My mind is a wad of gummy worms.

He doesn't get much useful advice and soon the guys are arguing about how long you can pursue someone before it starts getting pathetic. Holmberg is at one end of the spectrum at two weeks ("We're rich professional athletes, man, we shouldn't have to try that hard.") and Wyatt Hayes is on the other at three months ("Maybe she likes you but just doesn't want the WAG lifestyle. You need to prove to her that you see her as a person with her own goals separate from yours.")

Then someone notices that Ilya, despite his wealth of experience, hasn't chimed in yet and asks, "What do you think, Cap?"

"Two years."

The entire room goes still.

"What?"

"Two years," Ilya repeats, completely unashamed. "Is not pathetic to go for what you want. Not if you think they're worth it."

In sync, every person in the room turns to look at Shane, who's pretending to fiddle with the laces on his skates, looking pink-faced and vaguely pleased.

Finally, Holmberg turns to the rookie. "Okay, I guess two years is fine if it's Shane Hollander. Is your girl Shane Hollander?"

The poor rookie has no response to that. His girl is, indeed, not literally Shane Hollander.

"Man, gay people move different," LaPointe mutters.

hey tumblr! did we know about the AI sharing option??

direct quote: "Prevent this blog's content—even in reblogs—from being shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models."

to opt out of AI training on PC: on the left column, click on the "Account" tab. click on your blog's name/icon. on the right column click on "View blog". click the "Blog settings" button. scroll _all the way down to the last option_ right before "Blocked Tumblrs". hit the toggle button so it is lit up blue and the circle is on the right. on mobile: click the little person's head icon on the bottom menu (all the way on the right). click the gear icon in the top right. click on "Visibility" (instead of privacy for some reason??). hit the toggle button so it is lit up blue and the circle is on the right.

(if you do this on either PC or mobile, it will effect both. you don't have to do it twice for the same blog)

you are now opted out from your blog training AI. and make sure you do this for EVERY BLOG YOU OWN!

Yutaka Murakami's "Foreign Books and a Kitten"