That was then, this is now

That was then, this is now is the rationale Kate MacKenna uses to contain the significance of her night with Dylan Buchanan in Boston. Repeated as a boundary against renewed intimacy, it also becomes a measure of the distance between what Kate says she wants and what she feels when Dylan accepts her explanation without protest.

The Explanation as a Boundary

After Dylan leaves her at her door, Kate recognizes that her “that was then, this is now” explanation has apparently reached him. She had expected him to try to kiss her good night; instead, his smiling, non-angry departure leaves her feeling foolish and disgruntled. Although she insists to herself that this was what she wanted, she cannot understand why he did not argue when she said he could move on.

Kate’s effort to settle the matter continues as she gets ready for bed. She reminds herself that Dylan is a playboy with women readily available to him, but cannot quite summon disgust at his sexual history. She turns instead to anger, resenting his unannounced arrival and his manner of taking over. The phrase thus accompanies a defensive attempt to make the encounter seem finished, even as her reactions show that Dylan’s response matters to her.

Repetition and Challenge

During a later drive, Kate again calls their Boston night a mistake and says it cannot happen again, describing it as an unusual circumstance now that they are back to normal. Dylan challenges the premise with a pointed question about whether their present situation is normal, then recognizes the familiar argument as the “that-was-then lecture.” The repeated phrase has become part of their dispute: Kate uses it to separate the past intimacy from the present, while Dylan refuses to treat that separation as self-evident.

He presses the contradiction in Kate’s behavior. She says she does not want him to touch her, yet became upset when she thought he was speaking to a girl back home. His challenge does not establish that Kate has abandoned her boundary; rather, it makes visible the tension between her insistence that the Boston night was over and her jealousy at the prospect of Dylan moving on.

Role in Their Relationship

The expression works both as a verbal shield and as a recurring point of friction. For Kate, calling the encounter a mistake lets her frame intimacy as an exception and declare a return to ordinary terms. But her disappointment when Dylan does not protest, and her irritation at the thought of his other women, complicate that neat division between then and now. Dylan’s reference to the repeated lecture brings that contradiction into the open without resolving it: the words draw a line, while Kate’s responses reveal how much remains unsettled on either side of it.