The Boyfriend

Sydney Shaw is startled when her date, Kevin, shows up looking 10 years older than the photos on his Cynch profile. Although her instincts tell her to leave, Sydney decides to stay and give Kevin a chance. She also knows her friend Gretchen plans to call in 20 minutes to offer her an excuse to leave if she needs it. When Kevin insults her appearance and pressures her to order an alcoholic drink, Sydney begins to wish Gretchen would call sooner.

As Kevin talks about his job, an obvious pyramid scheme, Sydney wonders why Gretchen hasn’t called. She’s in the bathroom when Gretchen finally calls, apologetically explaining that she got distracted with her boyfriend Randy. Sydney privately resents their intimacy. She reluctantly agrees when Kevin insists on walking her home and stops outside of a random building, claiming it’s hers so he won’t know where she lives. When Sydney resists Kevin’s attempts to kiss her, he calls her a tease and grabs her wrists.

As Kevin overpowers Sydney, a man walking by sees him and calls out. Sydney takes advantage of Kevin’s surprise and kicks him in the genitals, knocking them both to the ground. The man threatens to call the police, and Kevin quickly leaves. Sydney is immediately attracted to the man who intervenes, and can sense that he is attracted to her as well. She imagines telling their children about how he rescued her the night they met, and is shocked when the man leaves without asking her out.

With the encouragement of his friend Slug, Tom finally works up the courage to talk to his crush Daisy. Daisy agrees to let Tom walk her home, against the protests of her best friend (and Slug’s crush) Allison. On the walk home, Tom gets distracted watching Daisy’s carotid artery pulsing. Tom is fascinated with blood and the body, and is desperate to become a surgeon. At Daisy’s house, Tom is about to kiss Daisy when her father, the chief of police, appears and invites Tom to dinner.

Sydney wonders why the mystery man who rescued her didn’t ask for her number, despite the obvious connection between them. On arriving home, her neighbor Bonnie points out that Sydney is covered in blood; because she has a hereditary blood clotting disorder, she never stopped bleeding after she fell during the assault. Sydney assumes Mystery Man was disgusted by her appearance. Meanwhile, Bonnie expresses hope that the attractive, single doctor she went on a date with will soon commit to her.

Sydney feels unnerved by the silence when she enters her apartment, briefly paranoid that someone else is there. When it’s clear that she’s alone, Sydney drinks a glass of wine and wonders why she hasn’t been able to find a romantic partner since her last relationship ended abruptly. Her mother calls and immediately asks about her dating life; Sydney can’t bring herself to tell her mother the truth about her date with Kevin. As she hangs up, she wonders if she’ll be alone forever.

The next afternoon, Sydney meets Bonnie and Gretchen for coffee and yoga. Bonnie tells the group that she thinks her doctor hookup is going to commit to her soon, and Sydney, disheartened by her date, says she hopes he’s a nice guy. Gretchen invites Bonnie and Sydney to the opening of an exhibit she curated, and Bonnie privately makes fun of it to Sydney. When Sydney tells the group about her date and the mystery man, they encourage her to look for him on Cynch.

The next day, Tom deflects Slug’s questions about his time with Daisy. He half-heartedly agrees to talk to Daisy’s best friend Alison about Slug, even though Alison hates them both. Slug’s fascination with insects makes him unpopular with girls and most people besides Tom. At Tom’s house, they find his father drunk and his mother with a black eye. Tom fantasizes about killing his father, who has a history of abusive behavior. When Tom shares these fantasies, Slug encourages him to do it.

As Bonnie and Sydney walk home, they are approached by Kevin outside the building where Sydney pretended to live the night before. He asks to speak to Sydney alone, but she refuses. He warns her that she is making a mistake, and leaves only when Bonnie threatens to call the police. Inside their real building, the women encounter Randy, Gretchen’s boyfriend and the building’s superintendent. Bonnie arranges for him to come fix her toilet the next morning, then privately asks Sydney to join them, explaining that Randy creeps her out.

The next morning, Sydney scrolls social media, resentful of the women posting about their pregnancies and children. She spent an hour the previous night swiping through Cynch looking for her Mystery Man to no avail. Her only match in that time turned out to be Kevin, desperate for another chance to talk to her; she blocked and reported him. Sydney goes downstairs to Bonnie’s apartment as planned, but Bonnie doesn’t answer. When Randy arrives, Sydney convinces him to go in, certain something is wrong. She finds a trail of blood leading to Bonnie’s bedroom.

The third time that Tom walks her home from school, Daisy asks him to volunteer at a health fair with her on Saturday. He agrees and asks her to lunch before the fair, but she declines, suggesting they meet for lunch on Sunday instead. Tom picks a daisy for her, but she rejects it, saying that he killed it. He promises never to kill a flower again, emphasizing the word flower. He kisses her, and she says she knew he would be her first kiss. He lies and says she’s also his first kiss, knowing that no one can contradict him.