He Wasn't That Great. So Why Can't You Stop?
He texted back in three days. Just "hey" — lowercase, no punctuation, no apology. And I, a grown woman with a career and opinions and a passport, felt a full-body flood of relief. When did "he texted back" become enough to feel like winning?
Boondock Rebel · March 2026 · 10 min read
On the strange, exhausting, deeply human addiction to men who make you work for crumbs — and why the available ones feel so unbearably boring.
He texted back in three days. Not three hours — three days. And when he finally did, it was a lowercase "hey" with no punctuation. No apology. No explanation. Just "hey," like he'd been gone three minutes and not three days.
And I — a grown woman with a career and opinions and a passport — felt a full-body flood of relief.
When did "he texted back" become enough to feel like winning?
We have a problem. Not all of us, not always — but enough of us, enough of the time, that we should probably stop whispering about it and just say it out loud: a lot of women are addicted to men who are just not that available. Not unavailable in a brooding, complicated, needs-more-time way. Unavailable in a this is who I am and I'm not changing way. And we keep showing up anyway. Hopeful. Dressed well. Pretending we're fine with it.
Robin Norwood wrote Women Who Love Too Much in 1985. Forty years later the book still sells. That's not a coincidence. That's a diagnosis.