Horrifying: Guy You Ghosted on Hinge is Your Cambus Driver

Already regretting Dry January? You know we are!

(And all you beautiful loyal Doily Allergen readers will know what kind of Dry January we’re talking about. Because you read the last article. And you’re so stunning and gorgeous and funny. “Oh, stop it, you. You’re flattering us! We love you, Doily Allergen,” all the readers shout in unison.)

A wave of inspiration and hope has struck our hearts this January to liberate ourselves from the shackles of Hinge, a wave as strong as the breeze that slaps you around the wind tunnel that is T. Anne Cleary. Doesn’t it feel nice to not open that godforsaken app and see that your coworker at the dining hall liked your profile? Isn’t it beautiful to yearn outside in nature, rather than responding to a guy whose prompt says his greatest fear is “loosing Chat GBT”?

Ah, yes… Life can be so beautiful when you look outside of your phone for a relationship, hopeful and ready to find the next love of your life for two weeks. Dry January will steer you away from having awkward Hinge dates to the slightly better alternative: meeting a guy through friends the old-fashioned way. Sure, he’ll treat you like his girlfriend for a week until you let him hit, and suddenly he “isn’t ready for a relationship anymore,” and then he gets a girlfriend a month later.

Although this experience sounds super fun and exhilarating, you must first face the unseen consequences of deleting Hinge for Dry January.

Imagine: You finally take your first steps into the great outdoors of Iowa City, famously known as the city of love. You step onto the Cambus (31 Red route, to be specific), excited to scout your next class for a mediocre man to fall for. And there he is. Driving the bus.

That one guy you ghosted on Hinge.

You freeze.

Is that really him? Does he recognize you? You share an awkward glance as you step inside.

You spend the rest of the bus ride with these thoughts racing through your mind.

I really hope he doesn’t recognize me. Is he upset that I never responded to him? He has to know no one ever really wastes a full conversation on Hinge matches. What if he feels personally hurt? I didn’t really mean to ghost him. Doesn’t he know it’s Dry January? What if he crashes this bus? What if now he knows my bus route and he will slowly start to figure out my schedule, eventually stalking me and killing me in my sleep in the comfort of my dorm? What if while I’m thinking of all the ways he could enact revenge on me I’m just cursing myself to this fate by manifesting it into existence?

But then you stop, and you think to yourself, “actually, he’s kinda cute in person. Maybe he’s not a lunatic and he doesn’t care at all.”

And then you never see him driving the bus after this encounter. Such is the life of a Hinge survivor during Dry January.