Tony from Bensonhurst
It was fun until it really wasn't anymore!
I met Tony a few weeks after I found out my ex-boyfriend didn’t love me anymore and was dating someone else. We had one of those perfect first dates where the conversation flows and you forget what time it is. I knew I liked him when he mentioned reading Edwidge Danticat for an African American literature class during undergrad. When he thought it was awesome that my Substack essay “Ben from Hinge” went viral. When he also loved the band Big Thief. When he told a story about waiting in line to get his Arcade Fire record signed at that old vinyl store in Williamsburg that no longer exists.
We finished our chips and salsa and bopped from a restaurant on Cortelyou to Bad Therapy, the not-so-new bar on the corner. Lingering just a few paces behind me on our walk back to my place (my parents’ house), he grabbed my hand to pull me back. He brought me into his chest and kissed me. He caught me by surprise. I met him with an open mouth.
“You kissed me with an open mouth,” he smirked.
“Is that a problem?” I said. “How should I kiss, like this?” I pushed my lips tightly together and pecked at him like a pigeon. Tony made fun of me for it. Before we said goodbye, he asked to see me again the following week.
Tony Hinge
Saturday, May 2nd
I had so much fun, thanks again goodnight :)
Tony was dreamy. A John Snow lookalike with a prominent nose, a dark mustache, and thick curly black hair that swam down and around his ears and neck. Tony tasted good, and those first few times we went out, I think I forgot I even dated someone named Chase for three years. I forgot it was what would have been our anniversary on our second date.
Laying my head to rest on his chest in the meadow in Prospect Park, I shared how absurd it was that people have dating rosters, how I am only interested in genuine connection, how ghosting is cowardly.
“Men are trash,” he joked in agreement.
“That’s biological essentialism. You’ve given me no reason to distrust you.” I was half joking, but he took my point. When I voiced my opinions Tony seemed to really appreciate what I had to say. He thanked me for sharing with him. Yearners at heart, we bonded over being anxious in relationships and attaching quickly.
For a month, Tony made me feel special. Following every hangout he sent me a text to confirm he had a good time and reminded me of the same the following week.
Tony Hinge
Sunday, May 10th
Heyy gm
It was so nice just to lat about all day Friday
Tony asked me how my day was going every single day and often said good morning. We’d spent our second date talking and kissing. We got coffee when it started to rain in the park. We got pizza after coffee. We split a Diet Pepsi. We split a cupcake. We split another cupcake. My parents were away for the weekend. I insinuated that maybe he could come over after his dinner thing that night, but at the last second I’d changed my mind. I’d rather not put pressure on it. I fell asleep watching John Snow and Egret on Game of Thrones instead.
—
Tony Hinge
Tue, May 12th
I made an 8pm res at cafe Paulette
On Saturday
Went with the French Place :)
When I saw Tony in front of the restaurant from the opposite street corner in a polo and a nice pair of jeans, he met me promptly with a public smooch. The first summer night in the city where the temperature hadn’t dropped yet, it was humid even in the restaurant. The backs of my thighs stuck to the red leather booth seat; my cheeks grew rosy, dampened with sweat. Tony cut pieces of steak for me and helped plate salmon crudo on mini pieces of toast with crème freîche, so I didn’t have to reach across the table. When our server came with the bill Tony took it from his hands before I could even see how much we spent. As I got up out of the booth, Tony pulled out the table so I didn’t have to squeeze against the wall, and he complimented my dress which was short with green olives printed on the off white fabric.
Streetlights glowed yellow, leaving damp hues on the pavement. We walked down Dekalb to find a place to sit and have a cup of coffee. We landed on Roman’s for dessert, where we shared an affogato that was perfectly bitter, sweet and salty. It was just like we had shared that Diet Pepsi and those red velvet and vanilla cupcakes on the previous date.
When I was with Tony I didn’t think about whether or not I should indulge in dessert, I just went in for a big bite. Tony and I took the Q train back to Ditmas Park. He didn’t drop my hand.
“When are you moving into your sublet on the Upper East for your internship this summer?” I asked, making small talk as we exited the station at Newkirk Plaza.
“It fell through, so I’m just going to stay in a hotel in Greenwich Monday through Thursday,” he said. Greenwich was apparently where all the hedge fund offices are these days. He’d be back in Bensonhurst on the weekends. Could he see the disappointment on my face? I figured it would be positive such that we could take things slowly. I didn’t have to plan my summer around him anyway since he wasn’t my boyfriend anyway.
When Tony kissed me he always grabbed me by the nape of my neck. He put my face in his hands and pressed his nose up against mine. For the first time I was filled with genuine gratitude for my prominent ethnically Jewish features. A button nose would not be able to touch his the same way. Entangled on my childhood bed, he said something about how he loved taking me out to dinner and wanted to make me feel special. I said I was sad when he had to go home, but I would be fine.
When I got out of the shower, I saw a text from Tony. It was well into the following morning.
Tony Hinge
Sunday, May 17th
Goodnight maija sleep well :))
—
The summer heat came in quick the next week. By the time I woke up on Monday morning, it was too hot to run, so I wandered around Brooklyn running errands and ended the day reading at Brooklyn Bridge park by Vinegar Hill. Listening to the trains crossing the bridge, I lulled myself into a haze, immersed in my book. Grass between my toes and the pages of my paperback between my fingers, I was happy.
Tony Russo
Mon, May 18th
What’s the day bringing u
I smiled at what had over the course of a few weeks become routine. I asked him to see each other that week preemptively because I knew I had a lot going on. We decided to do something on Friday. On Thursday morning, we were both typing an iMessage at the same time. I could see his little grey dots appear when my thumbs were clicking the screen. His message went through first, and I joked we were in sync.
“I guess I’ll just tell you,” he said.
For a millisecond I held my breath in anticipation.
When I exhaled I saw his message that he had lost his internship.
Apparently his boss messaged him on Linkedin to reject him ahead of their scheduled meeting. I began to doubt whether he had this job in the first place and considered it strange that the sublet also had not worked out. I asked if we could get on the phone to make a plan for Friday. He said he wasn’t in a good place to call. I empathized.
My phone rang that afternoon. Tony had been talking about how much he enjoys bouldering at Vital for weeks; I was intrigued by the climbing walls on the roof of their Williamsburg location. I asked him about losing the job. He didn’t want to talk about it. It was obvious to me that he was very upset, but I tried to respect his boundaries to make him comfortable. He was having a hard day, I could tell. We agreed to go climbing, get a casual dinner and go back to my house.
Friday morning he sent me the climbing waiver to fill out. When I said I added myself as his guest, he responded that Vital was bad about guest passes. I was disappointed he didn’t offer to pay for my day pass via text. When I mentioned to him I was walking over from the L, he said he was going to go ahead inside because it “took him forever to put his shoes on.” I thought he was being silly, although it was atypical that he didn’t wait for me to arrive. To be fair, I was running about 15 minutes late, so I didn’t think much of it.
I walked into the gym. Tony waved to me from across the way. He didn’t come up to me at the front desk and continued to meander by the indoor walls. My debit card purchase went through after multiple failed attempts. As I was putting my bag in a locker, Tony approached me from behind, spun me around and greeted me with a public kiss.
Tony led me up the stairs to the outdoor roof. I wiggled into my shoes and after understanding the grading system at the gym, hopped on a V0 which I knew I would flash. Tony showed me a fun V3 on the wall with the grassy rooftop. I completed the climb which required a maneuver without footholds and topped out, standing on the grassy cover of the roof of the structure. Proud that I still had some residual skill from my time on the climbing team at Brooklyn Boulders, I gazed out at the Manhattan skyline.
Tony was taking a while, so I shouted down to him. Struggling to complete the climb I flashed, he had to do an easier one. When he got to the top he laid down on his back like a corpse and sighed.
“I’m not climbing well today because I ate so much yesterday. I had a yogurt bowl, a fried chicken sandwich, a crunch-wrap, two deli sandwiches…” Tony went on. I didn’t care to know about all this, but I assumed I was making him self conscious because I was a good climber. “You have squirrel power,” he said.
He meant it as a compliment, but I couldn’t help but find it to be diminutive. It wasn’t squirrel power. It was training. I had climbed competitively for years; I have unusually strong arm muscles and back muscles from surfing and lifting weights. He knew all this, but had he forgotten? Had he not cared enough to listen? In all honesty I expected him to be a superior climber because he had been going to Vital most days for the past year. Perhaps I was more agile, but he was still very tall and strong. I'd imagine he could do a V3, at least after a few tries.
As we descended the ladder on the side ledge of the bouldering piece, he asked for beta on another difficult climb on the opposite wall. I proceeded to demonstrate and found myself about halfway up. He couldn’t get himself stable enough to start.
“Sorry, I’m being a little conceited, but I’m just excited! I’ll try not to micromanage you,” I said. He seemed hurt, and I wondered if his lack of confidence had more to do with losing his internship than the climbing.
When I asked him about his week, instead of confiding in me as to how he had lost the internship, he told me about a conversation he had with his sister and his sister in-law about why he had broken up with his first ex—the young woman he dated for 8 years—since he was 16. Apparently he had punched his ex’s father. Somehow that parlayed into telling me how he broke up with his other ex-girlfriend: she was a coke addict and didn’t want him around her friends.
“Are you okay?” Tony asked me after finishing his alarming monologue. Presumably after he got sick of the sound of his own voice. I furrowed my brow and exaggerated an expression of discontentment with my eyes.
“You’re characterizing yourself as volatile. Honestly the way I’m interpreting this, it sounds like you’re warning me about dating you,” I said, on the verge of rolling my eyes. “I’m confused—are you describing yourself now? Or yourself then?”
“I punched her dad when I was 21. That’s not what I’m like now,” he said. I tried to find it within me to believe him. He quickly maneuvered into the prequel to a ‘what-are-we?’ conversation. “How do you think things are going with us?” Tony asked.
“I mean, good, I said. I like you. I knew I liked you on the first date; I’m excited to continue getting to know you. Candidly, hearing about your ex-girlfriends made me uncomfortable, though. I don’t want to spend time discussing them anymore. I think we should focus on each other. You know I went through a really hard year after breaking up with my ex, so I’m very self protective right now. I’m afraid of getting hurt. I’m afraid of getting heartbroken again,” I responded, trying my hand at vulnerability.
“We were going to have to talk about that stuff at some point. I like how things are going too. But we’ve only been on 4 dates, would you really be heartbroken?” Suddenly he had turned the onus on me.
“I mean, I’d probably just be bummed, but generally speaking I’m afraid of being heartbroken.” He had essentially put words in my mouth, and I was frustrated.
“Has anyone ever told you that you look like a HAIM sister?” Tony immediately flattered me to reconcile the awkwardness.
“Why? Because I’m Jewish, I have a Bohemian aesthetic, and I’m pretty?”
He leaned in for a kiss.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
—
Tony beat me upstairs to my room. I was still rambling when he tugged me in his direction. We’d finally figured out how to really kiss each other, that initial awkwardness of choreographing the endeavor had finally subsided. And God, I fucking loved kissing him. I am simply such a sucker for pretty boys. Thrilled just to feign a smooch, I was down to very few brain cells. I loved Tony’s long black curls and his mustache and his meaty, paw-like hands.
When I took off his shirt, there it was:
Bigger than a quarter.
Exactly what I didn’t want to see.
Red and purple on his right shoulder.
And I definitely didn’t give it to him.
“Is that a hickey?” I asked. Pressing into my palms, I scooted to the opposite corner of the couch.
“What? This thing?” He looked over his right shoulder, proud. “Honestly, yeah.” He smirked. He spoke of it like an achievement.
“Did you fuck someone else?”
“Well, I didn’t fuck her.”
“Well, I know we’re not exclusive, but I don’t want to see that on you. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Well, we’re not exclusive. I don’t know what to say.”
“Yeah, I fucking know that. I’m not ready to have that conversation, but why would you show up here with that on you? I don’t want to see that! I shouldn’t have to!”
He said nothing, and then: “So you want to be exclusive?” Again, he was twisting my words.
“I don’t know whether I want to be exclusive. I mean I kinda felt like we were moving in that direction. I just didn’t want to have to talk about this yet.” I covered my eyes, humiliated. What a disaster. In this exact spot less than a week ago he talked a big game about wanting to make me feel special. But if he cared about me, he would have at least tried to be discreet about the hickey. I looked down at my bare belly and waited for his response.
“Honestly I just wanna go right now. This is not the kind of day I wanted to have. This is the last fucking thing I need right now!” He raised his voice at me in anguish. The pace of his speech was alarming. He was, for lack of a better characterization, freaking out.
“Tony, I’m sorry you had a bad week, but I’m just trying to have a conversation with you.” I saw a version of myself in Tony then. Just another kid from South Brooklyn. Plagued by lackluster access to the rest of the city and parents who work work work. I’ve been there done that (minus the hickey): 19 year old me with not a clue what I wanted to do with my life in a pink crop top and size 0 mini jean shorts and a drunk face and mascara flaking onto my cheeks.
“You practically forced me into your house. I didn’t even want to come here. You pushed me in the door.” Tony wouldn’t indulge the empathy I was clearly trying to extend. I was offering him an olive branch. That pink crop top still lives in the back of my dresser drawer. He wouldn’t take it.
“Tony, come on.” The suggestion that I coerced a 6’2” 200+ pound man into my house was ridiculous. It was a lie, and it wasn’t physically possible. I couldn’t lift him if I tried. He got up and started to put his clothes on. The fact that he would get up and leave so abruptly was alarming. The fact that he’d leave me there half clothed after having accused me of forcing myself upon him.
“Look, why don’t you just take some time to process this. I’m not going to be reaching out to you.” I was being as gracious as I could be.
“It sounds like you’re forcing an answer from me. If you’re asking me if this is a romantic connection, the answer is NO. I don’t want to be exclusive with you. I just want to date like a normal person.” To date like a normal person. To have options. But not wanting the person you’ve been seeing regularly for a month to have a hickey from someone else IS dating like a normal person. Attachment is terrifying because attachment leads to heartbreak. But it’s also healthy. It’s also human.
I know crazy. I could love crazy. But I could never love cruel. I could never ever be with someone that blamed me for everything. The burden wasn’t mine to carry. I lead him down the stairs; I asked if he had all his items. He reached for the front door, struggling with the lock. The door sprung open. He glanced back at me over his right shoulder, rolling his eyes.
—
I examined my reflection in the bathroom mirror and sighed. A welt bigger than a quarter protruded from the left side of my neck. Green, red, purple and lumpy, I had one of my very own. I poked it with my pointer fingers, still tender. The thing felt like an ominous warning of what it would be like to love him.
Instinctively I called my brother. Maybe it was my intuition that Tony might come back to the house. In which case, it was better to have some muscle on me. To be safe, we left for our family weekend trip a day early, stopping for ice cream on the road. It was, we decided, absolutely necessary. In the passenger seat, I rehashed the insanity of the past 8 hours, laughing teary-eyed at how ridiculous the situation was. It was fun until it really wasn’t anymore. It was fun until it went so wrong so quickly. It was hard not to just lean your head back and laugh at the whole thing. It was May 22nd. Chase turned 25 that day. And I didn’t remember until now when I’m writing this down.
*Please note: Tony’s name is an alias created to protect his anonymity
Hickeys?
Hinge dates, dinner dates & park dates
Abandon Me & Girlhood by Melissa Febos
Café Paulette & Roman’s in Fort Greene
kissing
Survivor Season 50 & Ozzy Lusth <3
Reading Lena Dunham’s Famesick & rewatching Girls
Affogato
Poetica in Windsor Terrace
Bearded Lady in Prospect Heights
Sending harder than your Hinge date
Heart the Lover by Lily King and other popular fiction
John Snow and Game of Thrones
Summer silliness!!!!
Carvel pistachio flavored ice cream
Bad date sibling rescue
GO KNICKSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
What’s Next on the Substack?
Let me know what I should write about next in the comments!
I want to hear from you!
DM me. Let’s go get coffee <3
This piece does such a good job of describing the emotional whiplash of early dating stages. I loved it (and the cover art too lmao).
Elite content, per usual