He stews at the one-sided familiarity of the situation: once again, he’s got to be the one who accepts, forgives, tolerates, pretends not to be wounded, pretends he has stopped hoping—all this sapping emotional labor to preserve his dignity and assuage her guilt, and also because he doesn’t want to spoil his chances of dating her in the future, since it’s her prerogative, after all, to change her mind.
