A short rant about a message on Tinder that’s really not okay

I’ve not been interested in dating at all now for a good six months. It’s actually the most chill I’ve ever felt relationship wise and I’m really enjoying doing my own thing, pottering about and basically not caring much about anything.

I’ve painted a wall in my bedroom a really dark greeny teal colour (there’s a picture on my Facebook page) and rearranged the furniture so that my bed is now in a corner and can only be accessed from one side. If that isn’t a statement of intent then I don’t know what is. I even went to an evening class and learned how to make prints in a dark room. Menopause here I come.

A few days ago though I had a bit of a moment – curiosity more than anything I think – and I redownloaded Tinder, just to see. Obviously the first thing I saw was a man holding a big fish, and then another looking incredibly sad and like dating might tip him over the edge, (two ticks on my Tinder bingo card), and so it served as a welcome reminder of why cats are better than boyfriends.

(I also saw that the man who called me a liar was still there. Not sure why he hasn’t been snapped up.)

I did have a cheeky swipe though, just to check that the evening course hadn’t crushed all of my desirability, and I got a few matches back. Fine. In my experience barely anyone ever actually bothers to message once they known that they could if they wanted to, so I didn’t feel under pressure.

And then this morning I got this lovely message and felt it my duty to reply:

What I found most worrying about it was the use of emojis – the cheeky smile implying that this might actually be someone’s attempt at FLIRTING.

I read it back and imagined them doing the same and feeling pleased with themselves. ‘Hell yeah,’ they mutter under their breath, ‘you got this. Sexy yet naughty. Spot on Daniel.’

(He was called Daniel, I’m not picturing him with an imaginary friend or multiple personality.)

This is a heads up to all the Daniels out there – this is NOT FLIRTING. In fact, even Tinder flagged it as being potentially offensive and asked me to let them know – yes or no – if it worried me.

I pressed yes.

In a way it could be forgiven if he was just an out and out creep, someone who knew exactly what he was doing and just wanted to intimidate people. At least then you’d know that he knew that it wasn’t okay. It’s much scarier to think that someone has written this under the impression that it is okay, and that I might read it and feel excited or aroused at the idea of a stranger breaking into my house in the middle of the night.

Let me reassure you Daniel, I will be double checking all of the doors tonight, and not as part of the game.