Shortly before The Bold and the Beautiful paired Carter and Hope, he had a line of dialogue that made our eyebrows shoot up: It was about the fact that Forrester Creations’ COO was known to “date around.” We were like, “Mr. Walks the Straight and Narrow is a player off screen? Really?”

It turns out that we weren’t the only ones taken aback by the declaration. It made portrayer Lawrence Saint-Victor go, “Hmm,” too! “It’s interesting, right, because you watch the show and you see what goes on these offices and these homes, but,” he adds, “these characters also have lives outside of what you see.”

The actor believes that yes, his alter ego did have a social life even before Hope. “Carter probably did date. I imagine he dated a lot, and it wasn’t fulfilling,” he says. “He is a guy that wants to be in a serious relationship. If it’s not marriage, it’s not fulfilling to him.”

Saint-Victor does allow that he wondered about his own theory, however. The truth could be much sadder. “To be honest with you, when he said that, a part of me was like, ‘Do you really date around… or do you just stay late at the office and you’re a workaholic because that’s how you handle being alone?’ There’s a little question mark for me there.”