Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat; there are plenty of people who have had perfectly fine experiences using dating apps. They’ve facilitated lots of casual fun and lasting relationships and we’re not here to bash them across the board. However…
Pretty much everyone who has ever used Tinder or a similar app has a horror story about it. Sometimes they’re mortifying, sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re just bizarre. Lucky for us, there’s now a huge collection of them thanks to this question posted on r/AskReddit:
Let us take you on a journey of a few stories we’ll try to title appropriately to enhance your reading experience.
1. The Mom Bomb
He told me that he and his mom were a “package deal”.
I was mortified and there was no second date.
– McConnells_Neck
2. A Thief in the Night
This one girl who was a regular came in and told me about an awful tinder date she had. Not sure of the specifics, but it wasn’t bad enough for her to not bring him home afterward. He leaves the next morning, she brushes it off as a one night stand, and a few days later, her debit card gets declined.
Odd, since she is a bartender herself at a fairly busy place in our city and is good about saving and usually flush with cash. She goes to check her debit card, turns out there were a bunch of charges at Best Buy, Grubhub, a bunch of other stuff. Curious, she checks her credit card too. There she found a bunch of charges for streaming services. Netflix, Hulu, sling, everything.
She goes to confront the guy and finds out he deleted his profile. But she remembers a friend they had in common on Facebook. She reaches out to the mutual friend to try and track him down and it turns out he did the exact same thing to that mutual friend.
Not sure if what the outcome was but she was out for blood after a mediocre hookup turned into a serious case of identity theft.
– sciamoscia
3. Mai Tai Ask You a Question?
I went on a tinder date a couple months ago on a sunday afternoon. Met up with the guy around 3, he had a really good energy and was funny and complimentary.
The place we wanted to go had a long line, so we went to another restaurant on the water for a drink and appetizers. He started slamming down Mai Tais. I had one, he had 3. They were STRONG. Like, I was tipsy borderline drunk off of one. The bar had a 2 mai tai per person limit, but he found another bartender to get his 3rd.
He got drunker and drunker and started telling me he loved me, joking at first but getting increasingly serious.
As we left he asked me to marry him, I kind of laughed it off, and was like “maybe we take it slow, we just met each other.” He got so mad he stormed off and left me on a street corner.
Then as soon as he got home (it was 5 pm) he started texting me “come over.” And “I miss you.”
– Transformwthekitchen
4. Next Level Creep
I messaged a girl who wanted to meet up, so I go out to the coffee shop and she’s not there.
I ask her what’s up and she totally admits to being a dude catfishing me just so he could check me out in public, and goes on a rant about what a shame it is that I’m a lesbian because he’d totally f*ck me.
I feel like the creepiest part for me was that he never once tried to get nudes or anything, which I’d at least understand the effort for, he just wanted to stare at me in public.
– Allison314
5. Nobody Nose
Went on a date after talking to this guy for a few weeks and I told him I was thinking of getting my nose pierced but was afraid it would hurt.
We are walking through a park in broad daylight and this dude takes a safety pin out of his pocket and f*cking jams it through his nostril.
Blood pours down his face. He laughs and says “see? No big deal.”
Dude. W t f.
– CoyoteaParty
6. The Pyramid Scheme
A chick said she was having a “work party” at her house and I should come over. It’s byob, so I bought a 6 pack for myself.
Went to her place and noticed more than half of the people were younger (17-18, while I was 21 and the girl was also 21). Then they gathered everyone in the living room and proceed to talk about the job. Turns out it was one of those pyramid scheme recruiting gatherings.
I just sat there drinking my beer (only one drinking) for 2 hours because I thought it was rude to leave because they were telling sob stories and saying how much this “job” had helped them. Sat there listening to some “head of the group guy” saying how we can make millions in a short amount of time. Saying bullsh^t like “you see my bmw 3 series out front? That’s a company car that you can drive around in, if you do what we do”.
[…]Two or three weeks later she sent me a text (unfortunately we exchanged numbers) asking if the “head of the group” guy can call me and ask me questions on why I’m not signing up and how I thought the group session went. I didn’t reply but sure enough the dude called me and I politely said it’s not for me but he kept pushing. Finally I had to tell him to f*ck off.
And that was the end of that. Never went to “work parties” for a tinder date again.
– amijohnsnow
7. The Kratom Catastrophe
I had read recently about some stuff called Kratom, that is supposed to make you feel really relaxed and euphoric, and I had tried to make a tea from the recommended dosage the previous day, but I didn’t feel anything off of it. So I figured if this stuff was supposed to make you be cool and euphoric then the best time to take it would be for a first date! and since I didn’t feel anything from it the first time I figured I should take more.
So I wrapped a LOT of it (Kratom is usually sold as a greenish, super bitter powder) up inside of ball$ of deli meat and swallowed those whole before the date.
I then went to the lunch feeling nothing, until I met the girl and sat down, at which point I suddenly came to the realization that I was a few seconds away from projectile vomiting up all that Kratom and Deli meat in the middle the restaurant. I excused myself, got up from the table, walked a few steps towards the bathroom until I began to violently vomit. At which point I covered my mouth with my hands, began choking on my own vomit as I sprinted towards the bathroom, leaked a trail of vomit all over the floor in a path towards the bathroom, then continued to violently projectile vomit into the trash can in the bathroom. I then spent a while to clean my face and wash my arms and hands which were soaked in vomit.
I then returned to the table and tried to survive the rest of the lunch date without dying of embarrassment. I felt like a huge as$hole and was really embarrassed.
– joenotson
8. The Number 1 Fan
So I met this girl on tinder and went for a lunch date. We had a pretty good connection so we decided to have dinner as well.
After having a few drinks one thing lead to another and ended up back at my place, we hooked up and went to sleep.
Middle the night I wake up. She’s intensely staring at me while she’s crouched behind the bed. I asked her if everything is alright, she said yes and got back into bed… I thought “little creepy, but probably nothing to worry about.”
She lays down to cuddle with me and she’s wet. At the time, I was like “damn I must just be a stallion.” Fast forward to the morning, she’s gone and there’s a wet puddle beside the bed.
she peed on my floor
I still don’t understand it. I had a bathroom, but maybe she just got lost and couldn’t hold it?
I did not hear from her again.
– GravyxNips
9. Chocolate Milk?
This happened just after I decided to get into the dating scene after a traumatic end to a three year relationship.
So it’s 00:45 and a tinder match messages me asking what I’m doing, then invites me to go out with her. I think it’s a bit late, but the clubs are open for 3-4 more hours so why not? I should take opportunities, right? I’m a single man in his 20s for the first time.
She says she’ll pick me up (Driving in towards the town from outside of it) and I put on cologne and a nice shirt, get ready to go out. I go to the car, my match is in the front passenger seat and her friend is driving. I think it’s pretty weird but having a friend along isn’t super off so I get in and ask which club we’re going to.
“We’re not going out-out, just out.” My match says as we drive off.
“Where are we going?” I ask, feeling a little uncomfortable.
“Just into town,” she replies.
They drive to a nearby bridge with a carpark under it and park, turn the radio up and start chatting. The Girl driving pulls out a 1L (2 pints) bottle of chocolate milk and starts drinking it, they talk about the most boring sh^t, barely include me in conversation and start rolling cigarettes.
After 15 mins they get out of the car to have a smoke, I get out too. My tinder match is wearing Fluffy white slippers that light up with each step. I turn and face them, “I appreciate you guys picking me up but this really isn’t my scene, I’m going to head off, have a nice night.” They were very offended.
– Kaldenar
10. Stick To It
After a movie date with a guy I met on tinder, we came back to my place. We’ll call him Dude. I told him we could hang for a bit but I have work in the morning so I would need to go to sleep soon. Dude said that was fine, but he was hungry and he was going to order food. Ok sure. Dude orders 2 large subs from PotBelly and a milkshake. Downs it. No judgment, he’s 6’4, 210 lbs, younger still growing, by all means. I didn’t think anything of it until later…
We end up messing around a bit and fall asleep in bed. I wake up to my front door opening and closing several times over a 5 minute period. My dogs are going nuts, and it’s 1am. What the heck is this guy doing?? I open the door to my room that opens up to the rest of my apartment and my bathroom is to the left where the light is on and the door is wide open, I walk around the corner to make eye contact with Dude who is in a squatting position over my toilet, with a stick, poking around in murky brown p*op water that is milimeters from overflowing onto my bathroom floor. Horrified, he yells, ” Stop looking at me! Go back to bed! I have it under control!” I’m still waking up trying to understand what i’m seeing and what’s going on, and I just start nervous laughing I don’t know what else to do. He yells, “Why don’t you have a plunger?!?” And I said I don’t know I never needed one until now!! He tells me to go back to bed he has it under control, i’m so disturbed, tired, can’t process what’s happening and have work in the morning I go back to bed. I remember hearing him peek in my room a bit later and heard, “I fixed it.” and then heard him leave and my door close behind him.
The next morning. I hesitantly approach my toilet to find the water is down. But there is something poking out from the bottom of the toilet like he didn’t get it all. Upon further inspection, what I was seeing was the tip of a stick. Some gloves, towels and BBQ tongues later I pulled out approximately 3 foot of stick from my toilet that had broke off, followed by several other stick fragments. Dude had broke several sticks. I heard my door open and close so much, because he was going outside to look for a stick, one would break, he’d go get another. Dude had left drippy p*op water stains all over my bathroom floor. He also left my apartment soo fast, that he left his underwear, and undershirt and socks…
After work that day, I went straight to the store and bought a plunger.
Lesson learned.
– areyoureadyreddit412
Yanno, reading stories like that are kind of the perfect fodder I need to not feel bad about being extremely lazy about trying to date.
What’s your Tinder (/other dating service) horror story?
Tell us in the comments.