Twenty-six.

I'm in your space, but I tread so carefully.

Henry, who would later become my fourth boyfriend, was a Tinder match I didn’t remember making.

Funnily enough, he wasn't the first I "forgot." Six years prior, during the heyday of Tinder in 2015 resultant of the then-novelty of dating apps, I "matched" with a boy named Wayne, an artist who was about to graduate from the Parsons School of Design at The New School. I could hardly recall swiping right on him, most likely because dating apps are premised upon flash judgments and first impressions, and I gave prospects minutes of consideration before moving onto the next. Regardless, Wayne went on to be my second boyfriend, and being with him inspired such a wellspring of romanticism from me that my personal journals were flooded with sap. So, when I returned to perusing dating apps in 2021, I approached them with less skepticism because I knew that they could work—my own lived experience was but one such example.

The lead up to spring of 2021 was fraught. I had finally completed my long, protracted separation from Jun, my third boyfriend; the novel coronavirus had joined forces with airtight apartment leases, conspiring to keep us quarantined to our tiny studio so that our landlord could continue to leech passive income from us as the world around us withered. Post-breakup, I had undergone an emotional Odyssey and fallen in and out of an intense crush on Raul, an unfathomably handsome man who worked at Vogue. (I kid not—he was one of the two most beautiful men I have ever dated.) I myself had just returned to New York from Los Angeles in the wake of my cousin's death, a case of vehicular manslaughter that coincided in timing with the nationwide #StopAsianHate protests (one of which I watched, via Instagram, Raul attend). When my birthday in April rolled around, I was desperate for something in my life to change for the better.

As I prepared to turn twenty-eight, I spent that final week of twenty-seven with Stephen, a man I'd loved since the decade prior because he loved me, who'd flown in from London so that I wouldn't feel alone. I implored him to accompany me to museums so that I could search for lifely inspiration amongst art, looking for something, anything, that would flip the proverbial switch in my brain to motivate me, not mentioning that I was trying to mimic Raul and the idea of him in my head. I dragged him to Silver Apricot, a supposedly lauded nouveau Chinese spot in the West Village that I afterwards derided for its extreme mediocrity (it has since shuttered), and I apologized to him for wasting his stomach space (and cash) on such substandard fare.

I felt the specter of thirty creeping upon me. I wanted to be as mature as I thought my age implied, and I wanted to avoid making any more mistakes. All of these men—Wayne, Jun, Raul, Stephen—were either uninterested in or unable to commit to me, and I just wanted someone of my own. I felt suffocated by ennui, frustrated with my ridiculous banking career and a life that was going nowhere. Thus, by the time Henry entered my life one May day, I was perennially in a bad mood.

I was Henry's first date, and vice versa, immediately after we (individually) were vaccinated against COVID-19. I was hesitant to meet new people at the time because, I confess, I naturally have very little faith in strangers and I wasn't willing to risk infection, but vaccination somewhat ameliorated that concern. We spent over a week making the customary introductory small talk over text messages, and our first date came the day after our first meeting, which was (perhaps predictably) a hookup—under such isolating conditions, I think it wouldn't be inaccurate to say that we were both touch-starved. But, he seemed to be a nice enough guy and he was earnest in pursuing me, so I thought that this might have been the universe's way of answering my pleas for something new. I asked if he wanted to get hot pot with me. Of course, he assented.

Henry had a nice smile and always looked put together, and he was agreeable as we worked our way through the hot pot menu together at 99 Favor Taste in Chinatown. Between bites of simmered ingredients and gulps of watermelon juice, I slowly got to know him. Having grown up in Singapore, he was the eldest of three children and had graduated from a Broome County university, after which he'd moved to New York City to be a consultant. He was a diehard fan of Kelly Clarkson, and I would later, after we broke up, listen with great sadness to the lyrics of her song "magic" from chemistry, her post-divorce album, because I knew that he would see our relationship reflected in her lyricism. But, at the time, he seemed to embody the something new for which I was desperately searching because he stood in such stark contrast from Jun, his predecessor.

Whereas Jun was, in my estimation, ever-hobbled by his Peter Pan syndrome, Henry felt like a breath of fresh air. I helped Henry move into his own apartment and he had a six-figure job, meaning that we didn't experience the same income disparity that had so troubled my relationship with Jun. When I vented to Henry my dissatisfaction with my work, he went out of his way to invite me to his networking events around New York and showed me off to all of his friends. Through his caring diligence, he made me feel more special than any other man had done since Alberto a full decade ago. My relationship with Jun had jaded me, but I could feel Henry chiseling away at the stonework.

I think Henry saw potential in me. "You're so smart," he would encourage me, and he believed that I could accomplish anything I wanted because of my fiery willpower. Equally, in him I saw mulish diligence, a trait I envied—he too could achieve any goal through sheer perseverance, something that I lacked. I felt unmoored by executive dysfunction and burnout, and he was steadfast in comparison.

Nevertheless, I dithered. I put off making him an official boyfriend, a label I take very seriously, because I was scared. Things were going well and mostly felt easy, and I was suspicious of our frictionless relationship. Was that how it would always be? He was wonderful, but I felt no passion, and after what had happened with Jun I wanted to be beyond certain. I traveled more with Henry on vacations than any of my priors, we made plans to move in together and plotted out how many kids we wanted to have, and still I vacillated. How was I supposed to know if he was the one? I told him on numerous occasions that it strongly felt like he was the one I was supposed to marry, but I needed more time. I just wanted to keep getting to know him.

A year later, after our breakup, I eventually returned with my tail between my legs to Tinder and Hinge and all the other apps, which persisted in algorithmically redelivering him to me, each time a mini-heart attack and heartbreak all at once. I scrolled through his profile, newly refreshed with handsome photos of him taken by me, and I felt betrayed: by him, by the universe, by Tinder for having gifted him and clawed him back from me. Whereas they were nothing before, his listed interests were now poor imitations of mine, of everything I'd introduced to him and his life. I told my therapist that Henry was a shadow of me, searching for—yet, unwilling to accept—its source, but it was I who was unwilling to accept reality, that he had left my life and returned it to the bog of listlessness in which I was lost before I ever met him. I grieved, and grieved, and grieved. Once more, I felt stuck.