“You’re one broken heart closer to finding the guy for you”, “Don’t get attached because I don’t want you to get your heart broken again”, “Why don’t you just try to meet someone at school or the old fashioned way” are all things I was told while I was on dating apps.
About a week after moving in for the fall semester, my RA, my roommate, a friend, and I were sitting in the common room of my dorm, downloading dating apps. We started with Tinder. Tinder was the scariest experience I had ever had on a social media platform. I felt so stressed making my profile because I didn’t know what pictures to put, I didn’t know three interesting facts about myself, I didn’t know if I wanted people to see my location, and I was scared to talk to someone. Long story short, that night was filled with many mini heart attacks, a lot of anxiety and a few good laughs.
The next night, I was laying in bed swiping (left) on guys. And of course, with my luck, the one guy I swiped right on was a match. My heart skipped a beat because I was so nervous, too nervous to start a conversation. About 10 minutes later I have a new notification “_______ sent you a message.” So I opened it and it said something like “I go to Endicott too, what dorm do you live in?” When I say I was stressed out, I mean I was stressed out. Not only did I match with someone, but it was someone I go to school with. SO many things rushed through my head, like what if I see this person around campus, what if I get my heart broken, what if it’s awkward. Flash forward about a half-hour, “Hey, I was wondering if you wanted to hang out sometime?” That was my first red flag. It was a half-hour and he asked me to hang out with him. So I said something like “I mean I don’t think I’m ready yet, I barely know you and I don’t want to rush into anything.” Now flash forward a couple of weeks, he keeps asking me to hang out with him and asks me if I want to go off-campus. I kept saying no. Then one day, I was so fed up with it, I told him I didn’t want anything to do with him and that I was talking to someone else (which I wasn’t, but he didn’t need to know) then he said some words, and blocked me. So then I thought to myself, you did the right thing.
Now about a couple of weeks later, I matched with this guy at Bentley University. Super sweet guy, I liked talking to him, everything seemed good. But communication started to fade and I was getting annoyed so I ended that, nicely.
And then we get to the one that hurt the most.
Let’s set the scene: I’m at home, it’s Halloweekend, and now I’m on Bumble at 9:30 pm (the time is important). At 9:40, I matched with this boy. And since it’s girls making the first move, I had to be smart and come up with something. He had a picture of a boat, so I told him that one day we should go boating. And ladies and gentlemen, that was the moment I knew I was in for a good one. We immediately hit it off and I felt so comfortable. By 9:50, he added me on snap, and by 9:55 he had my number. Saturday night of Halloweekend when we both probably had better things to do, we texted until 3:00 am. Could I tell you what we talked about? Absolutely not because I don’t remember. But I remember being so happy and knowing that I got myself into something. The next 3 days were non-stop talking and texting, on the phone, facetime, snapchat, and text.
When I got back to school, we had a serious conversation about whether or not we wanted to keep talking since we would both be busy. We decided to keep it casual and just talk when we could. I should also say this, he went to school about 1.5 hours away from me, and about an hour from home. But lives in Pennsylvania, which was surprisingly not a red flag for me. We talked a lot and things got really serious, really fast.
But on a random Thursday morning, he texted me and told me he didn’t know if he could do this. I tried to convince him we could and I told him I was waiting for him to be ready. He then told me that that was the reassurance he needed, and he would try to make it work. About two weeks later, we were planning to meet. Two days before I was supposed to go there, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come here.” I went home anyway and spent the weekend at home, but he was still trying to talk to me the whole weekend. But something seemed different. I was watching the Bachelorette with my mom and he kept asking if I was alone. I told him I would be soon.
I texted him when I was alone, and about 30 seconds later, I got a Snapchat from him. Not something I needed to see. Did I ask for it? No, but I also didn’t know what he was doing. At that moment, I was so conflicted because he told me not to go, but also still wanted something to do with me if he would send me stuff like that. It should’ve been a red flag right there to end things, but something told me to stay. About a week later, he was trying to get inside my head and talk to me in ways that would make me want to send him things when he knew I wasn’t into that and wouldn’t do it. But he told me everything I wanted to hear to make me feel certain things. I think at that moment, I started to fall for him. I shouldn’t have because I didn’t like the way I was feeling. One second he was interested, and the next he didn’t care. About a week later, we had a set date to meet, and I had a whole day to plan. But guess what happened next, “I don’t think you should come” and we went through the whole cycle again.
Now we are on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. He was staying at his roommate’s house for a couple of days, and he spent the whole day talking to me and making me try to feel a certain way so I would do things. I didn’t. Three days later we talked on the phone for about an hour while I was on the train.
Now we’re at Thanksgiving. He and his parents were on Cape Cod for Thanksgiving and were at a beach that was very important to me and my family. He sent me a picture of him at the beach and I told him he looked so handsome, and then that’s when he said it… “we need to talk.” My heart sank into my stomach.
I got dumped by a guy I wasn’t even dating.
About a week later I asked him what I did wrong, and he said absolutely nothing. I didn’t do anything wrong, and it was all him. “I was with my roommate and his girlfriend and saw all the little things they were doing, and it made me realize that’s what I want all the time now.”
So here comes my proposition.
I asked if we could take a week to think about it, cut communication then talk about it again.
Now a week later, he tells me “I’m talking to another girl”. When I say I screamed, I called this boy and gave him everything I had on the phone and let it all out. I gave him a piece of my mind. I told him he messed with my trust issues, that he was using me, and made me regret everything I said to him, just for him to do long-distance with another girl.
I haven’t talked to him since.
Removing him on snapchat and Instagram was easy, but deleting all of the screenshots and pictures and the text conversation was not easy.
He is officially out of my life. Ever since then, here’s how it’s gone. I meet a guy, we talk for a week, and then he either says he doesn’t want anything to do with me, I say I’m not ready, or I say I’m getting freaked out. Ever since I stopped talking to him, I get freaked out every time I guy shows interest in me and I want to isolate myself and not talk. I try hard not to do that now.
Now we are in the present…more or less. I started to talk to this guy who genuinely seemed interested in me and wasn’t using me. We had a tough start and moved fast, but we were on the same page and we agreed to go back to go forward. Doing things the right way.
Once I met this guy, I not only removed all apps off my phone, but I deleted all of my accounts. My mindset has been this: if it works out, great. But if it doesn’t, we just start over. I shouldn’t be stressing about meeting anyone online when social media is enough.
Now three weeks later, we decided that we should take time to work on ourselves, checking in once or twice a week at a designated time. It’s what we both needed. But then I realized that it wasn’t healthy for me to be waiting for someone who wouldn’t wait for me. I need to be in the present, learning about myself, loving myself, and making sure I am okay.
My first semester of college was filled with an unhappy version of myself, and now, I am genuinely happy all the time just because I am taking care of myself and talking to the right kind of guy. My friends were my biggest supporters and were the ones who told me to take a step back and breathe. If there’s one thing I have to say, it’s this: Don’t let some guy make you feel insecure about yourself, and learn to live in the present and not through dating apps.