In Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, after sleeping together for the first time, one of the main characters asks the other, “Do all lovers feel like they’re inventing something?” It’s an insightful question, as anyone who’s been in love can attest; you truly do feel as though you’re going where nobody else has gone before, forging a new path.


In one man’s case, he appears to be laboring under the misapprehension that he and his girlfriend invented spending time together. Collin Rutherford, entrepreneur and founder of a storage company aimed at college students, recently tweeted about the regular “bottle nights” he has with his girlfriend, opening himself up to significant ridicule. But what is a bottle night exactly, you ask?



As Rutherford explains, a bottle night involves turning phones and screens off, grabbing a bottle of wine each, and talking to each other. Truly, it’s a revelation. Rutherford adds, “We simply talk and enjoy each other’s presence. We live together, but it’s easy to miss out on ‘quality time.’” Fair enough, but carving time out to spend an evening with your girlfriend isn’t a new concept, Collin, nor is downing a bottle of wine each in one sitting — those are rookie numbers, anyway.



Rutherford’s post is really just another example of the increasing number of LinkedIn-style posts making their way over to Twitter/X following Elon Musk’s acquisition of the site. Now that posts from verified users are boosted and potentially financially rewarded, there’s more incentive for wannabe entrepreneurs and self-appointed thought leaders to share the kinds of basic, universally-understood observations about the human experience that you could previously only find on LinkedIn. The system worked — those guys got their generic posts off, but only other people who spend time on LinkedIn had to see them, so they weren’t bothering anybody. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.



Despite being mocked ruthlessly in the days since posting his bottle night tweet, Rutherford hasn’t been deterred. Instead, like a true hustler, he’s started flogging bottle night T-shirts, managing to both monetize and kill the meme with the same stone.


Lame.