Catfishes and creeps: These Tinder horror stories may put you off dating for life

Even puts the Tinder Swindler to shame

2 years ago

Tinder is a never-ending game of hit and miss. Unfortunately, while you may hear of many ‘successful’ stories, there are also plenty of Tinder horror stories to say otherwise. In other words, some really weird stuff can go down on that app. It’s the place where the creatures of the world really go to try their luck.

We asked you for your worst Tinder horror stories, and they did not disappoint. From people lying about their identity, to some truly awful pick-up lines and even worse dates, they even put the Tinder Swindler to shame.

Here’s some of the best (or worst?):

‘He told me he’d set his teacher’s foot on fire’

Chloe told The Tab that she went on a date with a guy from Tinder just before she came to uni. Her parents had just moved house to a new area that she didn’t know at all.

“This guy picked me up from my parent’s house and drove me to this really remote and empty pub on the outskirts of town that I’d never been to and had no cell service. I didn’t really know where I was but whatever.

“We were at this pub and he just kept buying me drinks even though he wasn’t drinking – because he was driving. He then proceeded to tell me about all his anger issues and told me a story about how he’d once set a teacher’s foot on fire and then a story about when he lost a game of golf he threw all his golf clubs in a lake. After which he proceeded to go through photos on his phone showing me a collection of photos of him after fights (with black eyes). I had to agree to a second date just to get him to drive me home because I literally didn’t know where I was or how to get back and had no signal.”

‘I went to meditate and just felt this wave of energy telling me that the person I was talking to wasn’t real’

“So I matched with this girl, checked her profile pics out, liked the look of her and her bio was pretty sweet too”, John said. “So I messaged her.”

“We had a good convo, flirted and I got a nice feeling from it. We were talking for a few weeks and became quite close – I opened up to her about some days when I was feeling shit and it just felt nice to connect to her and have someone there who understood me.

“Every time I asked to meet up, she would always come up with an excuse. She wouldn’t let me have her number and she said she didn’t have social media as she was ‘taking a break’ from it. They uploaded a photo one day of a guy and I said ‘oh who’s that?’. She kept ignoring me, until she said that she didn’t mean to upload that and it was a mistake.

“So anyway, from that, I was like this is so odd. I went to meditate and as I was meditating, I just felt this wave of energy telling me that the person I was talking to isn’t real. So I asked her if we could have a video call and she kept saying no – it just wasn’t adding up.

“Then, I took the photo and ran it via a Google image search and it came up with loads of pics of them. I was like ‘what! I’ve been catfished by a guy.’ I even asked them about it, but they just denied it and blocked me. I felt so stupid and hurt afterwards. I had feelings for that person and it was just such a horrible and nasty thing to do :(“.

‘The only thing he could say in English was “you’re such a f***ing hoe – I love it”‘

This one speaks for itself really.

‘I saw him on the tram with another lass’

“This guy stood me up but then later, on my way home, I saw him on the tram with another lass.”

‘What happens when a Jew walks into a wall with a boner?’

Maria had an absolutely tragic encounter on Tinder with a guy from her uni. It speaks for itself really.

‘I was catfished by a guy who threw ice on my head’

“I was talking to this girl on Tinder for a few months; she was a model from South Africa who lived in London (I know this sounds like alarm bells but we had some mutuals). Things progressed and soon we were sending pics back and forth on WhatsApp. I sent a few nudes. Naturally, I started telling all my friends about her – how beautiful and great she was. We were literally chatting all day every day. Yet every time we made plans she’d always cancel last minute. Eventually, it transpired we were both going to the same party – she asked me if I was going, and I was. I waited for her but she never turned up. Weirdly though, when I was at the party, this random guy I’d never met before ran up to me, threw some ice in my face, and then scurried off. It was very strange, but I didn’t see him for the rest of the night, and I’m not a fighter, so I let it go.

“At around 2am that same night, I got a message from her saying she wasn’t coming to the party, but I should go and meet her at a hotel nearby where she’d booked a room for the night (it has been paid for by the brand she was doing a modelling shoot for, she said). I literally ran over there, but when I got the desk, she wouldn’t pick up her phone. I tried about 10 times, before asking reception if anyone was staying there went under her name. They had no record of it. At this point, I gave up and went home, feeling suspicious for the first time that something wasn’t right.”

“I spoke to some mates about it and they had a bad feeling. There was one place I hadn’t been messaging her on – Instagram, where she had around 10k followers. So, I messaged her on there about the night before – to see if she’d explain. However – you guessed it – she had no idea who I was there. Now I knew I had been catfished. I was angry and I was going to find out who it was. I knew it must be someone within our extended friendship group, as we’d been invited to the same party (at least, her catfish had). So, I sent a message to the party’s host to see whose number hers really belonged to. Low and behold, it belonged to a guy – someone I had never met before – but when I searched for his name on social media I recognised his face. It was the random guy who threw ice on my head.

“I was naturally seething. And it had been made worse by the fact that all my friends knew – they’d listened to me brag about this hotel model I was texting for months now. So, as I brewed with rage in days following, I decided the only sensible thing to do was to humiliate this guy back. Plus, I wanted answers. Pumped full of adrenaline on a Friday afternoon I marched over to this guy’s office (we’d found where he worked on LinkedIn thanks to my friend’s sleuthing). I calmly approached the building (a tech co-work space in east London) told the reception desk I had a meeting with this guy, and took myself up to his floor. Someone pointed me in his direction when I got there, and I confronted him in front of the entire office, being sure to hold up the pictures of the girl on my phone he was pretending to be. He didn’t say anything for a really long time, and just sat there red-faced. Eventually he admitted he is actually friends with the model, and the reason he did it was because I once got with one of his female friends and “fucked her over” but refused to give any specifics. Then I left. I have no idea how his colleagues reacted when I left, or whether it cost him his job.”

‘Needless to say, I didn’t reply’

‘He gave me serious murder vibes’

Hannah told The Tab about a time when she matched with a guy and asked her to spend the night together – before they’d even met. “He told me he wanted to drive me somewhere special. All in all, it gave me serious murder vibes”.

‘We matched that day…’

‘He’s training to be a priest’

“My pal’s brother catfished me on Grindr. None of his fam knew that he was gay and he’s training to be a priest.”

‘He wouldn’t stop eating my food’

Amira went on a date with a guy from Tinder “who basically invited himself over” after they’d gone for dinner.

“I wasn’t feeling it but also hate rejecting someone. Anyways, once he was in he asked if I had any snacks, so I got him some crisps. Then, he asked if I had any other snacks or chocolate that he could munch on (this was date 2???? and I barely knew the guy). AND THEN he was like ‘oh I saw a bottle of lemonade in the fridge can u grab that’ (?????). Finally when I faked an emergency because he would not get the hint and I’m too nervous to just kick someone out, he wanted to grab a can of coke on the way out.”

Absolute liberties.

Featured image credit before edits: Unsplash