You don’t have to scroll far on TikTok to find horror stories about online dating. The horror stories are relentless: people have been reported to disappear in the middle of vacations, lie about their identities, and engage in downright rude or questionable behavior—which, if you’re single, can make it incredibly hard to believe that swiping right will ever be of any benefit.
Sure, most people would probably prefer a meet-cute in real life (who wouldn’t?), but sometimes it’s worth getting over the awkwardness and logging on again to give love another chance. It might sound cheesy, but that’s exactly what the people below did – and it paid off. Despite encountering some very odd vibes along the way, they stuck it out on the apps and eventually found their dream partner.
To help clear some of the fog of oversaturation that clouds modern single life, we asked eight people to tell us their horror stories about online dating – from bad beginnings to very happy endings.
I thought I was going to faint.
“We went for coffee. He kept asking weird questions and then decided it would be nice to go for a walk. We live in Australia and it was summer, so I thought, OK, it’ll just be a nice little walk. Nope! I think we walked for three hours in the blazing sun. I thought I was going to pass out. I kept asking if we could sit down and we did for about three minutes and then he said, ‘Come on, let’s keep walking.’ Eventually we got back to where we started. I was drenched in sweat and had a headache. I immediately ordered an Uber and had to drink a lot of Hydralyte when I got home because I was throwing up from heat exhaustion.
On another bad date, the guy seemed normal when chatting online, but when I met him he was a total jerk. He just made me feel bad and kept being pushy at the restaurant. I felt so uncomfortable. Then he said he couldn’t pay, so I was stuck with a $90 bill.
A year ago, I met my current partner Chris on Tinder. I’ve used the app on and off and we’ve matched a few times but never planned to meet up, mainly because he lived 45 minutes away. I’d just ended a situational relationship and stopped dating altogether, but I couldn’t stop thinking about Chris, so I paid the $14 to get unlimited swipes, narrowed down my search, and spent the next three days swiping like it was my job. We matched, he invited me to a rugby game, and since then we’ve been spending as much time together as possible. I can’t believe my luck. We’re closer than ever and I’m still totally in love.” —Leteisha, 31, Brisbane, Australia
He didn’t believe in sunscreen.
“It was the summer of 2019. My date asked me to try his seafood, and I teased him about not living in a coastal state. He pressured me, so I played along and took a bite, and then we both got food poisoning and became violently ill. On the third date, while playing mini golf at night, he said he didn’t believe anyone had flown on the moon. In the summer of 2021, I was eating ice cream with another guy who told me five minutes into the date he didn’t believe in sunscreen. Later, the topic of tattoos came up, and I dropped the bombshell that my tattoo was a melanoma ribbon in honor of my father, who died of skin cancer.
