Jon from Hinge

By Tom Meyer

It’s 6:30 p.m. on a Sunday evening. Nick’s cabernet is poured. His candle warmer is lit. His humidifier is going.

 

He takes a deep breath. He opens Hinge.

 

He finds nothing but the ordinary. Yes on a guy with a six pack and a PhD, but he knows it won’t work. No on a guy with a six pack and a receding hairline. He tells himself it’s not because of the hairline. No on a girl whose pictures are all with her nieces and nephews. No on someone who said something about dark humor.

 

The names and faces blur. The reasons why it won’t last pile up.

 

Then, suddenly and all at once, there’s Jon.

 

He’s handsome, but not too handsome. He lists museums and arts as hobbies, but Talladega Nights as a favorite film. He’s got a muscular frame without perfect definition, and a smile that’s slightly off center in a charming way. He works in immigration policy. He likes cafes and book shops. He has a photo with his mom, and they look relaxed.

 

He’s perfect, it’s overwhelming. Where to begin? What photo to like? No, a like isn’t enough. A rose? No, that’s too much. A comment. Something pithy. Or maybe flirty. No no, witty and knowing. But what?

 

Nick sets his phone down to think. He pours himself another glass. He furrows his brow. He loses himself in thought. His phone goes to sleep.

 

He lands on something simple. An easy book shop recommendation. Something to establish level footing and open the conversation.

 

He opens his phone.

 

Hinge has refreshed. Jon isn’t there. It’s someone named Danielle now. He hates Danielle. Where’s Jon? Where’s the love of his life?

 

He exes Danielle away, but now there’s Chris. Who the hell is Chris? He wants to see Jon. Jon’s nowhere to be found.

 

He swipes and he exes and he restarts the app, but Jon isn’t there.

 

I.

 

Nick takes it hard. He swears off the apps for a week, then a month. He can’t believe he let the one – the only one – for him slip away.

 

He starts going on dates again, a setup here or there at first, then app dates again too.

 

After a couple years, he meets Kris. They hit it off. They date, and they marry.

 

They have two kids. Kris is an associate at a financial trading firm. She’s there late a lot. She moves up the ranks. She’s very kind. They move to the suburbs.

 

It’s hard and it’s chaotic. The kids drain him and they give him life. He takes a break from teaching courses, and tells the university he’s focusing on his book. There is no book. He goes back to teaching.

 

Kris says he could become a full-time dad, and maybe work on his book on the side. Her salary could cover it. She doesn’t know there is no book. He keeps working. He thinks he sees Jon in a class one time. Jon would be nearly 50 now. He knows it wasn’t Jon.

 

The kids grow up and turn out just fine. One gets a scholarship. They move, but Kris and Nick stay in the suburbs.

 

Kris could retire but doesn’t want to. She’s made partner. Nick retires. He reads a lot, which he says is helping provide inspiration for the book. There’s still no book.

 

He dreams about Jon. He imagines their life. It’s been 50 years. He reads Giovanni’s Room again.

 

Kris passes away suddenly. Nick is devastated. The kids come back for a month to help. Nick picks up the pieces of his life.

 

He thinks about looking for Jon. What would he even say? How would he even start?

 

He thinks better of it. He moves out near his eldest. He takes day trips to the shore. He gets sick. He passes away.

 

But no. That can’t be it. That can’t be how this story goes.

 

II.

Let’s try that again.

 

He takes it hard, but he doesn’t give up. Quite the opposite.

 

Nick tries everything he can to find Jon. He writes down every detail he can remember. Age. Location. Interests. Job. He narrows his filters on Hinge to describe Jon as much as possible. He pays to get access to new Hinge filters. He exes out everyone who isn’t Jon, rapid-fire. He doesn’t find Jon.

 

He looks in coffee shops and bookstores. He searches at the farmers market. He befriends the baristas. He tells them his plight. He describes Jon. He doesn’t find Jon.

 

He throws caution to the wind. He takes out a personal ad in the local blog. He asks all his friends. He hires a private investigator. He doesn’t find Jon.

 

He gets a new therapist, and asks if he’s being crazy. The therapist doesn’t say no.

 

He spends his weekends scanning the museum entrances and coffee shop exits. He slips the gay bar servers a twenty to keep an eye out for Jon. They don’t understand why. He stays the course. He puts his trust in fate. He quits dating and waits.

 

He commissions an artist to make a painting of Jon. Nick describes him from memory. It looks sort of like a police sketch. Nick loves it. He hides it away in the closet.

 

He retires. The university doesn’t throw a party so he doesn’t have to explain the absence of a spouse.

 

He moves to the shore. He takes the train back on weekends to look for Jon. He knows Jon must have moved. He doesn’t find Jon.

 

He gets sick. He goes to the hospital. He asks the nurse to go to his house. In the closet, there’s a painting. She brings it to him. He holds it. He passes away.

 

Jesus. That was worse, wasn’t it? How did it get worse?

 

III.

 

Alright, let’s get serious now. Maybe he doesn’t lose his mind. Maybe he controls what he can and ignores what he can’t.

 

He narrows his Hinge filters and exes through all the non-Jons. He submits a missed connection in the local paper. He goes to the farmers market each week to scan the crowd.

 

Other than that, he moves on. He seeks balance. He meets a man named Ryan.

 

Ryan is funny. He makes Nick light up. They have fun together.

 

After a few years, they get married. Nick enjoys it, but it doesn’t last. They divorce amicably. Nick throws himself into his teaching. He outlines a book.

 

He redownloads Hinge. He looks for Jon again.

 

He finds Christina instead. She’s passionate and self-assured. She’s a professor too. They spend weekends at the shore.

 

She doesn’t believe in marriage. That’s fine with Nick. He tells her about Jon. He feels silly. She tells him he’s not. She helps him search for Jon. They don’t find him.

 

She gets sick. They both retire and move to the shore. The university throws him a party, but Christina’s not up to it.

 

She starts getting better. Then she doesn’t. She tells him to look for love after she’s gone, whether with Jon or not. She thanks him. She passes away.

 

Nick handles it well. He’d had time to prepare, and he’d felt closure. He stays in their house at the shore. He leaves her reading room how she liked it.

 

He decides to look for Jon. He tries to hire a private detective. The detective laughs at him. There’s not enough to go on. It’s not worth it. He does it anyway. The detective finds nothing.

 

He pretends to give up. He grows old. He moves into a home. He hopes Jon will be there. He tells the nurses about Christina, and they think it’s cute. He tells the nurses about Jon, and they don’t.

 

He gets sick. He passes away. Christina’s family lays him to rest.

 

That’s better, right? It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely better.

 

IV.

 

Ok, last shot. Let’s get this right.

 

What the hell, Nick goes for it.

 

He throws himself fully into the search for Jon. He does everything – the narrowing of filters, the ad in the blog, the missed connection, the scanning coffee shops.

 

He hires an artist to make a sketch. He hires a private detective. He deputizes his friends, has them ask around and show the sketch. He puts up posters.

 

His friend Nate grows worried. He stops helping. Nick is furious.

 

A second friend, Rebecca, gets worried too. She talks to Nate. They want to stage an intervention. They know Nick won’t listen. They hatch a plan.

 

They hire a couple local actors. Rebecca pretends she met the actors at a gay bar. She says she was passing out flyers of Jon. The actors say they both know Jon. One says he met Jon on Hinge, and within a day Jon used a slur. The other says he saw Jon at a bar, creeping on a drunk guy.

 

Nick is devastated. How could he have misjudged Jon so badly?

 

He sulks. He hides. He deletes the apps and refuses set ups. He turns inward.

 

He meets a man in line at the grocery store. They’re both having trouble getting a coupon to work. They grab coffee after. His name is Aaron. They hit it off.

 

They start dating. Nick doesn’t bring up Jon. They move in together. They buy a weekend place at the shore. Aaron paints in his free time. He paints their house.

 

They get married. They think about having kids. They decide not to.

 

Nick takes up surfing. It’s very unlike him. He loves it. They adopt a dog. He’s old and hobbled and scared of most things. They give him bacon.

 

They move to the shore full time. Aaron opens a small studio. Nick commutes back to the city to teach. He grades papers at the library or the coffee shop.

 

Nick gets ready to retire. He decides to stay on emeritus. He teaches one class a year. They travel the rest of the time.

 

They go to Greece.  Nick hates it. They go to Japan. Nick loves it. They go to New Zealand. They both love it.

 

They renew their vows on their thirtieth anniversary.

 

Their friends all come to the shore. Nate and Rebecca have a confession to make. They tell Nick how they faked the story about Jon’s bad behavior. They explain why.

 

Nick asks who Jon is.