My feeling when I first read this strip is a reminder that this is Sven with his remaining best friend in the cast. Hannelore and he went on a 'play date', if you remember and Hannelore became his confident by more recent strips. She was the one who helped him get his head together after his ill-timed confession to Faye. She was also the one who persuaded him to reconcile with Dora. So, in a lot of ways, this is like Dora or Tai going to Marten for relationship advice.
This makes me wonder if the new character arc for Sven is going to be addressing how much he's changed as a person and whether he really wants to be this new person at all. Using the comparison with Hannelore (who, I think, was originally written to be Marten's post-Faye romantic interest and would have been more like Dora turned out before Jeph suddenly realised he had a much better used for her) and how Dora has grown, I think Jeph is giving us a clue of what he already thinks the right conclusion would be.