Mindy Lahiri stepped inside her apartment and flicked the light switch with her curved knuckle, immediately feeling the calming effects of being back in her own home, at last. With one hand clutching her keys and the other holding her small to-go box, she nudged the door closed with her rear and swiftly slipped out of her wedged heels. Haphazardly, she left them strewn by the entrance as she made her way into the kitchen. She hoped that she could find a clean, proper fork rather than the plastic cutlery that was often so readily available. Some desserts were simply meant to be eaten with silver, like the strawberry shortcake from Pardo's, which she would reluctantly admit she had looked forward to all day more so than the company she was scheduled to keep. She opened the drawer closest to the fridge, which clattered loudly – the noise wasn't necessarily indicative of anything promising, really, as she always seemed to have an abundance of knives above anything else – and began pushing aside the utensils until she found one small, lone fork hiding underneath a large spoon.

"Aha!" she exclaimed, thankful in that moment for life's small victories. Mindy snatched it up and quickly inspected it to make sure it was clean enough for her standards. Satisfied with a couple of tiny water spots, she carried her cake into the living room and set her purse at one end of the couch while plopping herself at the other end, her well-worn spot. It had almost become a post-date mourning ritual: come home with dessert (something sickeningly sweet and easily transportable, like tiramisu cheesecake from Indigo or the stiff French chocolate pie from The Golden Lark), curl up on the couch with her softest throw pillow, and indulge herself with the latest episode of Catfish while she celebrated the fact that there were people with way shittier love lives in existence. It was almost ceremonial in nature, a foolproof method of easing the sting of disappointment. She even caught herself eyeing the couch to make sure the remote was in place before she left for the practice that morning, still maintaining the hope that the night would go well, but acknowledging the probability that things would fall just as flat as they had time and time again.

She wasn't exactly grieving the loss of Guy – which wasn't his actual name, but she feared that the knowledge of it would result in a waste of precious brain cells – as much as she had just grown weary of the downward trajectory of her dating life, in general. Truth be told, the date was dead on arrival the moment he met her at Shulman's Women's Health Associates. Between his strange cologne, which was reminiscent of roach spray, and his off-putting compliment that she'd already pushed almost completely out of her memory – something about dressing for her "skin tone" – she had already resigned herself to an evening of the lightest conversation she could muster and ordering an appetizer for a meal to expedite matters.I should write a Yelp review about how much I'm willing to suffer for this shortcake, she thought, internally drafting her commentary throughout their walk to the restaurant. At the close of the night she had trouble deciding what was worse: the fact that she had spent one of her few off nights with a guy who had a surplus of sexist rants about Nancy Pelosi or the reality that this hadn't even been the worse date she'd been on over the past month. In the end she chose to save her brain power for much more important matters, like her Yelp review, which would ideally be the perfect blend of informative and hilarious.

First, however, she would take the time to enjoy her well-earned treat, settle against her pillow, and momentarily forget her wreck of a dating life while silently swooning over a silver-haired, skeptical-looking Max Joseph.

"Betsy, can you make sure to schedule Ms. Gullman's induction for Monday morning?"

"Sure thing, Dr. L!"

"Thanks."

Mindy replaced her office phone on the stand and immediately diverted her attention to her computer screen. As she started to amend some of the file's notes, she fought the urge to glance at the clock on her desk for a fifth time. The morning dragged in an unbearable fashion, unlike the day before. She instantly attributed it to the fact that she had the date/cake to look forward to the entire day prior and tonight (Date Night, she thought with a hint of bitterness) only promised her cold leftover pizza, which theoretically had one more good day left, and a hopefully uneventful on-call shift. Productivity, Mindy found, was usually the cure for slow days like these, so she threw herself into her patient load in hopes that the time would eventually pass.

She then heard her office door suddenly creak open, but she didn't feel the need to look up. There was only one person in the practice who ever entered her quarters without knocking.

"Hey, Min," Danny Castellano called out from the door frame. "Did you get Jeremy's e-mail about pic approvals for the newspaper ad?"

"Mm hm," she replied without taking her eyes off the screen. She said nothing else, under the impression that the answer would be satisfactory enough for Danny to make his exit. It wasn't.

"Uh, do you have a preference?" he urged a little anxiously. "We're waiting on you, here. Do you want me to choose for you?"

Mindy groaned, then look up. Danny was leaning against the frame, his arms crossed.

"Danny, you cannot be trusted to pick a photo. I still haven't forgiven you for the Christmas card travesty of 2011, you know."

"Okay! So pick one so Jeremy can stop nagging us about it! I can't go through another day of hearing how we're 'depriving the women of Manhattan' of his creepy-looking smile, Mindy, I can't."

Rolling her eyes, Mindy hurriedly pulled up the window with the e-mail's attachments. She quickly scanned her options and pointed at the screen. "The second one."

"Good. You did look nice in that shot, by the way."

"Thank you."

"No problem."

Rather than leave, Danny stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He leaned backwards and propped himself against it while slipping his hands in his pant pockets. "So, I'm guessing your date with that guy didn't go so well."

Mindy stopped what she was doing to give her full attention to her colleague and best friend. His astuteness didn't come as a major shock to her, but she couldn't help but ask, "Why would you assume that?"

Danny shrugged. "Because whenever you have a hot date, you can't stop yourself from chirping about it all over the practice before you even step off of the elevator."

"Okay," she warned with a raise of her hand.

"I'm not making fun," Danny clarified, pushing himself off of the door, "I'm just saying, you're usually pretty vocal about these things and today you're a little quiet, that's all. So what happened? Was he a jerk to you?"

Mindy found it difficult to be annoyed when he sounded genuinely concerned. She sighed. "He wasn't a jerk to me, per se, but he was pretty awful…and sexist…and boring…and he smelled funny, right?"

"Yeah, definitely. Like roach repellent."

"Thank you!" Mindy cried. "He claimed that it was a designer scent and I was like, 'Yeah, designed by Raid, maybe.'"

At that, Danny chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, it was pretty nasty. Well," he shrugged again. "I'm sorry you had to waste your time, Min. You'll get 'em next time."

Mindy smiled and furrowed her eyebrows, confused by his paternal brand of encouragement. "Thanks, coach!"

Danny gave her a half smile before turning around and leaving the office. Despite his very well-meaning intentions, this particular exchange reminded Mindy of why she made the decision long ago to stop broadcasting her failed dates to her colleagues and staff. She hated to hear the pity in their voices when they expressed their condolences and, even more than that, she loathed not knowing the source of said pity for sure. Maybe they had long pegged her as a failure in the dating world, or assumed that she was the cause of the night's downfall. Maybe, as some have boldly pointed out to her, they all felt that her mid-thirties was "too old" to still be in the dating scene at all (Which is such a load of misguided shit, she thought). She wasn't sure which one of those categories Danny fell in, if any at all. All she knew was that he felt sorry for her, in some capacity. That was enough to make her wish she hadn't said anything at all. She didn't need pity of any kind.

There was one thing Mindy did feel that Danny had right: last night had been a complete waste of her time and there was really no denying that. There were, however, more important matters that demanded her attention, like deciding which old school Maroon 5 song would make it onto her morning "Get Pumped" mix before Ms. Gullman's surgery, which was a task far more rewarding than dwelling on time already lost.

A/N: Hi, all! I'm happy to finally release the first chapter of my new story. There will be ten chapters total.

In case you're curious, this story is canon-divergent AU. This would take place after Cliff, but the events of The Desert have not occurred because, if you haven't heard by now, I love exploring possibilities. :-) This story was partly inspired by a fan drawing that Mindy Kaling posted on various social media, titled The Many Failed Dates of Dr. Mindy Lahiri. It was drawn by Tyler Feder, an illustrator and comedy writer.

I have to extend a special thank you to Calliope_Soars (AO3), helenvanpattersonpatton, Smapdi, and alittlenutjob. You ladies are incredible beyond actual words.

I hope you all enjoy! Reviews/comments are greatly appreciated, if you can spare some time to leave them!

Hollaatchyagirl,

Phunky