Kelly Conaboy is writing an advice column for Dipp readers. It's going to be very serious. So serious, in fact, we named it Very Serious: An Advice Column by Kelly Conaboy. Just email her at kelly.conaboy@gmail.com and each week, Kelly will solve one lucky reader's biggest problem. You can read all of Kelly's excellent advice here.

Dear Kelly,

Do flaky guys deserve a chance? A guy recently messaged me after three months of silence, and then another guy didn’t message me for a week and was like, “Sorry I was flaky, how was your weekend?” Should I even respond?

-Paul

Dear Paul,

My immediate instinct is to say absolutely not, never text those guys again, forget they exist, throw your phone into the ocean, run into the woods, live your life among the trees. But I guess let’s think about it.

I’ll say first that there is something really unnerving about how dating apps make all of the humans on them disposable. I dislike thinking about it. Scrolling past people. Sending them a message and then never sending another one. Thinking of humans with full lives and families and friends as interchangeable and forgettable names on a device. It’s disturbing in a way similar to the way all activity on the internet is disturbing. (Except what we are doing right here of course, Paul.) I really do not like it. And yet. These are our circumstances, Paul. We are alive together in the year 2021. We have to figure out how to manage it. So let’s figure it out.