OnHINGEd: Entry 4.4.

"The Last Supper?"

Okay, 2BD—Date 4 with Mr. Dimples is here.

NOTE: This one's a bit of a saga, so grab your popcorn and crank up that screen brightness. For a special treat, I’ve added an option to listen to a version of this entry out loud via Speechify (via free trial)—perfect for any headphone user’s commute. ENJOY my sweet 2Bs!

The text banter from the end of Date 3 carried on triumphantly into the work week. I was now a self-declared enterprise value expert, and he was firing off texts like a pro, addressing me by name (that’s Miss 2BD, thank you very much). I won’t lie, I was catching rogue Friday night flashbacks and blushing like a schoolgirl. But reality check: great banter does NOT equal great communication. And while he’s finally texting back with some actual speed, it’s still mostly flirtation, not proactivity.

He does ask me what my schedule looks like for the week, and since he’s busy on Saturday and I have a weekend trip planned, I can only offer up my Sunday night or Tuesday night accordingly. I could write a whole separate substack about the momentum decline of weekend trips while dating in NYC, but I’m going to save that rant for a rainy day.

He says to “shoot for tmrw (Sunday)” — once again giving just enough to keep things vague, but not enough to make a plan. But hey, at least he’s committing to Sunday… right? Well, despite the supposed loose plan, it’s me (again) who follows up to ask what time we’re meeting. He suggests 8 p.m., I say great… and then I have to ask, “Where?” until he finally sends me a Google Maps pin for a cute French bar/restaurant. I’ve heard from one of my bachelor friends that it’s a notorious date spot. Naturally, I let him know his secret spot has officially been un-gatekept, and he’s shattered but says it has magical powers. I text back a “See you there” to Dimples and try to ignore the growing nerves twisting in my stomach.

This is already Date 4—which feels like a lot—and technically our first real sit-down meal (if we don’t count Five Guys last week, which… let’s not). And honestly? If I think about it, I still don’t know much about this guy. He could be summed up in, like, six or seven bullet points.

• From Texas.

• Works a crazy finance job—groundbreaking.

• In the unlikely event he has free time: hot yoga (still think that’s odd), drinks with friends, drinks with me, gym…? Also groundbreaking, am I right?

• Likes to barbecue? So his death row meal is probably “a perfectly grilled steak.”

• Middle child, but mom’s favorite.

• Is learning to play the harmonica (this was an ick oversight—damn, I didn’t even tell my friends this lol).

• His parents are divorced, and he doesn’t believe in therapy—remember that, too?

F**k B—what are his hobbies? When he’s not bantering, his texting style is as dry as an apricot. And yet, I’m still cutting him slack, because the man doesn’t seem to get out much... and he’s still putting my stomach in a tailspin. Not to mention, the haze from last Friday night hasn’t fully lifted, he’s left marks.

As I’m getting ready on Sunday night, I challenge myself to open up a little more—to learn more about who he is. It hasn’t even occurred to me to ask what he’s looking for… nor am I even sure I’m equipped (or ready) to answer that question myself. I don’t let the thought linger too long, though. I’m prone to self-sabotage, and overanalyzing why none of my past flings have made it past the third or fourth date does not seem like a good idea. I need a drink.

I pour myself some leftover red and stare into my closet. What looks haven’t I debuted yet? I go with a cute and casual corseted top, low-rise jeans, Sambas, and a cardigan my bestie, let’s call her Shaw, has explicitly instructed me to tactfully remove at some point during the night. I slick my hair into a low pony, apply a juicy lip combo, and just like that—I’m good to go.

He’s leaning outside the restaurant, waiting for me to arrive. He’s dressed up this time—in a fitted collared sweater, you already know what I’m thinking, and slacks. I suddenly feel oddly underdressed in my Sambas, but I kind of like that it gives him a little more height over me than my boots do.

“Thought you weren’t gonna make it for a second there,” he smirks, flashing a dimple.

I had stupidly gone to the wrong address and had to cab from the other side of fucking town, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Nope, here I am,” I say, breezing past him to the door, which he opens and guides me through.

The restaurant is quiet. Very quiet. It is a Sunday night, after all, but the lack of atmosphere is noticeable. That said, it's offset by the couple also on a date, seated just behind us. The man is speaking in the strongest Southern accent I’ve ever heard. I joke to Dimples that that’s what I had hoped he’d sound like when I first found out he was from Texas. He was amused. The food and wine are both hitting, and I scoop up the last bite of my beef tartare. I decide it’s almost time to take off my cardigan, as per Shaw’s specific instructions.

Our conversation is… well, nothing memorable, now that I think about it. The pauses aren’t awkward, and he is asking questions, but they’re mostly fluff. I catch myself leaning into exaggerated storytelling just to keep myself entertained. At one point, while recounting some crazy work encounter, I even peel off my sweater for dramatic effect. And yep—mission accomplished. His eyes flick down to my chest, and I casually take a sip of wine to break the moment, channeling full Shaw strategy.

Trying to keep my promise to myself, I steer things (and his eyes) in a more thoughtful direction and drop one of Mamba’s recommended questions:
“As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”

For me, my answer’s never changed. It’s always been the same. He pauses to think, then shrugs. “I wanted to be in the military.” Interesting. A flood of follow-up questions immediately bubbles up. Easy, B—don’t turn it into an interrogation.

“What was it about the military that intrigued you?” I ask, keeping it casual.

“Well, two of my aunts served in Afghanistan, and my brother was also in the military,” he replies. Ah. That tracks.

No wonder getting personal details out of him feels like trying to pull the sword from the fucking stone.

He doesn’t offer much more after that, and I let it lie. My mind starts wandering to his past. He mentions how small his high school was, and it hits me—our upbringings could not be more different. I’m grasping for common ground, but not finding much.

As my list of questions dries up and his answers get shallower, so does the wine—and it’s time to go.

He picks up the check while I’m in the bathroom, staring at myself in the mirror, asking the one question on my mind: With all this military affiliation, does that mean he owns a gun? And if the answer is yes… is that kind of hot? Oh god. Lock me up.

What if this means our politics are deeply unaligned? Would that be a dealbreaker? Probably. I’m spiraling.

We leave the restaurant and stop for a nightcap at St. Jardim, which is buzzing for a Sunday night. The host seats us at a booth: one side cushioned, the other not. He’s about to slide into the cushy side when I pull him back and scooch in myself.

“This side’s calling my name, you know,” I say with a grin. He’s got this habit of tacking “you know” onto the end of most of his sentences. I’m not sure if it’s a Texas thing or what, but I give him shit for it.

“Okay, okay, whatever you say—it does look more comfortable,” he says.

“You could just sit here too,” I tease.

He makes a face. “Don’t you just hate those couples who sit on the same side of the booth, though?”

“Yeah, fuck that,” I laugh, giving him a playful shove. He’s already shaking his head when I pull him back down. “Whatever. It’s one drink—you can stay.”

We’ve got a perfect view of the street, so we settle into some people-watching. A gay couple on the corner is taking “fit pic” photos of each other—it’s cute.

“Hey,” Dimples squeezes my leg, nodding toward them. “Think you could take some fit pics of me like that later?”

It’s one of the first jokes he’s made that really cracks me up. His humor is very dry and sarcastic, but hey—it does exist. Just doesn’t come out much.

“Of course I can,” I grin.

We finish our wine and—surprise, surprise—we’re walking back toward my apartment. When we reach the notorious stoop, I pause, waiting for him to make a move. He walks up the stairs, grabs one of those random flyers people leave on your door for cleaning services, glances at it for show, then announces, “I’m coming up.”

Good.

Once inside, my apartment is—once again—spotless. I head to the bar cart and pick out a bottle of wine. Me vs. the cork? A battle I lose every time. Defeated, I hand it off to Dimples. He struggles almost as much (loses a few points for that), but eventually gets it open.

I dig out my trusty pack of Newports, the reserve stash for nights like this, and grab Rufus’s bedazzled lighter. We make our way through my room toward the fire escape. My bedroom door closes behind us, and we both know exactly where this is heading.

Right before the window, my cameras are lined up on display. Dimples spots my beloved Olympus Stylus and points it out. I unhook it, sliding open the lens to show him before climbing out onto the fire escape. I lean against the ladder as he lights my cigarette, then leans back on the railing across from me to light his own. Here we are.

He’s found my speaker along the way, and I’ve prompted him to show me his “country stuff.” I’m not a hater, I’m just not that well-versed. Don’t get me wrong, I can get down to Oklahoma Smokeshow just as much as the next Southern belle, but it’s not my go-to. That said, I liked whatever he was playing. Liquid courage running through my veins, I circle back to the military background. He had mentioned his mom coming to visit him in the city, so I asked why not his dad. He said it was complicated—not their relationship (that was simple), but him as a person.

“Have you ever seen him cry?” I blurt out.

Fuck’s sake, B.

“Yes, but only once.”

I almost laugh to myself because I’ve seen a movie with this exact script before, but I hold it in and don’t push further.

BRRRR. Would you look at that? I’m suddenly chilly! And this man—shockingly—has barely touched me all night. And it’s 1 am.

We contort ourselves one by one through my little window, and this is the part they never show in the movies. It’s always: two leads stumble home, CUT to the door opening, CUT to them crashing into each other, CUT to the clothes coming off, the heaving breathing, the dim lighting. But this is reality, and the reality is I’m in a corset top, so this is going to be fun.

He’s leaning against my wall, putting his wine glass down. I don’t remember what words were exchanged before he pulls me closer for the first kiss of the night.

**SCREEEECH! RECORD SCRATCH EFFECT**

I think I’ve written my fair share of raunchy content in the last entry, so I’ll keep this brief. What matters happened after the night, so I’ll spare you the play-by-play and just say this was a continuation of Couchgate in my room. Yes, it was hot—literally and figuratively—despite the AC blasting. The music was still playing, the lighting wasn’t half-bad, and I finally got to play some Lana (Starboy interlude, of course). Dimples was impressing me again with his sudden forwardness. We ran some bases, chatting in between, me lying on his chest, him teasing me with his fingers, then running the bases again, repeating and repeating… until, at one point, I’ll be honest—he falls. Yes, he falls off my fucking bed. I can’t believe I forgot to mention this when telling my friends, but yes—Dimples literally fell. I have no idea how it happened, but I couldn’t help but stifle a laugh.

Eventually, we fall asleep around 3 am, and when I wake up to his heinous alarm at 8:20 am, it suddenly dawns on me: it’s a Monday morning. He has work at 9. Did he just stay over the night before his big finance job? Damn. Now I’m lying there, thinking, what the hell is the protocol here? Do I need to brush my teeth? I’m kind of leaning on him, and we stay talking for a few more minutes before he gets up and starts getting dressed. He tells me he’s going to Citi Bike home and get “10 minutes of sleep before heading to the office.” Insane.

I announce I’m going to be a bad host and stay in bed. He extends a hand and tells me to have a great trip. I say, “Thank you, I will,” and squeeze his hand back. Then he’s gone.

Well, 2BD, that was the last time I ever saw Dimples.

I didn’t hear from him that day or the next. I was relatively unfazed because he knew I was going away, but a text would’ve been nice—especially since he slept at my house, in my sheets, drank my wine, smoked my cigarettes. But hey, it’s 2025, and he’s a finance bro, so I’m not kidding myself.

However, Larry’s voice was ringing in my head, telling me he was “rude.” By Thursday, when she asked if I’d heard anything from “Toe” (the nickname she and Nigel coined for him after his unpleasant behavior at the club on Date 2), I was slightly embarrassed to say no.

By the time I left, I was already entertaining a convo with a new suitor I’d matched with on Hinge (codename 2BD), just to keep the roster fresh in case things with Dimples took a nosedive. And let me tell you, things went straight down.

But alas, I boarded my plane on Friday for a weekend of sunshine and friends in Miami and hardly gave Dimples a second thought. I was subconsciously expecting to hear from him on Monday when I got back. I didn’t. And I absolutely was not going to text him.

Tuesday night rolled around, and I was at dinner with friends at a new hotspot, which, hi, I can freely share—Soso's! I was filling them in on Dimples’ actions and locking in a date with a new suitor for Wednesday night. I was honestly quite sick of talking about Dimples at this point. My friend Lady Macbeth had started referring to him as “walking Hepatitis-C,” and Larry was going ham with the "Toe" jokes, so it was all I could do to sip my “no-groni” mocktail and Guinness sundae (must try) in peace.

After the Soso’s feast concluded, my girlfriend and I went to the bathroom together, as we do. And I kid you not—she had her pants halfway down and was telling me not to worry and not to fold when—

PING.

Mouth agape, I look down to read the message from REDACTED Someting. Dimples.

I’m slow to process but quick to recover. Was he expecting me to text him that I was back? Nah. I didn’t like that at all. Still, my friends and I rejoiced that it seemed he had swallowed his pride.

I walked home that night, contemplating my next course of action. I called Larry, of course, whose distaste was palpable through the phone. I decided there was no use being petty; instead, I should brush it off and talk to him when I see him next. The next morning, I nonchalantly reply with—

The reason for the “How are you?” is mainly to say, It’s been a week, buddy, what’s up with you? God knows how long it’s going to take him to respond, but I send it and shift my focus to my upcoming date with the new suitor (that date deserves—and will get—its entry shortly). But, since we’re discussing Dimples’ downfall, it’s important you know that, as fate would have it, he responds to my message midway through my date. New guy is in the bathroom, and if you even count a heart-react message as a response… he legitimately disregarded the “How are you?” completely and just hearted my first message. Huh? You do have to be intelligent to be an analyst, right?

I’m so frustrated at this point, especially because this new date is going so well, that I respond right then and there with the sarcasm I had been holding back.

It’s exactly how I felt. Like, did you just not see the message, or are you ignoring it on purpose? Regardless, the following morning, I woke up to two texts from Dimples sent at 3 am the night before:

Subsequently causing me to have a visceral Willy Wonka-esque reaction of:

I have nothing to respond with but a thumbs-up reaction, because what am I even supposed to say to that, Toe? Why even text me to say you’re back from Miami if you have zero intention of making any effort to see me? You’re texting me to tell me you’re busy? Uh-oh, there it is—the switch from Dimples to Toe, the nickname coined by the one person who clocked this behavior from the beginning: Larry. She was not happy with him, and I could tell she was fighting with every fiber of her being not to say I told you so.

SIDEBAR: Larry also told me the day after our second date, when we all met, that Toe (formerly Dimples) had liked her profile on Hinge, asking for her LinkedIn when she was on a hiatus. She wasn’t sure when exactly, but it didn’t faze me much because there’s always bound to be an overlap. But keep this in mind when we seek vengeance, okay? ;)

So, I let Toe sit with the thumbs-up for several days while I decide if I ever want to see or contact him again. These days in between triggered a major breakthrough in how I view dating and myself in relationships.I can’t describe it any other way but cathartic, I cracked my own code, which I’ll fully unpack in my 12th OnHINGEd Entry Celebration & Reflection next week (surprise, it’s coming!).

Point being, I was having some early-20s epiphany when I received an email notifying me that my film roll had been developed. I open it without a second thought, and what was the very first photo that popped up? That night in my bedroom. While sliding open my camera lens, I must’ve tipsily fired the flash and taken this photo without realizing. Now here was Toe infiltrating my fucking camera roll. At first, I was annoyed, but then I thought, is the universe throwing me a bone here? I have the power to reset this if I want and get some semblance of clarity. Plus, Larry made me a firm believer that if it’s going to help minimize headspace, just send the damn text and expect the worst. Fuck it.

There’s the photo and that fitted sweater—it’s unmistakable. But confession! Guess what? I’m admitting this to my friends who read this now: I cropped his face OUT, not to protect his privacy (I’m obviously doing that on here), but to my friends, I did it because he looked BAAAAD. Oh my god, why was I helping this guy look more appealing? I know damn well why, but let me let my delulu flag fly for a second.

So, I sent this to him with no expectations, and two hours later, we’re back to the banter-filled conversation we had before Miami. I take the bait completely because at this point, my 2Bs, Toe, has proven he’s not relationship material, which leaves the physical... and the physical is great. So, I keep the conversation going.

The “Should we take more this weekend?” was probably the most forward he’d been over text, maybe ever, but it still wasn’t a plan. The next day was Thursday, and the weekend was approaching quickly. I happened to have two comp tickets to a hilarious comedy dating show at work that night. To be honest, I was hoping to take Mr. New Suitor, but he was going out of town, so again, why not, let’s see if Toe is down.

As soon as I proposed the plan, the tonal shift in the conversation was nothing short of seismic. It felt like I could sense the complete lack of enthusiasm and interest in a date, seeping through the phone, as dull and lifeless as the grey text bubbles themselves.

I won’t lie, I was surprised, but I played it off with my signature colon sad face and a "no stress." It was last minute, and at least he let me know. The weekend came around…Friday, then Saturday night, and still no word from him. I was getting ready for a birthday party when I decided to step way out of my comfort zone and do something unexpected: exercise the lost art of the booty call. So, I picked up my phone and called him. I stepped onto my fire escape, surrounded by ambient city sounds, light background music, and wine in hand. At a tasteful 11:30 pm, I pressed call. I was shitting myself.

One ring, two rings... it kept going... three, four—until it eventually went to voicemail. I was confused; I figured he’d be out, and I didn’t want him to come over until later anyway. But there was no text saying he was busy, no call back, no follow-up message later in the week. Nothing. Silence. And as we all know, a lack of response is a response, 2Bs, and I took it as such. Toe went full ghost, so I did too.

NOTE: If this seems abrupt, it’s because it truly was. And of course, I’ve had moments where curiosity almost got the best of me, wondering what happened—but honestly? Does he even deserve that much energy? My friends and I, just as bewildered by his behavior as I was, could only laugh at the audacity and be grateful that he didn’t make it to Date 4.5.

At the end of the day, I hope Toe finds whatever fleeting fulfillment he’s chasing in his finance job, I hope he finally learns to play the harmonica, I hope he eats a damn good steak, one that’s cooked rarer than his emotional maturity, I hope he masters hot yoga to sweat out some of that ego—but most of all, I hope he doesn’t treat the next girl with the same careless indifference. I hope she clocks the lazy effort and sees through the dimple-induced charm quicker than I did. Because if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that she deserves so much more than an emotionally constipated finance bro who mistakes depth for avoidance and flakiness for allure.

I might need to start a How-To series: "How to Get Over a Situationship Before It Even Starts." STEP 1 would probably begin with collecting the best quotes from the internet, like this one:

“What we are not gonna do is cry over a medium-ugly man who fumbled you when your facecard would’ve rebranded his entire bloodline, okay?” —@thebasicbloggerbitch

STEP 2 would be reclaiming some power by formally unmatching him on Hinge.

Let this be a lesson to me that every time a Toenail gets cut(I can’t promise he’ll be the last), it clears space for someone who knows how to show up. Someone who doesn’t flinch at consistency, who doesn't put the fs in “effort”, someone who knows the difference between talk and action.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the Courtroom of OnHINGEd proudly announces the death of B and Dimples’ situationship. The timeline is officially marked, from the month of first contact to the month of final contact…we bid him a silent farewell.

Well, the future of my time with Toe has 2 Been Determined.

Besides, he may have had dimples but I have always, always had my own.

See you next for the first date recap with Mr. New Suitor. Oh yeah, Larry and I just cracked his codename: Prairie Boy.

Stay bold :)

xx 2BD