Chick Habit

Dalton:

I opened my oculars to the wildly vivid fluorescent strips illuminating room 704 in UCLA’s Hedrick Hall. The regular confusion washed over me. As I gathered my bearings, I could not help but feel around my sheets, which were covering two twin-sized mattresses smashed together to form the mythical “megabed.”  The concept of a megabed, and the whispers of its existence, arose after my old roommate moved out of our tiny dorm two weeks earlier than quarters-end, so graciously leaving his bed frame behind. In the aforementioned morning fumble, I conducted the daily search for my spectacles. I found that the frames had fallen into a state of disrepair that felt indicative of a much larger issue with myself at the time. 

In my blurred state of vision, I glanced around the room, expecting the usual sight; remnants of my roommate’s decor. Gaming memorabilia and large maps of Russian public transportation spotted around the recently emptied walls. I blinked, and suddenly found myself in a dimly lit bedroom facing the interior courtyard of 510 Landfair Ave.  Refusing to believe my eyes, I reach to rub them again and give it a good, long blink to come to my senses. I open them to my wall-to-wall decorated bedroom on Glenrock Ave that I am fortunate enough to presently call “mine”. I frantically reach around for my glasses, blinking in and out of each room. A feminine yawn escapes from the pile of blankets next to me, startling me to my core. It seems, yet again, the past few years have completely escaped me.

Try as I might, I can’t help but feel this may be at least somewhat connected to my tumultuous, mostly-unjustifiable affair with digital love. Though it seems to work for others —hookups and marriages alike –, I cannot say I have found my fortune on the heavenly hinge just yet. But I will not shame others, for I still have my pickaxe, and that patch of dirt ahead has a deceptive glimmer to it. I’ve been there. you have been there. we have all been there.

There’s too many examples to recount here in a singular go at it, so I’ve decided to impart stories of more specific flings, immediately following the other tales. in order to unite this motley crew of anecdotes into a whole, sensible piece of work. 

Chris:

Not all breakups have to be nasty. Some fizzle out like puny, crippled fires that could never generate enough spark to quite catch; that’s the preferable, sugary kind that you can remember in earnest. Others – oh, Lord – others aren’t like that at all. Other separations are fantastically explosive, and almost impressive, in all their wretched glory; these ones leave ugly warts where there were previously infinitely ongoing fields of potential. Mine fell somewhere in the middle, during late fall. 

The winter was mighty cold, and bitter, too. It didn’t ease in at a slow pace, like a usual western winter. Resentful, biting cold winds rushed in every crack of my apartment like they didn’t want to be freezing outside anymore. We were all searching for warmth in places we shouldn’t have been; Johnathan, Dalton and I. 

What is the cruel force that drives men to ugly ways in time of self-imposed pains? Testosterone isn't explanation enough. We must have escaped the barbaric, neanderthal pull that guided us toward survival of the bloodline and saying to hell with basic morality! The unfortunate case is that we find strange solace in unbeffiting, raunchy companionship with whoever winks our way during a depressing case of separation. 

Whether the breakup was the fault of mine or of hers is still a highly contentious issue in some lower courts. I suppose that could be said about almost every breakup, so that’s neither here nor there. Early winter was sickeningly lonely, regardless of all other facts or fictions. 

The winter quarter of my junior year concluded and I learned later that I performed unimpressively on all exams. I had a bad case of the blues, so I decided to phone Johnathan over and get him from Riverside to Los Angeles as a pick-me-up for both me and Dalton. Dalton himself was going through one thing or another, but that’s his business to tell and my secrets to keep. 

I can’t tell you when it started – I don’t even think I heard the gun – but we came out of the gates like racehorses on the crazed, winding track of dating apps. The sheer, disgusting vanity! I designed, redesigned, then refurbished and added polish to every miniscule aspect of my profile like a maid out for the mother’s job. Does this picture make me look like a jackass? Is that funny or do I sound like a serial kidnapper? Do I look classy or trashy? Be honest. I took to the game like it was the needle. I swiped like a goddamned madman. It was fun as all hell, nonetheless. We joked and fell in half-baked love and sent messages in shattered bottles that we knew would never get returned, but before it was sent we all shared a moment of suspenseful hilarity that killed every time. It wasn’t about the matches, not even from the beginning; it was about the foul, slippery thrill of the thing. 

Notably, I only ever met up with one individual under bizarre circumstances on the cusp of the capricorn’s age, one  drizzling, chipper midnight. I found out that night – unfortunately, by an ignorant referential mistake of my own – that my partner-in-grime was genderfluid, preferring the pronouns He/They. I took no issue with the fact, but I am certainly no expert in queer culture, and so our first night getting to know each other was an awkward navigational challenge. That didn’t stop me from braving uncharted waters, however, and I undertook a short-term romp with a temporary boyfriend. It was hardly passionate, but we conversed easily and our system worked simply. Never outside, always in. At times, I felt like a prostitute with a good listening ear.

It didn’t last long, but I liked my one-time John well enough. 

Things got grim after that. All forms of fun only last so long before they inevitably become chorish. I would look around and see Johnathan, Dalton and I all throwing likes around like we were at an unseemly strip club on Wednesday, happy hour, tossing miserable singles at employees that were there for the strict purpose of business, of which we had little to offer. But we three had shared so much joy and delight and had an utter ball sending out desperate pleas of Please save me, You can change everything and If you don’t like me back I’ll have nothing’s, that I almost felt cleansed, almost like I wasn’t just another whorish jock ungracefully recovering from infalted dissapoimtment that would pass naturally anyway. All the time, I very much was. 

We got off those dreadful apps quickly thereafter, all for wildly different reasons. I’m still not sure if there is a cure for a case of separation. It may not even exist. Is it in the search for this elusive cure that we find ourselves finally content with being alone once again?

Dalton's Commentary:

I am more than happy to see that at least somebody is keeping an eye on the little things, reminding the rest of us to at least make an attempt at enjoying them. Unfortunately, I find that I have been on the receiving end of some hinge encounters so painfully awkward and quasi-romantic, that a boy of my nature has no choice but to wince as I relive each excruciatingly long second. 

A moviegoing outing comes to mind, during which a date of mine and I found ourselves silently and diligently watching some shitty flick about a ravenous, man-killing cocaine bear. The film was truly awful, as was my lack of charisma and candor displayed throughout its painfully long runtime. I’m no mathematician, but if my estimates and calculations are accurate, we shared approximately twenty five words, give or take a few tenths of a decimal to account for the “likes” and “ums”. The all-too-awkward walk home only helped rub salt into what I believe was the real wound; the gaping claw mark left in my wallet by that goddamned junkie of a bear. With each and every step, I could hear those (desperately-needed) thirty eight dollars escape my checking account.  Cha ching. Cha ching. Cha ching. Surely every date can’t be like this, right? According to the $168 dollar parking ticket I got on another date a few months later, they very much can.

Yonny:

I started the new year with my heart broken and tattered; 2023 was quite the year. I was at my lowest with only a phone and a recently lost love interest. “Indian Love”, is one characterized as occurring in every man’s life – just once – but leaving them with a cavity too deep to recount in its entirety. To be completely honest, I’m still digesting the loss. But then, with winter break, anything but snow came down; mostly boredom. I decided to download Hinge. The bright screen and seamless UI acted as a night in Vegas, leaving me speechless at the endless possibilities that ended up becoming more a routine of opening the app, liking a couple of people, and closing up shop for the night. 

Nights continued like this, pointless and repetitive – I could only ask so many people for their Spotify – until I got out of class and saw this message from a girl I didn’t remember liking, yet somehow had matched through the power of the psyop in my phone. Maybe this was India repaying me for the hit I took at the end of 2023. I thought she was pretty, and after very minimal exchanges, she seemed eager to meet me. The only problem was this girl was looking for the time of her life on January 4th, and was mostly finding any way to make our hangout one full of narcotic discoveries, which ended a million different terrible ways in my head. What do I look like having a girl sleep over at my apartment on the first date to have drugged-up conversations? 

It was 11:52 PM and she was on her way. I’m crazy and I don’t know what I was thinking. This was a drastic change of pace. Still, I remained calm and rehearsed meeting her for the first time. I was home alone and forgot to let my roommate know in case I had accidentally let The Killer know of my whereabouts. So many possibilities in my head, but it ended with none I had imagined. She came over and we used her comfort to understand each other. We both exchanged how we had used the app and the experiences we had before meeting up to this point. It was weird, but sincere. She recently got out of a relationship with her “crazy ex”, something I would get used to hearing about in our year of getting to know each other. The strange comfortability was exciting. To know she came over just to talk and sleep over on my bed as I took over the couch for the night was… somehow, nice.

The initial sincerity had me holding on for much longer than expected. We met each other’s friends, I met her family, and even talked about her coming to my college graduation. She went as far to visit me in New York after spending 2 months in Miami on a girl's trip (studied abroad in Prague). We did so much in the couple of months we could have. I still feel the constant pressure of having to find someone like her, but I can't find someone crazy enough to be willing to lose their bet on love by showing their cards so early; the house rules this table. I suppose I'll move on, as that’s all left in the itinerary. I can’t help thinking of all that came and went in the past year. I saw the crazy ex in all of her actions, as if a toxic man was inhabiting my girlfriend's body – my bisexuality once again prevails. In that sad, lightning quick scenario, I had to be perfect on the first go while she could make infinite, unknowable mistakes, taking no damage through the plot armor I gave her in my infatuation. This all came crashing rapidly when I got back to California. The distance of being back at my parent’s house after graduation was too much and the expectation to be within walking range was unrealistic — our off-and-on adventures could only last so long. 

To my hinge wife, who showed me why the divorce rate in America is so high. 

Dalton’s Commentary:

Coming oh so close to that ever elusive forever relationship can be killer. I only wish I didn’t have to admit that I may have been on the wrong side of history for a situationship or two. The clearest that jumps out of my brain’s ancient, dusted memory files is my most recent misadventure in the world of hinge relationships (shocker).

Upon my return from the Big Apple and without the cherished company of my fellow Bum Diary members, loneliness consumed me completely. Having been devoid of any human connection for a few weeks, I decided to take another spin at romantic roulette in the hopes that my dame in shining armor would rip the revolver out of my hands and ride us off into the sunset.

As unlikely as it may seem, I scored a bar date with a missus who most definitely should not have been entertaining an evening with me. One date led to another, and we eventually found ourselves at the inevitable question that can either boom or doom it all in one fell swoop: “What are we?” 

In the (sadly, proven false) words of the legendary Britney Spears, “my world collapsed,” as did any hopes of a relationship, as my apparent fear of commitment only served to strengthen her desire to hang up the facetime and move on with her life. And rightfully so. Another one bites the dust. But in the (hopefully true) words from the famed Miranda Cosgrove, I'll just live life, breathe air, and know somehow we’re going to get there.

Max:

My first initial understanding of love was contorted and stretched like the Silly Putty you lose underneath a couch cushion. Looking back, I’ve been trying to understand love’s complexity and purpose since the day my ten year old self was asked to choose which parent I liked more. 

For a lot of my life I dreamt of love as something that purposefully happens out of the blue. An inevitable phenomena strategically placed by the laws of the universe bound by molecules patiently waiting for the correct time to shine. For the longest time, I only saw love as something that guaranteed stability and security on demand (both parents remarried during middle school).

My 479th attempt at solving love was like when your favorite childhood dog ends up finding that Silly Putty you shoved deep down in your couch to forget about. But then he spits the putty into your hand. Covered in hair, dust, and a mysterious third substance, you briefly remember all the times the putty was stretched, pulled, smashed, plucked, and played with. But then your dog tries to eat the putty and immediately chokes to death. Your left hand trembles as your right hand squeezes the remains of the slobbery, hairy chunk of putty that just killed your dog. That was getting cheated on by my first girlfriend with one of my closest friends in high school.

I thought love needed to hurt. I thought love was a two ton weight kicking gravity’s ass that plummets down the bottomless pit of the human soul.

I tried a spin on the great wheel of love again when I asked out a girl I met on Hinge back in February of 2023. Our first date was getting Boba in Chinatown, New York. It took me an incredibly long time after this to figure out how confused this blind pursuit of affection had been, but I didn’t know that then. 

We ate ramen and drank wine in the East Village that night for dinner. We talked about her experiences of growing up on the opposite side of the world while we sat on the swings in Tompkins Square Park. I remember the orange glow of nearby street lamps illuminating the kinks of her face, distinguishing her warm silhouette against the dark black sky. I walked her back to her place and ended up spending the night. That’s what I thought love was supposed to be like for a very long time.

Ideal.

She and I split up near the end of that spring semester. Fully-bloomed April flowers danced in the air as I told her I needed time for myself for the soon-to-be summer at her pissed face. I did not. About a month before all this she asked me to be in an official relationship with her––which I was totally down for. That was, until a week later, when she made out with a “friend of hers” at a party. A week after that, she asked if I was cool with being a part of a three-way couple with the girl.

So there I was with her under a tree, watching her get pissed at me for something she did. Honestly I thought this story was going to go somewhere fun or enlightening but now I’m ruminating on the whole maddening ordeal. Oh yeah, Hinge. I don’t know, the app can be fun. I never take it seriously. Something about apps pulling the strings in a relationship’s fate feels morally wrong. Kind of. 

Love is a word easily too short and too brief to encapsulate the power and potency it deceives us with. It’s a word I might not fully ever understand, but one thing I know is that it’s real and exists. I feel love everyday. It’s not hard. You just gotta dig through all the other mess, like Hinge, first. 

Dalton’s Commentary:

Mr. Van Hosen’s heartbreaking romantic endeavors bring to mind another sore spot for me, albeit with the roles most definitely reversed. You see, Winter 2021 brought with it one of the longest droughts of positive emotion I have ever claimed to have experienced.  My girlfriend of almost three years and I had recently split. In my (not much) younger mind, a pain known only by the star crossed youth dominated my brainwaves; I was utterly inconsolable. It was in this clear and healthy headspace that I decided salvation could be found only in the land reserved for the desperate, horny, and just downright deplorable: those apps.

That brings me back to the moment I found my hardly-functioning spectacles. With my vision acutely adjusted, I recognize myself to be back in room 704’s notorious megabed, next to the feminine yawn that led to this spiraling thought of a story.

It was my first real experience using a dating app, yet I feel it only halfway counts. I was more than familiar with the lady I had matched with at the time, which was the only reason I had any semblance of confidence to finally reach out to someone after my phone alerted me to the new match. With that familiarity came a sense of ease, even comfort. 

As much as I hate to say it, I am more than sure that this was due, in large part, to the gaping hole of emotion I had felt and lost after the breakup. So, however unfair it may be, I knew that I had no objections to the time I was spending with the lady, but at the same time, could not honestly say I could see it turning into anything more than a fledgling fling.

Unfortunately, my lack of communication skills in tandem with my degenerate-level enjoyment of the Wingstop which the lady would ever-so-kindly order to my dorm room – a figure that made me question if her doordash account was funded by oil baron money – made me have to come to terms with some of the more unappealing aspects of my character that dating apps bring out of me. On that day, and seemingly ever since. Here I was wasting this poor girl’s time to ignore dealing with my own unresolved issues; the beginnings of something, I hear, is referred to as a “pattern”. 

Upon some reflection and major deliberation over the years, I believe Miss Hinge and I have finally come to a mutual understanding; our love with one another is always bound to be fruitless, so long as I continue to ignore the need to know what I want before I go demanding the commitment of another. Or the apps are evil and out to get us all.

Either way, I have got to lose this chick habit.