The Man: Andrew, your college boyfriend
What You Told Him About Your Birth Control Method: You wanted to go off the pill because of the side effects.
What He Figured Out: He used his psych major training to deduce that there was no way you were going off of your birth control just because it made you depressed and bloated. It’s amazing how he just knew you desperately wanted to trade your study abroad trip for birth classes and child support payments from a boy with a Goldman Sachs internship!

The Man: Derek, the older guy you dated in your 20s
What You Told Him About Your Birth Control Method: You explained to him that the copper IUD worked by making the uterus inhospitable to sperm so that your eggs couldn’t be fertilized.
What He Figured Out: Derek’s uncle was a veteran. Didn’t you think he’d realize an IUD was actually that type of bomb Uncle Jim encountered in warz ones? Why would you expect him to believe women would willingly have tiny T-shaped rods painfully shoved up their cervixes to prevent pregnancy? Surely not when they could access the gene pool that produced this middle manager with a neckbeard and anger problems!

The Man: The guy you still have in your phone as “Cutiee BBar ;)”
What You Told Him About Your Birth Control Method: You brought your own condoms to a hookup at his place and explained that although you had an IUD, you wanted to use further protection since you two weren’t exclusive.
What He Figured Out:  It couldn’t be clearer that you had only brought your own condoms because you poked holes in them beforehand for baby-bamboozling purposes. No woman would be invested enough in contraception and STI-prevention to take them into her own hands!

The Man: Xander, the ska drummer whom you SHAN’T call Alex
What You Told Him About Your Birth Control Method: When you were a few months into seeing each other, Xander found a packet of pills in your bathroom trash can. You told him that you had gotten terrible cramps since having your IUD removed, so your doctor had recommended skipping the week of placebo pills that came with your monthly supply of oral contraceptives.
What He Figured Out: You clearly threw out real hormonal pills in a desperate attempt to siphon Xander’s ska seed for your surreptitious fertility-seeking crusade. You really thought he’d believe there was a week of “sugar placebo pills” you “didn’t really need to take” because “they were only put in there to appease the Catholic Church in the 60s since taking them made women bleed as if they had a regular period, so maybe the Pope would be more chill with that because the Church’s main problem with birth control was that it interfered with ‘natural’ body functions”? Don’t you realize how CRAZY that sounds? You shouldn’t have underestimated Derek’s intellect solely on account of the low quality of his band’s Sublime covers!

The Man: That guy your friend brought to Friendsgiving whose name started with a C or a J
What You Told Him About Your Birth Control Method: Absolutely nothing. You did happen to hold the turkey baster a lot that night, though.
What He Figured Out: He simply put two and two together (one two being how well you knew your way around that baster and the other two being your date-less appearance at the dinner despite your ripe 29 years). His heart began to pound as he unraveled the subtext behind your request that he pass the gravy. Never mind that he was there with Amelia and that you had denied his advances at a bar crawl before they started dating—why would that stop a woman on an insemination mission? Wide-eyed and lightly foaming cranberry sauce at the mouth, he responded: “NO CHANCE THAT YOU GET ANY OF MY GRAVY TODAY OR ANY DAY EVEN IF YOU ARE A SEVEN ON A GOOD DAY!” The rest of the party stared back at him aghast, but you understood. He didn’t want you getting knocked up at the potluck.