#tindertentthief

I have had an on and off relationship with the app Tinder for nearly two years now. It started off as curiosity and has now progressed to becoming a game. A game that feeds my ego and superficially makes me feel good about myself, if only for a few minutes.

Because I rarely swipe right, I have only physically met five guys through this app. I have heard it is normal to match with hundreds and only chat with a fraction and meet even less.

This particular snippet is about the last fellow I met: the Tinder Tent Thief. Allow me to elaborate. This guy, let’s call him D, “super likes” me. I check out his profile and he was a very good looking man, seemed well traveled as well. I’ve had prior experience with a dude not looking like their profile photos and not being like what they were portraying, so I was a little dubious.

We began messaging. He definitely seemed keen and as I was still dubious and also having an extremely busy month, I was not the quickest in responding. He continued to pursue - in hindsight I believe this was what he was really after - the chase. Typical. My delayed responses prompted him to give me a bit of an ultimatum - “I thought your profile was interesting and I’d like to meet, just let me know if you are too” - this piqued my interest. Perhaps I too, like the chase - I let him know I am keen to catch up and we make plans to meet mid week at lunch time.

We meet. It was good. More than good. I liked him. I was beaming. Like a friggin school girl with a high school crush. This beam lasted for days. I messaged him to let him know that I really enjoyed meeting him. And he lets me know he feels the same and says we should hang out. He asks if I own a tent. Yes, I have two tents - a two man tent and a six man tent. D asks to borrow the smaller tent for a wedding over the weekend. I say yes.

On Friday night, we plan to meet around 8:30pm, he messaged to tell me he was at dinner and that he was running late. An hour later, he shows up at mine with his friend. I lend him the tent and a bed to go with it. We all them go out for a drink and well, long story short, his friend goes home and we go back to mine to watch a movie. Because he had a wedding the next day and I was scheduled for a morning Pilates class, he did not spend the night. Sunday. He messages me to let me know that he was back. Thanks me for the tent and tells me he did not use it…. And that he will return it “pronto”

A few meaningless back and forth messages of basically me asking him to do something with me and him telling me he is busy, I began to feel like some annoying needy girl he was trying to get rid of. Nobody likes to feel this way. So I stop communications. Nothing worse that reaching out to someone when they clearly don’t want to be reached… By you anyway.

Speculations aside… Ok let me share mine with you - D hooked up with someone at the wedding and is now seeing her and like most men I have dealt with, is too cowardly to just let me know. So is instead choosing to pretend to be busy. Forever. While still holding on to my tent and my bed.

Quite the crazy scheme just to steal a tent but without any additional information from the assailant I can only speculate and tell stories. Perhaps there is a secret crime ring that tricks unsuspecting women on Tinder into a false sense of security and then asks to “borrow” items and then disappear. Perhaps D stalks potential victims on the app in order to collect items he does not already own. Maybe everything of his has actually been “borrowed” In the grander scheme of things and in my comically shitty luck with love, this anecdote is definitely more funny than sad. The days of the silly happy beaming when I legitimately thought this could have been something special were really memorable.