Ben from Hinge

Welcome Back to Crushing!!!!

My therapist told me I needed to go on a date during our session on Tuesday afternoon, and that night, a 6’4” 27 year-old Jewish boy named Ben who went to Princeton commented “uh oh” on my first Hinge profile picture, and I was embarrassingly excited. His first prompt was about how he hit his neighbor’s mailbox during his driver’s test, and when I read it I let out an exasperated breath of air through my nostrils. He was gorgeous too: green eyes, curly hair—there was even a picture of him holding a dog (a good sign for sure) and another in a floral denim jacket (not afraid of femininity). I fist pumped in my mind as we bantered back and forth.

Tuesday, October 21

Hinge

Uh oh is right hi Ben

FYI I failed my drivers test the first

time but that was because a

homeless man ran into the street and

I yelped

No mailbox but maybe equally

devastating?

I’ll have to check with the officials - but that feels worthy of a drink

What isn’t there is that I failed

my driver’s test a second time bc I hit a snowbank - so only

subways for me

Failed my drivers test the first time but passed your test huh?

We’ll have to exchange battle stories

over drinks tho (you’ll be commuting

via subway of course)

Well it would certainly appear that way huh

Shoot me a text at ######## - hopefully the subways work

→ iMessage

Hi Ben! Maija from Hinge

How’s your week going so far?

Hey how are we - anything interesting

happen so far?

(This week)

So I met Jenni Konner who co-wrote

Girls with Lena Dunham

and her husband who’s like this big director

at Netflix — that was cool

And how is ur week going haha

I couldn’t believe a normal attractive smart person had actually liked me and asked me out on Hinge, and my faith in online dating and dating in general was suddenly renewed.

Then I didn’t hear from him.

FML.

I got through my classes on Wednesday without crying, and as soon as I escaped the campus gates I then started crying hysterically. I called my mom, and I bought a bag of chips for the ride home. I kept on having to pause my audio book because my mind drifted – ruminating on Ben, ruminating on what my ex could possibly be doing with the various women who started popping up on my Instagram explore page which Instagram seems to be suggesting that he has recently started following.

On Thursday I woke up heavy. My eyes were crusty. I made myself go on a run. I was moving through jello. My knees hurt. I put on too many layers.

I texted my therapist for an emergency session.

“I just feel so lonely. How is anything going to work for me? Why would I leave this amazing boyfriend? There are so few good guys. And, he was a good guy.”

“But then why did you break up twice? And, you told him that you didn’t want to talk to him, and he said it was a good idea. What happened to the Princeton guy?”

“Ghosted.”

On Friday, I peeled myself up out of my sheets and blankets to go to yoga. When I rubbed my moisturizer onto my face, I felt like I was coaxing myself awake.

I emerged from the class to several texts from Ben apologizing for taking so long to respond. Thank God. Thank you, God. Thank you, Universe. Whatever my yoga instructor was saying about my light in the universe being seen by other lights in the universe had worked! I knew the yoga classes would pay off eventually!

He asked me if we could grab a drink that night after my restaurant shift, and before I even responded, I was thinking about how I would do my makeup and what I would wear to the shift that met the restaurant dress code and was also some perfect combination of subtle and sexy. I landed on black jeans, black boots, a sheer tank top that you could see my black lace bra through and a black crocheted sweater. The holes in the sweater and the translucence of the tank top, I assumed, would leave him wanting more.

—

Sipping my water bottle in the restaurant kitchen, I confided in my coworker that I was going on a date. Plates of Chinese food brushed past us in the arms of runners, leaving a faint trail of steam. I eyed the passing plates, but I couldn’t hide my literal exuberance.

He remarked that this was “a big deal.” “First date after the breakup.”

I blushed.

To make the minutes go by faster, I chatted with every patron who entered the restaurant. When the time finally came for me to leave, I devoured my post-shift wonton soup in the streetlight outside the restaurant. Ben said I could meet him at a bar off Smith street and told me not to “rush” because he still had to “shower.” I joked that I wouldn’t be showering and may smell “faintly of Chinese,” but that he would “deal with it.”

I tried to take my time like he suggested, but I couldn’t help but walk quickly to the bar he selected, joyously bouncing up and down to the playlist on my phone titled solely with the disco ball emoji. In my fluster, I realized a few blocks in that my earring had fallen out of my right ear. Part of it had been collected by my hair, and after scanning the sidewalk over, I couldn’t find the missing piece, especially in the darkness. I decided to leave it behind. I kept walking.

When I arrived at the bar a few minutes before him, he joked that he was giving me time to “air out the Chinese.” Just on cue, he crossed the street towards me and went in for a hug. As we entered the bar, he reached his arm above my head to hold open the door from behind me. Blood rushed to my cheeks. I felt almost shy about the pleasure I took in such a kind, easy gesture. I took the seat in the dark leather booth and took off my jacket, adjusting my crocheted sweater over my black sheer tank top. He sat with his muscular and long legs crossed in a chair opposite me. My stomach lurched. The table between us taunted me.

Words poured out of my mouth, but I can’t remember what I said or what he said, and when the server came to take our order we both hadn’t even glanced at the drink menu. When she came back to ask if we were finally ready for her, I ordered a specialty cocktail I thought I’d like. I insisted on a “cheers” when we got our drinks, and the mimosa esque beverage in the flute glass that I sipped was too sweet, although I would’ve drank the whole thing so as not to come off as picky or ungrateful. Apparently, I wasn’t good at hiding the fact that it wasn’t very good, and so Ben insisted that I order something else.

As we waited for my Aperol spritz to arrive, Ben went on about how “you shouldn’t spend money on things you don’t like,” and how if “you order something you don’t like it’s okay to send it back.” It “wasn’t rude in this case,” he argued, because I had been “indecisive about the cocktail,” and wasn’t sure if I was “going to like it anyway,” when the server took my order.

His excuses dragged on, but I was content with the idea that someone could just order me another drink if I didn’t like the one I had ordered. I recalled the time in which my ex had ordered a cocktail he didn’t like at a fancy white table cloth dinner with my family, and when my parents and I insisted he order something else, he suffered through the drink anyway (at the time, I found it endearing). When I took a sip of the Aperol spritz, I relaxed into the leather booth, and it was a pleasant reminder why we had broken up.

The alcohol made my cheeks even more rosey, and I was comforted by Ben’s subtle ploy to get us to touch considering the table between us. He was confused about where I lived in relation to Prospect Park, and he told me to show him where my house was on a map. I reached around the left side of the table to point it out to him, and our fingers grazed on the screen as I traced the straight blue line south of the park to the blue dot where my house is. I couldn’t believe how well the date was going.

We walked along Smith street after we left the bar, and as we walked, I realized I was just following him—that I didn’t actually know where he was taking us. I stopped him after several blocks by the Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner.

“Wait, so like what are we doing…are you walking to the subway? Because I actually think I’m going to call a car home.” He mumbled something about taking the train, and as I opened the Uber app, I said I was “bummed because I was enjoying walking.”

“Well, let’s walk then,” he announced.

He was a few paces ahead of me the entire time, and I assumed he was maybe nervous? But in the dim and hazy light of the storefronts, we babbled about my letterman jacket and his suede jacket and his overzealous statement that “DNA footwear is a great place to buy shoes.”

When we got to the Jay Street station, he tucked underneath an awning and made puppy dog eyes at me.

“Well, this was nice,” he said. He tilted his chin down slightly, hoping to catch my gaze. “You don’t smell like Chinese, by the way.”

“Good!” I giggled. “Yeah, I had a great time,” I said.

I opened the Uber app and ordered my car in slow motion, wistful that he might say something else, although I’m not sure what. I suggested we cross the street, so I could be on the same side as my car.

It was then that Ben grabbed me from an arms length away and kissed me. I couldn’t help but think that this moment was the epitome of the idiom “planting one on ‘em.” I pushed him so his body was against a cement pillar and kissed him back, and his tongue maneuvered into my mouth. I had missed this: kissing and tongues and the sticky exchange of saliva and the dopamine of it all.

As soon as the moment had begun it was over. My phone buzzed with an alert that my Uber had arrived.

I asked when I could “see him again,” and he said in a few weeks and to text him then and when I got home. He gave me one more kiss, and I pried open the door to my car, and as I slammed it shut, I saw Ben disappear into the subway through the window. With my pointer finger I traced my lips in dopey satisfaction all the way home.

iMessage

Saturday, October 25th at 12:58am

I am home!! Thank you for drinks (for making me order

something else too). Hope to see you again very soon

Ben, I had a great time.

Ok good…thank you for rolling

with the punches with me

Saturday, October 25th at 10:21pm

did you successfully secure your Halloween costume lol

Saturday, November 1st

Delivered.

What had I done to fuck this up? Had I come on too strong? Was it too much to use his name in the text? Maybe he just had a busy week and weekend? Maybe I’m going to hear from him any second? Maybe I don’t want to be with someone who kisses me and ghosts me anyway? Maybe I forgot what it’s like to be disrespected, left on read, ghosted…? Maybe my good boyfriend gave me too much hope? Maybe I’m never going to meet someone like him ever again? Maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up on a first date.

I draft messages on my Notes app:

• Hope your travels haven’t made you too miserable this week, wanted to see if you got my last text

• Checking in to see if you got my last message

• Were you lying? Did I smell like Chinese food?

• Hey did you want to see each other this week

• When someone kisses me I expect to hear from them

• So I guess you didn’t like what you ordered?

• Am I crazy or did we have a vibe?

• Lmao can’t believe ur actually ghosting me right now!!!!!

• Did you end up finding a new cocktail to sip on?

I honestly don’t care enough to send any of them.

---

• Wonton soup

• Marc Jacobs spring sneakers

• Zara pants

• running in the park with gloves on

• Getting ghosted!!!

• letterman jackets

• David Bars (sue me)

• hot yoga at Yoga Box

• LaRina Pastificio & Vino in Greenpoint

• The Clover Club

• Planting one on ‘em

• Brooklyn Inn

• sliced apples

• brightly colored scarves

---

What’s Next on the Substack?

• Another ghost story?

I want to hear from you!

• DM me. Let’s go get coffee <3