You’re casually scrolling on Tinder as many do until you come across someone you know. Now, is this person your close friend or a mere acquaintance? I mean you never even thought about them like that. That is until you had the chance to right now. You stare at their profile for what seems like an eternity and finally decide to swipe right, thumb shaking over your screen. You tell yourself it’ll be okay because come on everybody swipes right on someone they know. Right?
It’s a match.
This whole thing is a gamble. Your heart is racing. Do they know you may want something more? (Heck, do you even know what you want?) Did they just match with you platonically? Is it just going to be plain awkward when you see them now?
Then they message you.
“Hey stranger, how are you?”
Suddenly you blank. You weren’t prepared for this text at all. Are they friend-zoning you or making the first move? You answer back and the conversation goes smooth like surprisingly smooth. You’ve never actually had a good conversation on Tinder so this whole thing is new to you and amplified even more by the fact that they are your friend.
Next thing you know you’re meeting up to go on a movie with him. He insists on paying and even lets you pick out the movie. Halfway through this “date” that isn’t a “date”, you realize that the only reason you went on this whole thing was out of curiosity.
See, this exact scenario happened to me.
There was this guy in high school I would occasionally flirt with but it was never anything serious, which we both knew, that was until I saw his Tinder profile. I was extremely curious. So curious that I swiped right on him.
From there we matched and he asked me to go watch Dead Pool 2. Let me tell you this whole thing was awkward. The whole process of him picking me up and going to the movies was filled with silence and catching-up about life.
Suddenly, we’re at the movies and I’m praying he doesn’t try to make a move at me. The movie ends and there’s nothing more I want to do than go home. We make our way towards his car and he asks me to get food. Of course, I said yes.
The night ended with my best friend picking me up at Chick-fil-a after I realized this whole thing was too weird for me. I didn’t want to entertain him with the idea that I might be interested and quite frankly, my appetite had gone away once I realized this whole ordeal would last longer.
Now look, this whole thing was awkward. I didn’t know if he was being too nice or genuinely wanted to go on a date with me but here I was for sure knowing that I was not romantically interested. I let curiosity get the best of me.
As time went on, we both never asked any questions. I guess we both didn’t know what we were doing. That’s why matching with friends on Tinder is so hard. You may be like, “lol what would happen if we match?” but honestly, it’s better to think before you swipe.
So, before you go swiping right on everyone you know I would suggest swiping on people you actually like or establish those boundaries early on. Trust me, you don’t want to have your friend pick you up early because you didn’t know what you were doing.
All Gifs courtesy of Giphy.
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