing your name to it.
So come out of the quiet. Say the true thing out loud, the part that won't fit in a furniture app: you're all in on her, and you're not done living alone, and those two can sit at the same table. I've got a friend — Ivy, the one person I trust without a hand on my exit — and we have never once shared a bathroom. Loving someone and merging dens are different keys, sugar.
You want safe or you want free? With the right person you needn't pick — but only if you speak. Cut her a "not yet" that isn't a "no," and hand it over warm. Don't make her guess. Guessing is where you both lose.
— Catwoman
The Penguin weighs in
Waugh-waugh! Leave it to the alley cat to spin cold real estate into a greeting card. My dear correspondent, ignore the feline's purring about "warmth." Two leases are two assets, and a gentleman of business never surrenders a property to a girl with a decorating app. Keep both flats in your own name, let her festoon hers with throw pillows, and you'll hold the only leverage that matters when romance curdles — as romance always does. Selina, my pet, you double-crossed me on the harbor job and still you'd counsel giving square footage away gratis. Hold the deed. Hold the umbrella. Let the besotted ones beg for a key. Waugh!
— The Penguin
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