Last Year's Shaggage

I'm a woman who's had a casual hookup thing with a guy for almost two years. I want a serious relationship, and I really like him and would like it to be with him. When we're together, we have a great time, but he can go a week or two without contacting me. Last week, he showed up late to my birthday, with no present and not even a card. I know I should cut him off, but the sex is great, and there's nobody else on the horizon. Any chance he'll finally realize I'm a catch and come around?

--Hoping

The guy didn't even give you a birthday card. Even the car wash gives you a birthday card. Any guy with an IQ exceeding the highway speed limit gets that birthdays are a big deal to most women. And if you care about birthdays and a guy cares about you, he'll step up -- at the very least by running into a drugstore, grabbing a card, and checking that the pre-printed heartfelt message inside isn't "To my very special grandson! On his very special day!" In a hookup situation, it actually isn't crazy to hope for an upgrade from sexfriend to girlfriend. In a survey by Kinsey Institute researcher Justin Garcia, 51 percent of the people who had hookups went into them hoping to kick-start a romantic relationship. In another survey, 9.8 percent of hookups led to committed relationships. However, there's a progression that takes place in going from lust to emotional attachment. It has a hormonal profile and a general timetable, and, well, two years into a sex thing, the attachment train is probably well out of the station. In other words, it's time to take this relationship to the next level -- "the end." On a positive note, it's possible that removing yourself from this guy's life will make him realize that he loves you and needs you in it -- leading him to start showing boyfriend-type attentiveness. Either way, you're setting yourself up to have a man you can count on to be there for you -- and not just naked and at the ready whenever his Wi-Fi goes down.