Tinder Stories – It Was All Too Much

Ah well here we go again.

Dating, getting even more bizarre and complicated than before.

Lets me Ben.

We matched and he was straight off the cuff super lovely.

And the truth is, he always was lovely but this isn’t the story of a lovely guy.

I will say this again and then a little louder for the people at the back but when you date someone. You also date in part the people in their life.

You know their friends.

And I hate to break the news to you but they will pick their friends over you.

Don’t be thinking there is any way to get around this. If you don’t like his mates, then I can tell you right now. It. Not. Work. Out.

Well Ben had a best friend but we will circle back to him shortly.

On our first date he told me how he lived in the city, with his best friend and his girlfriend and for this story we shall call her Madison.

As Ben explains that Madison is a bit whack. She lies about her age, works for an MLM (which is just a pyramid scheme essentially), said she had brain cancer and doesn’t really get social cues.

You could see it on Bens face that he was concerned and a bit exhausted having to deal with her.

And fair fucking enough. All of those things don’t fly well with me. My best friend wouldn’t even consider dating someone like that, instead she would just call them out for being a liar and put them in the trash since they are just being garbage.

Skip to our second date and Ben wanted to cook me dinner at home. Standing in his kitchen he soon realises that he has completely panicked and forgotten to buy things for dinner. 

I don’t know how one forgets completely that the reason the pretty girl is coming around is because you were going to cook for her. But what do I know about men and magical power women have over them.

Ben has on hand – beef mince and coleslaw. It should be noted that it was pre made coleslaw. From a packet.

So you know what I did, I jumped in the kitchen and started to look around the cupboards. I love a challenge. If only this was a way to impress a guy at how pantry savvy a gal can be.

I was an arm deep looking for herbs and spices when Madison appears.

Now listen I am so fucking confused as to why people think it’s okay to start introductions of their flatmates when I am there to be on a date with them.

Like what more can you want? I put pants on, I did my hair and I am trying my fucking hardest not to put my foot in it on this damn date. I came here to win you over not your damn flat mates, sir. Can we just say ‘evening’ and be done with it?

But of course you can’t balls deep in someones kitchen and ignore them. Now, that would just be rude. So I say hello, introduce myself and ask her how her day was.

Ben starts chatting to her about the plans she has install for the evening whilst I am hunting for any sort of carbs or vegetables.

Madison then says she is going on a Tinder date.

But then I remember Ben telling me that Madison was the girlfriend of his best friend.

Is this where I find out about an open relationship?

Because good for you, love that for you!

Alas no.

There was that catch that popped back into my head. You know that thing where Madison and Ben’s best friend broke up.

But that they were still living together. Sleeping in the same bed.

I don’t think I could live with my ex whilst actively dating someone else and then confide in his best friend.

Any way back to dinner because this isn’t really any of my business. I ask Ben if he has any sort of pasta or carbs, to which he responds that he does not.

Why?

Oh yes thats right he use to gym incredibly hard and just doesn’t even think to buy them. Even now the dude has arms that could make a gal crack a smile. I on the other hand think I am made up of 65% carbs. So now I am very lost as to what I should make.

Madison on the other hand is about to leave to go on her date and both Ben and I wish her well.

But we need to focus, there is a meal to be made and I am running out of options and ideas.

As a creative this rarely happens. There were no carbs, there were also no vegetables. There was nothing.  But I fucking challenge you to make a meal with beef mince and coleslaw. Whilst wearing heels, looking cute and not getting your hair in the food. Oh and make sure you don’t say something stupid. I fucking dare you.

It is with the saddest and regret that I have to inform you that I ended up making the most basic, scary meal I have every made in my life.

There were two main ingredients and just one very sad chef.

Yeah you have a fucking laugh.

No one wants to be full when they get naked for the first time. So maybe it was a terrible blessing in disguise. Bonus was that I discovered that Ben was not a picky eater at all.

Anyhow, skip forward to after this meal and after ‘watching’ a movie and we are lying in bed when Madison tries to come into Ben’s room.

His door is locked thankfully but I am most definitely not prepared for visitors.

She yells through the door that she borrow Ben’s aloe vera gel.

He yells back that he will bring it to her.

And then she tried the door again.

His neck snaps looking at me, frowns and Madison says “no its okay I can just come in and grab it”.

This was like some sort of terrible set up for a threesome on Pornhub.

Which isn’t really what I am going for here.

So Ben gets up, pops pants on and locates the aloe vera gel.

He opens the door and she bang smack there.

Like nose to the door causing her to almost fall into the room

That was when the first terrible thought went through my head.

What if she likes her ex boyfriends best friend?

And I have just slept with him.

Cue dramatic music.

Ben returns back to bed and we both have a giggle that woman are weird sometimes.

Fast forward a few dates and Ben and I find ourselves hitting the road on an adventure. I don’t know about y’all but being locked in a car with someone brings out some quality conversation.

People always seem to go into more detail and maybe its the isolation or the subtraction of distractions but its the perfect environment to get to the bottom of who the other person is.

You see you can’t overthink your answers because the road consuming your nerves. Even after all the dates I have been on, I get unbelievable nervous and loose all control on how to form a god damn sentence.

But back to being in the car with Ben where we are talking how things have been at home for him. To which he reveals, a bit volatile.

Madison won’t move out, Ben’s best friend is exhausted to top it off they have a new flat mate who has just been dumped into a bit of a shit storm.

Who doesn’t love flatting right?

So I ask Ben if he has just tried talking to Madison about everything. To which he tells me he did but had to cut the conversation short because I came up.

Ah fuck.

“Me?” I ask.

Like I am not panicking on the inside.

Feel free to play that dramatic music now.

He says “yeah she said she was concerned about me because of you”.

“Me?” I ask again like I am fucking parrot.

“she said because I have started to see you that she has asked one of your friends what you are really like?”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I told her that she needs to stay of my life and that its none of her business.”

“who did she contact?”

Immediately knowing that if someone approached one of my friends about who I really  was that they would come straight to me.

My friends = loyal bastards.

And that hasn’t happened.

Ben tells me that he doesn’t know who but he can ask.

My first thought is that I do want to know.

I want to know who she thought she could contact to find out who I really am.

Do a Google search love.

You will find a blog with over 60,000 words on who I am.

Then there is my social media which is all public.

And if that doesn’t quench your thirst; then ask me.

I won’t lie I was really wound up.

In fact I was angry. My dating life as far as it is public, it is also private.

Madison was about to learn that I am completely transparent and that as a Libra we don’t do well with being fucked with.

I turned to Ben and asked him if she was going to be home tonight.

“Yeah she never goes anywhere else.”

You see I was going to be staying at Ben’s tonight and I was going to do something that Ben nor his best friend has been able to competently do.

Call her out on her bullshit.

My plan was that I was going to ask her who she had contacted about me.

Tell her that this is her opportunity to ask me any questions she would like and explain to her that her actions are not caring they are interfering.

Then I remembered that this was Madison. A girl who lies about being 24 even though shes 20 and fakes brain cancer to her boyfriend.

Remember when I said I am really observant.

I smelt a fucking rat.

So I circle back.

We must always circle back.

Asking Ben how the entire conversation went.

Focusing on what she said.

“she has asked one of your friends what you are really like.”

If she had taken the time to read the blog then she would know, I lived with manipulative people. I see whats going on here.

1. she didn’t state what she had asked exactly – she just said she had asked.
2. she didn’t state which one of my friends she had contacted.
3. she didn’t say what specific thing has compelled her to find out who I really was.

Baby girl was bluffing.

You may not believe me but when you care about someone which is why she did this in the first place you would absolutely justify your actions.

Then that bad thought came back again.

What if she REALLY likes her ex boyfriends best friend?

Either way that is some drama that I am not about to jump into.

I’ve cooled down a little bit and I turn to Ben and ask him if we can stay at mine instead because I really don’t think I can face her.

Do. Not. Fan. The. Fire.

Even if shes not lying.

This is a giant red flag and I need to stop, drop and roll all the way out of this situation.

But then I look over and I can see Ben.

Lovely guy Ben.

Hes staring at me as I drive and my gut is telling me there is something more.

Something he hasn’t told me.

I ask him if he can text Madison to put his aloe vera in the fridge because we are both very sunkissed and I don’t know about you but two people in a bed with sunburn is a very, very hot time.

Whilst we just listen to the music and throw some comments around here and there, that feeling doesn’t go away.

We are now back in the city and I have decided that I ain’t going to let a 20 year old make me uncomfortable. We order some food and end up back at Bens.

Sitting on the floor, Ben’s phone illuminates.

Madison is calling him.

I ask him why shes calling him and if she responded to his message.

“Nah she didn’t”.

Call me old fashion dinner time even at 11pm at night is a no phone time.

I say “I wonder why she is calling”.

Then I see it. All over Bens face.

Hes scared.

And as he reaches for his phone I say “give her a call after dinner”.

“but what if its an emergency?”

“do you really think its an emergency?”

Once again I am calling her bluff.

I’m not trying to be an asshole here but if it was an emergency who do you think she would call?

Maybe her ex boyfriend who she still lives with?

Not his best mate.

“why don’t you let me answer it? I’ll put in on speaker phone and if it is an emergency then you can just jump in but you and I both know it won’t be.”

“okay answer it.”

So I pick up his phone, accept the call and pop her on speaker.

“Hey, its Seren, whats up? Everything okay?”

“Yeah, is Ben there?”

Bruh.

Staring straight at him I reply to Madison and repeat myself

“Hes just in the bathroom, is everything all good?”

“Yeah yeah I was just going to say I am not home so I can’t give you the aloe vera gel”

“Oh no thats okay, I thought it must of been something really urgent since your calling so late! But I’ll let Ben know, you have a good night”.

“Is Ben there?”

I lift my brow.

“Nah hes taking a shower, I will let him know you called, have a good night”.

“Okay, thanks.”

I hang up.

And I put his phone next to the thai we were in the middle of.

“told you, non emergency”

“yeah, you’re right”

I say “whats going on? You didn’t have a normal reaction to her calling”.

Hes just twisting his noddles in a circle now.

“I get worried that if I miss her call she would have killed herself”.

Fucking hell.

“if you think she is in danger of harming herself then you absolutely need to do something, it is not your sole responsibility to deal with this by yourself.”

“yeah, I know”

“then you should also know that using the threat of sucide to control other people is not ok”.

“I just get really worried”

“You are allowed to be concerned but you should not let someone else control your life like this. I overstepped the mark there picking up your phone but I wanted to prove a point. Ive thought about it, the more I am around the more she is going to act out towards you. Because she won’t have complete control over you which is what she wants. First it was trying to get into your room, then it was that comment, like what will it be next?”

“yeah I guess I have never looked at it like that….”

Ben goes on about how he feels responsible.

That lovely guy has been taken on a lovely ride by a girl who thought she could use how lovely he is against him.

Its big ole mind fuck.

The next day I get home and I am exhausted.

After everything I have learnt, one thing I know is: dating isn’t meant to be like this.

Sure you date someone but remember you also end up dating the people in their life.

And I didn’t think I could date crazy.

Tinder Stories – He Was The Chosen One

Well here is a story of  why I think I am single.

Lets take a trip back in time and meet Nathan.

Nathan and I had been on a fair few dates and were quite comfortable together. It was safe to say that I knew how he liked to drink his tea and what side of the bed he liked to sleep on.

It’s a long weekend in Auckland and you best believe the day we are specifically looking at is Auckland Anniversary weekend. It is the weekend for Laneway. Which for those of you who don’t know is a singular day festival held in a park in the centre of the city. Creatures seek refuge under trees in the mid day sun and everyone becomes a bit of a pest when the sun goes down.

I am one of those pests on this day and apparently I am also full of ideas. You see Nathan wasn’t coming to Laneway and well that was fine by me at the start of the day because I had my squad. Don’t even try to come at me for using that word because I am pretty sure we are still trying to find out which way is Laneway.

Being the social (media) butterfly that I am you may have seen most of my day on a glorious Instagram story. Behind the scenes I was messaging Nathan as you do. You see I had asked him about half way through the day if he was going out that night or if I could come and stay the night with him. He said that he will get back to me as he was feeling quite tired but he was having a few drinks with his friends.

We all know there is a moment in all hangovers when you want nothing more than for someone to hold you and tell you that you aren’t dying and maybe just maybe see if they can bring you a water. I could feel it in my bones that in about 18 hours I would want to curl up on Nathan’s lap and sleep the next day away in 4 hour slots.

However we are still trying to find which way is Laneway and as the sun sets I realise that I have not heard from Nathan for a while.

So in any logical fashion you know what I did?

Texted him multiple times followed by snap chats and finally two phone calls and you know what I heard?

Absolutely nothing.

And for another 3 hours I forgot my quest to find a burrow to stay the night because I was still figuring out which way was Laneway.

The squad was still holding great form whilst we were watching the Jon Hopkins set when we were all starting to figure out how much gas was in the tank. The group was split, half was ready to go on to town and an adventure. I fell into Camp Snuggle and was calucalting how many steps it was going to take till I was in bed.

The question was who’s bed?

Que Seren’s logical brain kicking into 8th gear.

You see from the festival the next closest place was my best friend Laura’s apartment but 200 metres down the hill was Nathan’s place. You see my logic here.

It was at this moment I announced to the group that I was going to Nathan’s house even though I had not heard from him and in my brain if he wasn’t home I would just go back up the road to Laura’s house or continue on to my own house which was 1 km away.

So I took Gwen and we marched towards home. She had Laura’s key and her phone on loud and I took this moment to confess that I hadn’t heard from Nathan and to my surprise she was in full support of me getting what I want.

“you get those cuddles and if you can’t have them I’ll spoon the shit out of you”

Find friends who support your decisions even when they aren’t the best ones.

Off we went down the hill practically skipping to the entrance which is when I realised that I had forgotten that you can’t even get to the front door of the apartment without being buzzed in.

And in my state do you think I could remember Nathan’s apartment number. Absolutely not.

But what I could remember was that he lived on the ground floor and that only a large  concrete fence stood between me and his place.

With a boost up the wall I was now sitting there in a bralette, high waisted shorts, a bum bag staring right at his bedroom. A pest in her finest form only illuminated by the street lights.

And I couldn’t be more chuffed with myself.

Smug dumb dumb.

I scooted down the wall and knocked on Nathans bedroom. First there was no answer so I knocked again because I didn’t come this far to not be a winner.

A light flicked on and out of his bedroom came Nathan who was just wearing jockeys and incredibly confused as to what the fuck was going on just before midnight.

It was I dumb dumb.

I tapped on the glass with a talon and announced it was me. As if he couldn’t see through the glass and I was some sort of an invisible woman and I asked if I could come in.

Nathan unlocking the door asked if I was okay.

Of course I was okay, I had just gotten everything I wanted and was about 45 seconds away from bed.

Turning around I see Gwen who is now leaning over the short part of the fence between the trees. Saying goodnight and making sure she will be okay for the 200 metre walk back up the hill, Nathan thought I had gone crazy before he managed to spot her as she slipped back into the darkness.

I launched myself inside and immediately wrapping my long gangly arms around Nathan as he rubbed his eyes. He asked me where my top was and I had to tell him that I lost it and if he wanted any more details I would not be able to fill in the blanks.

My last two brain cells were struggling in my brain and we can’t ask much more of them.

He walked me into his bedroom told me to get into bed and pulled me in and told me to go to sleep.

And I did do that but not before giving him a play by play of my epic adventure. Because what is more annoying than a girl showing up to your house and then waking you up but to then keep you awake and overshare in the dark.

What was more amusing for Nathan was that when I finally fell asleep I was twitching a lot. You see in my brain me and my final two brain cells keep falling out of the sky. You know the feeling when you wake up because you are jolting yourself awake. I did that for hours and every single time good guy Nathan would squeeze me and tell me it’s okay.

Got to love when you pick the right guy to keep awake all night and not get angry at you.

You see in my eyes the only the only mistake I made that day was wearing a lingerie bra that clasped up at the front because EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I slightly pushed my boobs together it would pop open.

Which is clearly not the reason I am single.

However other factors that may be influencing why I am single are as follows:

• Jumping a fence that doesn’t lead to my own house
• Scaring the living daylights out of a boy I was seeing
• Keeping him a wake all night
• Being incredibly clingy the next morning
• Asking for a t-shirt because ya girl needed to fuck off back up to her best friends house to die a great death but that 200 m walk was not going to be done in a bra alone

The jury is still out as to why I am single but I beginning to get a far clearer picture as to why. If you have any suggestions then please let me know. Its not like I’ve got 4 weeks devoted to personal development on my hands.

 

Tinder Stories – Donuts and finger nails don’t mix

In my time dating (though that time doesn’t seem to be over) I have met a few weird eggs.

Sure I am happy to admit I am a weirdo but in the sense that occasionally I make dinosaur noises and maybe that is why I am single. Maybe this entire story doesn’t have a leg to stand on because I have set my standards at a certain level and me saying no in this story makes me too weird to date?

You be the judge. I’ll just get back to the story.

His tinder profile was something straight from Instagram.

I could see he had curated his images so that he appeared like every millennials girls dream.

He had an amazing smile, the body ever dude probably wants and a love for adventure.

It’s easy to spot these sorts of guys of dating apps because it’s the “too good to be true” look. Pictures of animals, then exotic images of places they have been, some witty captions and no images of girlfriends past but they were definitely taken by them. Because no dude can make himself that candid on demand. 

As a general rule, I don’t swipe right on these guys because normally they are all talk and no delivery. No dude who spends that much time on his social media has enough time for a relationship. Call my bluff but those images are there for a reason and it is not for his mum to see. These profiles are riddled with red flags. But what have we learnt, Seren loves the colour red. 

But anyway this is the story of Liam.

A guy I matched with and how I worked out he wasn’t for me.

So let’s start at the beginning.

Liam and kicked things off and we got on well. The banter was good, he wasn’t destressing to look at and honestly he was a nice guy. 

But like all stories that make it onto the blog, it’s not all rainbows and lollipops.

It was an evening where Liam wanted to catch up.

It was also an evening I didn’t want company.

Bless Liam though as he said “I’ll pick up donuts and we can just watch a movie”.

Now listen, I knew my heart of hearts that Liam wasn’t trying to make himself boyfriend material nor was I wanted him to. He had some really fucking dumb things that I had to address. So Liam if you are reading this, this isn’t an invitation to come back into my DMs. 

Anyway, I told him I didn’t want company, that I was in a mood but he seemed to think he could change all of that.

We love a man who is yet to realise how powerless he is.

But back to the Uber Eats delivery of donuts that I don’t want but will say thank you for because I am not a savage.

I let Liam come round.

Liam turns up, donuts in hand and he’s rather chipper.

I put myself back in bed and put the donuts on my side table and ask him how he is. To which he didn’t answer but asked why I wasn’t eating the donuts.

1. I said I wasn’t interested in donuts
2. I said I wasn’t interested in you.
3. I said I wasn’t interested in company.

So I just handed him the donuts and asked him what he wanted to watch and like most people we just sat there scrolling through Netflix for 10,000 years unable to pick a damn movie.

We were talking about what’s happened in our lives since the last time we caught up, Liam is just finishing off his donut when he asks me if I have any nail clippers.

To which I pause my scrolling and ask him:

“nail clippers?”

“yeah, I need to cut my finger nails”

Im sorry, what.

“you want to use my nail clippers?”

“yeah”

“oh no sorry that’s not happening”

“why not? it’s just me”

And at this moment I realise that this dude really isn’t kidding.

Then again when are they joking?

All I can say is “you aren’t using my nail clippers”

Liam then reveals his first and foolish card.

“well then you aren’t getting these hands”

Sir, I didn’t want you here in the first place, I didn’t want your donuts and I most definitly don’t want your god damn fucking hands that don’t actually do all that much.

“that’s fine by me honestly” is what I really said though isn’t it.

At this rate I am completely unsure why I even let him come round and most definitely do not know how to get him out quick enough.

And then I see him pick up his phone, open google and type in:

“is it weird to borrow nail clippers?”

What. The. Fuck. Honestly. Get. Out.

Twas at this moment I realised that Liam really wanted to do nothing more than to clip his god damn mother fucking nails.

And all I wanted was for this conversation to be over.

Listen I am not sure what was weirder the fact that he wanted to use my nail clippers or that he needed to use my nail clippers right then and there.

Like if he had a splinter then I would totally understand. They hurt like hell every single time you knock them. But Liam ain’t got no splinter. He ain’t even got one dang hang nail.

He’s just my last nerve and he’s stepping all over it.

And whilst I stare at him and realise that he is on page 2 of google trying to find anything that makes it not seem weird, I am planning on how do I get him out of my house asap whilst making this worth while?

Yup. You guessed it.

I slept with him.

Do you hear it? Its me hitting the bottom of the barrel.

Don’t worry, like most men, there wasn’t any foreplay on his behalf.

And 20ish minutes later I was alone in my room with donuts.

Liam hit me up at a later date.

He asked if he could come round with donuts again.

I said;

“Bring me champange, I’m over donuts “

 

 

 

Tinder Stories – He Told Me To Take It Off

Oh how I have so much to update you on.

Dear god its been a wild ride.

Just 4 months since my last post! 

Don’t worry I am still single and sassy as ever.

Things that don’t change – me.

Well, welcome back and I need to tell you a few things.

Marc from The Worst Date Ever – Part 1 & Part 2 (yes there are two parts cause you can’t tell that evening is one go without a break) has been in touch.

And by in touch – I mean he knows.

But before we go down that rabbit hole we need to back it up just a minute.

So get your booty right next to me, get comfortable and fucking hold on.

I published a blog post about the worst date ever and people thought I was telling a bunch of bullshit.

I’ve also been introduced to people I don’t know as: “the girl who writes the Tinder blog”.

Which to me  is – fucking insane.

Then the unbelievable happened – a director contacted me. He read the blog and wanted to turn it into a stage show.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, a mother fucking stage show in a god damn theatre.

You best believe I was all about it and over wine he completely sold me on the idea.

So with any stage show you need actors and to get actors you need to do auditions and the best way to get auditions is to subject all the people you know across all social media platforms that you are looking for someone to literally play you and the dude you wrote two blog posts about and met on Tinder.

*takes deep breath*

But what most of you don’t know is that days after I posted on my Facebook that I was going to be holding auditions for the show Marc showed back up in my life.

Ah, yes, he emerged in his full glory with a stunning agenda.

He wanted to have a conversation about the blog.

Originally I said I wouldn’t write anything about Marc. I agreed to that but as I explained to him, when everything was said and done. We didn’t owe each other anything.

The last we spoke was months ago and we were on good terms. You see after that infamous  date Marc and I kept talking.

Yes, I am a dumb dumb.

You see after investing 3 months into someone I just wanted a civil friendship. I thought, well obviously we can never date, we can never go back to what it was before that night and we definitely cannot sleep together.

But you see after a month of talking I realised I was putting more in than I was getting back. I would ask Marc what he has been up to and how life has been. Our conversation was mostly one sided.

And after four weeks of my best friend telling me not to talk to him but forever being supportive I got fed up.

If you know me and we are friends then you know I am a hype gal. If you want to change careers, do it. If you want to move countries, do it. If you want to go on a three-day bender, I am right there with you and if you want to stay in bed and just have a cuddle I will happily be your big spoon.

Friendship with me, means we are in this together. The good, the bad and all the yarns in between. It is a two way street of advise, shit talking and laughing till you cry.

Marc, on the other hand was on a one way street to Pissing Me Off Town with pit stops at Lying Station, Selfish Valley and Boring amusement park. So I thought I would give him one final chance.

Yeah yeah, I know how stupid I sound (A DUMB DUMB) but I like to see things through to completion. That’s how I ended up doing a Masters Degree.

So I ignored his message about himself the day before my birthday and I thought, if he texts me to say Happy Birthday then I will consider continuing this situation.

Alas, Marc being Marc he didn’t text.

No fucking surprises there.

So my gift to myself was that I would block him on Instagram and delete him on Snapchat.

Wow I am a fucking millennial.

He could still text me and contact me on Facebook but this train had left the station on the way to the new world that doesn’t involve dudes who waste my time. I didn’t hear from Marc that day or any other day after that.

Not until the audition notice went public.

And then that little minx popped back up in my life didn’t he.

FYI: his best friend message me saying how he was so proud of me and how excited he was. 

Marc quickly establishes that he knows about the blog post.

He also expresses that he doesn’t like it.

He also then asks me about the show.

I wasn’t sure what was more shocking, the fact that he knows about everything. Or that he is talking to me.

Then I realised he was trying to manipulate the situation.

“I am genuinely upset that it ended up so shit in the end. Especially considering out conversations just died and now I’m a fuckboy. I want to ask you how you are and what you’ve been up to. But it is a little tough when I’m fuckboy Marc”

1. if he was upset at how it ended, he would of apologised 
2. conversations don’t just die for no reason
3. never called him a fuck boy
4. he can still ask me how I am and what I have been up to
5. stop the poor merant

As I explained to him that no one actually cares who he actually is, that he has always been able to contact me and that keeping his identity a secret is my only concern regarding him.

He tells me once again how I said I wouldn’t write a blog post about him and now there is a show. That he is justified in being concerned with that. He says it’s hurtful and harsh.

You see the last time we spoke I genuinely cared about him.

*claps* Guess *claps* what*claps* bitch.

Now I don’t.

For the first time since knowing me, I was my own first priority.

There was no negation. I wasn’t backing down.

Which was not like me at all and this conversation isn’t going the way he had hoped.

If he didn’t like what I wrote, maybe just maybe he should have thought about his actions as the repercussions they might have.

As he told me and I quote: “having a blog about Tinder mishaps you’re incentivised to exaggerate and create drama for the sake of content.”

Oh baby cakes do you hear that?

That’s you, clutching at straws. 

You fool. 

Then I reminded him of the facts. 

• he showed up late
• he showed up bleeding
• the date went terribly 
• he had spent the day with another woman

I said I will never reveal his identity and I stand by that and y’all have tried to get it out of me.

Then he just thanked me for hearing him out and the conversation ended with me saying “no worries.”

Oh but how Marc wasn’t done.

Explaining to the director the conversation I had only nights before, he takes this moment to say how he isn’t surprised.

Why?

Oh, only that Marc had contact the theatres president, outed himself and was asking that the show gets pulled from the festival.

Yeah I told you to hold on for a wild ride.

What Marc didn’t know is that the director of my show was in fact the Vice President of the theatre where the festival was being held.

And whilst he explained his situation to the president she turned around and used two beautiful words.

 Creative Licence.

Which translated and expanded means that you have every right to do what you want with the stories you have about other people and yourself and if don’t like it that story being told well, tough biscuits.

If Marc wanted to have a cry then he totally can, he’s allowed to. But don’t be thinking the show was not going to go ahead.

Get your own show, your own blog and your own dating stories.

And before I bloody knew it, the show was a real, four person ensemble that I was working on three nights a week.

The cast of Tinder Stories – The Worst Date Ever consists of three Seren’s and one Marc. Yes, there are three of me and yes it is everything you need it to be. It was the director’s idea and I am beyond happy we went for it.

I might be bias, but it is really funny.

And just as a friend of mine who works at Stuff was telling her boss about the fact she was coming to the show. Her boss asked her if I would do an interview. Because turning your crappy date into a stage show is just as funny as it sounds.

Nothing can prepare you for what emotions hit you when you realise that you are having a conversation about your own dating life with a reporter that will be published to the nation.

If you missed it you can find it here.

27,644 people read that article in a week. Which blows my mother fucking mind.

I also go no dates out of it.

But I did get to update my Bumble bio though.

Which is something right.

Also considering offering a service for writing bios for people to be honest.

Because if we are all stuck on dating apps then we might as well have something funny to read. Right?

I was quietly shitting myself because it all seemed like a dream until I was in the back seat of the car being driven to my opening night.

A friend of mine I think encapsulated the show in a one line:

“I had a big fat lol”

Despite everyone thinking it was going to happen, Marc didn’t come to the show.

Alas, I have no idea what he’s doing.

He is still Completely Irrelevant and I plan to keep it that way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tinder Stories – The Worst Date Ever – Part 1

I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances, I have changed the names of individuals and places. 

So where do we begin?

Marc and I had been seeing each other for a few months now and I guess what I need to make acutely clear is that we were not exclusive. We told each other that we had dates and how those dates went, in detail may I add. We did have rules when we were together.

• Phones down
• Pay attention
• Don’t waste each others time.

Mid-week and Marc asked if I wanted to dinner on Friday at a restaurant neither of us had been to.  He said he would book the table and we could make an evening of it.

Well, this is that story.

Now on Friday, I go to work. On this particular day, I worked late. In fact, I worked a 12 hour day and the realised I had dinner at 8PM and needed to go and get ready. It’s now 7.30PM and I still have not heard a peep from Marc which wasn’t unusual however we hadn’t worked out the finer details of that evening.

So at 7.30ish I text him and ask what the plan was. He said he would meet me there and I then told him I was going to be about 10 minutes late because I had worked late.

He said that it was fine and I said I would keep him the loop about my ETA and with that, I went to my best friends house and did my hair because I wanted to debrief for the day and work out a couple of things.

It was at this moment when she expressed her deep concerns for how useless Marc was being.

Hair did, gin and tonic drank, I got into my uber and headed into the city.

Sent a heads up text that I was on my way thinking that he was already there as he was working in the city that day.

What follows is not how a date should go. 

I arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes late. Marc was not there and I proceed to order myself an espresso martini because:

1. its Friday and 2. I am tired as fuck by this point.

Drink arrives, still no Marc.

Halfway through my drink, still no Marc.

Drink finished, proceeds to text Marc telling him that he is now late and orders another drink. I shall remind you, he was meant to be there before me.

Then I see out of the corner of my eye a very flustered guy walk through the door, points at me and shake out his hands.

It was Marc and he plonks himself down next to me.

And he tells me he can’t hug me.

His hand is covered in blood.

Confused I asked what the hell happened to him and he tells me he was on an ONZO bike (which is a bike renting app) and he was racing to get to me and the handles broke and he fell off.

Puzzled; I had a few questions.

1. why was he racing to get here when he was meant to be on time?
2. why was he late in the first place?
3. why the fuck is he trying to wipe his blood on me?
4. no seriously, why the hell is he trying to wipe blood on me?

Practically yelling at him to not put his blood on me it causes the waiter to come over. I ask for a bandage and tell him to go to the bathroom and clean himself in my ‘you are being told off like a child tone’. The waiter leaves, Marc leaves and my drink turns up.

In this time I call my best friend and she replies with how very confused she is and that she thinks I should leave.

Marc is now back, the waiter is also back with plasters and I am playing nurse on a Friday night in a nice restaurant.

He orders a drink and asks me what I am drinking but doesn’t seem to get the hint that I have questions that I would like answers to as he jumps around my question of how his day was.

He replies “it was good” and I ask if he had any meetings – “just the one”.

Side note: If you want a pointer on telling when people are lying, short answers about themselves means somethings askew. People love talking about themselves.

He then asks me about my day and I simply reply “really long” and we both silently take a sip of our drinks.

We get sat at our table and start looking at the menu and I ask where he was before here and Marc says “I was drinking”.

Now my interests have peaked, short answers with no details. Something is up. My friends will know, I do read into things a bit too much but it is because I am normally right (there’s at least four blog post I could write about that).

We order dinner and talk about our week and plans for the weekend. Both of us are busy. He then blurts out “I am in a bit of a cunty mood”. Now I query that because things are getting more bizarre by the second and I can’t figure out why. Clearly, something has happened to give him an ego boost. I would call Marc a very proud creature and I assumed he would tell me eventually but it wasn’t going to be over entrees.

I excuse myself from the table and call my best friend again in the bathroom because I know she’s on the couch and explains to her what is going on. She agrees. Very strange and messed up. She asked me if I was joking about Marc trying to wipe his blood on my legs and I remind her that I couldn’t lie to her even if I tried.

We order another round of drinks and I ask what he had really been doing after work. He says he went for coffee with a girl in the morning after his meeting.

Now it didn’t come as shock like I said we weren’t exclusive, though he had kept this under wraps.

So I ask him how it went and he says:

“I told her I didn’t want to go back to work and she said I shouldn’t, so I didn’t, I’ve been drinking with her and her friends since then. I am actually fucked”.

What.

Literally what the fuck.

So I reply with “so you were late to dinner with me because you were on a date with a girl and you drank too much and now you’re fucked?”

And as if he didn’t pre-warn me about him being a cunt he smiles and says “yes”.

With the magic that is the world, the mains arrive and I sat there waiting to be slapped in the face whilst my brain worked things out.

I begin to calculate and break down the math in front of me, his meeting was at 9am because I had stayed the night on Thursday and left him in bed just that morning. His meeting was short and I knew he had nothing else booked for the day. And as I slice into my lamb I realise that this guy had been on a bender since 10am.

I remember sitting there thinking if I should ask him if I interrupted his evening but he clearly saw me thinking and asked how my meal was. I said he should try some and downed half my cocktail waiting for someone to tell me this was all a big joke.

He then spots the table next to us and the drinks they are having and asks if we should get them. Yes. Let us get more alcohol to the table and specifically into my body because I need to survive this evening. We finish mains, cocktails arrive and well some god was watching because we have order long island ice teas.

I have never felt so welcomed by the inner party goblin in me telling me to just down the entire thing but I bargain with her with consuming half, excusing my self from the table again and if you haven’t guessed it, calling my best friend.

She is now giving me step by step instructions on leaving the restaurant. “book an uber right now, pick up your shit and get the fuck out of there”.

And you know what I did.

Not that.

Because I am a dumb dumb.

I sat down and asked why he was in such a ‘cunty’ mood.

He shrugged and though well my evening is ruined we might as well play petty and ruin his as well.

So I leant forward onto the table, looked at him dead in the eye and said the word ‘penis’.

Now if you haven’t played this game called ‘Penis’ it’s very easy to understand. You take turns to say the word ‘penis’ louder than the last person in a public place until you are too embarrassed to continue and have to back out.

Marc, being a proud person hated losing. We had discussed this at length which is important because he also hated child games.

“What”, he said.

And louder than last time I said “PENIS” and continued to drink my long island ice tea.

If you haven’t realised this yet, I have had a stupid amount of alcohol and am definitely not myself, Patricia’s cousin is out and she has no fucks to give.

Picture this: two adults on a date, one covered in blood and blue plasters, drunk, the other holding a permanent frowned face and now almost yelling the word penis.

I should also point out that at this point Marc is now playing the game and the waiter walks over putting dessert down asking us if we would like another drink. To which I pause the game and say yes to a gin and tonic.

We order and Marc takes this moment to go to the bathroom and yes ladies and gentlemen I call my best friend and tell her once again what is going on and once again she tells (shes actually yelling down the phone) me I should leave.

Find out what fuckery happens in part two.

 

 

Tinder Stories – Why are boys dumb? – Part 2 an update

Once again I am questioning my own sanity and can’t seem to wrap it around my brain as to how I got myself in these situations. 

I said this update would be a goodie and I wasn’t lying. Why you may ask? Because these tinder blogs do catch up with me which makes for great tales. So here are those stories. 

Starting back with my first ever tinder date and all the statement jewellery he wore we find ourselves out on a Saturday night in a common club in Auckland. When out of the corner of my eye I see Tim in a full suit, pocket square and all trying to talk to every single girl who manages to make eye contact with him. 

Now, unfortunately, I have been left alone because the other half of my party had gone to the bathroom. Watching from a mere 2 meters away I felt like a classic tourist who had spotted a bear who had come out of hibernation only to go missing and be found in the bowels of said bear. Tim, I can tell you was hunting. He had a girl literally tell him to fuck off before he decided to try his banter on her best friend.

But then, he saw me. I’ve never seen a man lock eyes with his prey quicker in my life. It was at this moment I began to think what the hell was everyone doing in the bathroom. 

In 0.003 seconds Tim had closed the 2 metre gap and was saying these words. 

“Its Seren right?”

“Who?”

“Its me Tim, Seren why don’t you remember me?”

Girl, I remember you but I don’t want to know you. Also why the hell is your tongue outside of your mouth?

“I didn’t know I was your first ever Tinder date!”

And then I remembered that many moons ago I saw I had a message on facebook from Tim that I read over briefly that he had read the blog post. This, however, wasn’t my biggest problem at this second in time. It was still the fact that my brain didn’t understand why the hell Tim had suddenly become the Lizard Man. 

Honestly, I thought a third eyelid was going to appear. Before I could answer, his tongue flicked from left to right to left to just hanging out of his mouth waiting for me to respond. And then it suddenly occurred to me that this dude was pinging out of his mind on drugs. Pupils the size of his ego, tongue out of control like his gold accessories and yabbering on about him which was nothing new. 

But just as I breathed in to respond Tim jumped right in and said: 

“your blog post was fucking hilarious, I honestly didn’t know I was the first person you ever went on a tinder date with! You are so funny”

I quickly replied “thank you for reading the blog, hope you enjoyed it”

And at that moment I thought about dying then and there and being done with my life. Just become one with the floor and melting away for forever. Everyone came out of the bathroom to which I almost screaming at them that our Uber was here, that we were leaving and pretty much getting into a sprint in my trashed heel all the way to the door. 

I’m going to assume at some point Tim will read this and all I have to say is go easy on the drugs next time, you need those brain cells. 

Now we must move on. Move on all the way to Brent and how he temporarily ruined pasta with his farts. 

Brent, as it turns out also, came back into my life. And I’ll say this right now, Brent I am not your girl but she is out there. 

Once again I will remind everyone that I take a good while to post about these dates and when they actually happen. 

1. because time makes for great reflection.
2. because I have to get over these traumatic dates. 
3. because your girls life gets in the way of me writing these. 

So back to Brent and all the time that had past. I wrote a blog post and if you haven’t caught on yet Ill spell it out for you. Brent reads the blog too. 

Now don’t be thinking I keep the blog a surprise. No my darlings my bio on my tinder reads “trying to stop writing entries for my blog series about tinder stories, wanna help a girl out?” 

It is literally the first piece of information you can get your hands on. I have been questioned on my blog many times. I have had men say they do not want to go on a date with me because of the blog (suspicious, I know), I have had men specifically ask me after we have dated for MANY moons not to be written about on the blog (you know they know its bad when they say that). If you are one of those two people, I am a woman of my word, will not write about you on the blog. 

Okay back to my evening after I had written about Brent when I was out on a run and I went to go change the song when I saw Brent has slid into my DMs not once, not twice but three times. 

Brent had read his own blog post and this is what he had to say, prepare yourselves, at this point it had been two months since we last spoke: 

“Was that post about our date? I kinda figured I would be on there”

“Sorry you had a bad time but hope everything is all good. Again I’m sorry.”

Then 20 minutes later…

“Can I just make it up to you somehow? I feel like absolute garbage after reading that.”

Yes the pity train has arrived and you are all hopping on board and leaving the station but before you descend into the tunnel of sadness let me just highlight and analysis some things for you as you need my perspective on why I didn’t reply. 

And yes you read that right, I did not reply.

My points are as follows: 

•  it had been two months of no contact. 
• the blog was the only thing we had in common.
• if he figured he would be on the blog then you know he knew it didn’t go well. 
• the 20-minute delay is a gap in which he thought he could turn this around. 
• asking if there was somehow he could make it up to me followed by a very cheeky and trap line of how he feels like crap. 

Whilst you are all on the train off to pity town I am still on the platform knowing all too well that its one big ole trap.

So shout out to Brent if you are reading this, you clearly are doing fine without me, keep hustling that carb diet whilst you can. 

Yes, there are more stories coming but I just want to say how much it warms my cold soul when you share this around and how you and your friends get all excited when I post. I get incredibly shell-shocked when people I don’t even know through friends of friends tell me how they know me as the girl who writes the blog. So cheers, you make me feel very lucky! 

Tinder Stories – Why boys are dumb? – Part 1 an update.

I asked a hot second ago on my Instagram if I should do an update on all the previous tinder stories and the poll read 100% so here we are.

But don’t panic because this series isn’t over and I have a few more stories up my sleeve and well, I am still single. There will be a day I wrap up this series but today is not that day. 

So let us all take a trip down memory lane and revisit the previous stories. 

Back in part one, I had a trip to Max’s house. You can catch up on all the details here.

But it was a few months after that night when I got too drunk and redownloaded Kic because I was seeing what was on my Apple account – would recommend you go for a scroll as it is rather funny. Especially when you have had too many gins. 

And lo and behold I had notification from Max. I snorted so hard because I forgot all about him. 

This is what I was missing out on over the period of weeks. Max was true to his character; incredibly dumb and persistent. 

My favourite part of this screenshot is:

1. the time I took it. 
2. the consistency of when he messages me. 
3. and the desperation that can be felt in his last message. 

Since this amazing moment Max has appeared on my Tinder not once, not twice but a grand total of 4 times. He also tried to add me on Instagram but I blocked him the second time. 

Hot tip: really don’t be like Max and don’t ever say “come here”. 

Moving on we go to the hilarious time I got catfished. This story actually took a twist thanks to social media. Shout out to Louise who follows the blog and broke things down for me and slid into my DMs. 

Matt or Greg – we may never know. He was actually using photos of an actor called Derek Theler. As Lou explained he is an American actor on the show Baby Dady. He is not from New Zealand or the UK. But if we ever want to figure out, I have an unwanted/unasked for dick pic to compare notes too, thinking about it though, that’s more than likely fake too.

The mystery continues and I am still disappointed in my ability to recognise a tall white generic male. 

Next week I have part 2 of the updates. Ladies and gentleman, you are not ready for what is coming. 

Seriously. 

Hint: they know…

He ruined pasta with his farts – Tinder Stories Part 4

Alas, we find ourselves once again reading about a story a tinder date that didn’t work out. Yes, Seren once again went on a date. I am now officially adding perseverance to my CV.

So let us again take a trip back in time. It was a Wednesday, its 8pm and I still park 50m away from where he actually lives because of what I said in Part 1. Brent and I we going for a drink in Mission Bay and for those of you who aren’t from Auckland is a place with a beach, beer and well somewhere to walk just on the outskirts of the CBD.

It was literally and figuratively downhill from there. The stroll to alcohol was rather painful because of a few things:

1. I wore heels and walking downhill was crushing my toes.
2. The alcohol was too far away and not in my body already.
3. What the topic of conversation was couldn’t have been more strange.

As Brent and I walked you could clearly hear that I had overdressed thanks to my heels but I doubt he cared as he told me all about his digestive habits.

You too now get to enjoy the conversation I somehow didn’t run away from. He told me that he eats a lot of food. More than anyone at work. Do remember he isn’t overweight in the slightest and he hits the gym at least 3 times a week. So 3 times more than me.

With eating a large amount of varied food came a conversation that most couples never have and if they do its many many moons into their relationship. Not minutes into meeting each other.

Brent informed me very clearly that with a large consumption of carbohydrates that his body proceeds to create large amounts of unpleasant gas.

We were about 6 minutes into our walk. We had just gotten past the small talk of what we had for dinner and well now I was worried about what else might happen tonight.

He continued to talk about his body and all its magic tricks, I repeated the lines that came out of him and he laughed at his own conversation.

“So pasta isn’t good for me but I eat it anyway”.

“Pasta isn’t good for you, that isn’t ideal”

* Brent laughs *

* Seren stares at the ground screaming internally “THIS DATE ISNT FUCKING IDEAL” *

We finally arrive at the bar and grab a table. After a vigorous walk downhill because the quicker we get to the bar the quicker I can drink, the quicker this can all be over.

Now I totally understand what is it to get nervous around a complete stranger, I have done that. I actually blurted out “So do you like cheese?” on a date once. He was good looking and well that got me really frazzled and that is all my brain could come up with when he looked at me.

Heres a tip for all of you, just don’t talk about bodily functions on a date. No one needs to know when you poop.

Brent is sitting there unzipping his jacket when it gets stuck. Just like the conversation did only a few minutes prior.

“oh that is so annoying, I only just brought this jacket, see look”

He then proceeds to pull his jacket around his body in some sort of exorcist fashion and show me that he still had the tags attached to the jacket.

It was now at this moment when I thought to myself, how the fuck did I end up here.

Once again I needed a fake phone call whisking me away but instead, I endured hoping it would get better.

Its like when you are yelling at the tv when you are watching a horror saying to turn around and run in the opposite direction and not look back.

I was the classic white girl who thought she should check it out and ends up dying.

Instead of dying, it’s just me wasting my time.

It was to the disappointment of Brent that I wrapped things up early. Girls gotta sleep and get the fuck out of there.

So as we started the uphill walk back to his house he thought he would revisit our topics of conversations.

We were mostly home and mostly through the bad conversations about how often Brent goes to the bathroom which rest assured is a normal amount when my phone starts to ring.

Thank the baby Jesus it’s my mum. Jenny saves the day with a random phone call

And you sure as hell know I take the call explaining I was just catching up with a friend and she decodes it as a date and askes me all the closed questions.

“Is it going well?” “Um no not really”

“Are you okay?” “yeah yeah”

“Want to call me after?” “That sounds like a great idea”

I hugged Brent goodbye, jumped in my car and well put my mum on speaker phone and proclaimed how fine I am with being single at the traffic lights.

 

 

He was my first and didn’t know it – Tinder Stories Part 3

Let us go back in time. To the first ever Tinder date I went on.

And by date I really mean coffee.

You see in the beginning I was rather tame. I was the girl who got asked out. Don’t worry I got rid of that very naive girl.

Because of this experience.

We shall call this guy, Tim.

He is a financial advisor and in his late 20’s.

And as they all are, he was lovely. Very friendly and not a murderer. Tim didn’t know that he was my first ever Tinder date.

Tim got an early coffee date in Ponsonby on a Wednesday.

Giving you some backstory here, I had drunkenly agreed to meet Tim in a club one evening but instead went home by passing the McDonalds on Great North Road, crawled into bed with a cheeseburger (WITHOUT PICKLE BECAUSE THAT IS THE DEVILS FOOD) and went to sleep. I woke up to many messages and a sore head.

Needless to say, I said sorry and made a new time.

So I have been running around all morning, working and doing errands, Tim and I have finally agreed on a place and a time.

1pm on Ponsonby Road.

Its now 12.42pm and my phone is at 1%.

Yeah, yeah, we know now that the universe was trying to give me a sign – WHICH I CLEARLY DIDNT TAKE.

So being the smart gal that I am, I use my car’s clock, wait until 12.45 pm and head into the cafe.

Being nervous I thought it would take 15 minutes for me to walk from my car to the cafe.

Girl. It was a 60-second walk.

But that doesn’t matter because I checked my watch.

Which I look at to see that it is not working.

Yes, yes sign number two.

WE GET IT.

I order a coffee and find a seat. Because I don’t want to be late when I had stood him up that weekend.

Now I will tell you time does not move more slowly than when you are waiting for a Tinder date.

So I get halfway through my latte when a tall guy in a full suit strolls through the door.

I smile and he walks over.

And before I can even stand up to give him a hug and apologize for standing him up that one time.

Tim says:

“Why did you not pick up your phone when I called you?”

Now listen, we literally had not even said hello yet.

My first words to him in the flesh are.

“My phone died.”

And just like the millennial generation, we are he fired back with:

“your lying”.

To which I pressed the home button of my phone multiple times to show how it just wasn’t working.

And like a three-year-old, he snatched it out of my hands and tried himself.

Now I was taught never to snatch and never to take anything that wasn’t yours.

But I think Tim missed those lessons because he’s now trying to turn on my very dead phone.

He shrugs and asks me if I have a drink and at this point, I don’t want to give him any of my time so I just point to my coffee and offer the fakest smile my body could conjure up.

Tim starts a conversation in regards to me flaking on him the other weekend and I take the opportunity to apologize and say that it would not have been a good idea anyway.

Then the waitress walks over.

And Tim ask if I would like a drink and I re-point at my coffee. He then orders a whisky and ginger ale.

Now whisky can be cool. But he asks me if I want a proper drink. Reminder, its 1pm on a Wednesday.

Here is an insight to all of you, listen to people when they tell you what they have planned for the day.

I would love a drink but guess what, I have to go and take care of small humans, drive them around and then go and do my third job later that evening.

So no.

No thank you Tim.

Then it occurred to me, I will have no idea what the time is or when can I can get the hell out of this situation. I can’t even check in to say that I haven’t been murdered or take a fake phone call.

So I think to myself, this is your first ever time and you should just give Tim a chance. Think about the other person Seren and then I realise Tim is talking and I really haven’t been listening. This Tinder dating thing is not as easy as I was expecting. I am not like a duck to water this time. I am a duck to a dessert, confused to how I even got to this.

So I chime into the conversation and ask the normal questions of how is work going and have you has it been busy.

I ask him a question about himself to which he responds with “oh, I am a really laid back guy”.  What I am seeing in front of me is this.

A dude who goes to the gym 6 days a week, wakes up at 9am and goes to work around 2pm, is covered in gold jewellery. By covered I mean; gold watch, gold rings, a gold bangle and a gold chain. He also is smoking and offers me one to which I politely decline.

And out of the blue, he straight up asks me when I see myself getting married. Listen, buddy, I don’t know what I am having for dinner tonight let alone when I want to get married. All I know is that it’s not going to be to you and now I have finished my coffee and should really go but the conversational flow is definitely not leaning that way so I just say fuck it to another $5 and 30 minutes of my time and order another coffee.

I have no idea what time it is and the waitress has no idea that I would love her to save me but we can all just pretend that this is all going better than it looks.

Skip ahead in the conversation, he’s on his third cigarette and second whisky and I now know he’s looking to settle down. I ask a very difficult question. “Why do you find yourself single?”

The response sealed the deal. Put the nail in the coffin and made me delete the app for about a week because I had forgotten that men like this actually exist.

“I guess I am single because I want someone who will fit into my life. I don’t see myself changing because my life is great.”

And just like a scene from Limitless, I watched the next phase of my potential life play out. I’ll give you a sneak peak, it doesn’t end well. I cook chicken, steam broccoli and give up all my aspirations for a man who likes to wear too many gold accessories.

So I asked for the time, fake gasped like any good woman knows how to do and made it so believable that I just had to run because I couldn’t miss the school pick up even though it was 2.15pm.

I’m pretty sure he never figured out I was lying because he asked to meet again. And I said I was busy for the next while. I mean I was, busy building a life that wouldn’t give up.

Fun fact, I saw Tim in a club many moons later and even then he said we should go and get coffee. I also think Tim has coffee and whisky very confused.

That time I got catfished – Tinder Stories Part 2

Swiping away on Tinder there are a few things that go through one’s head.

1. This is horrible and I am a bad person for saying no to all these potentially lovely people because they don’t look good.
2. I swear I have seen this profile before.
3. Superlike the person you know and now have caught on Tinder.
4. I swear I have seen this profile before.
5. Unmatch all the drunk 3am matches.
6. Freak out because you realised you got catfished.

For those of you who don’t know what catfishing is, let us turn to our old faithful Urban Dictionary:

Someone who pretends to be someone else, especially on the internet. Found on anywhere from Instagram to Twitter to chat sites, these people use fake pictures to disguise who they are. A synonym for this in some situations may be “troll” because the majority of catfish out there are simply out to troll others, while others have their own reasons for this approach. Often catfish, once discovered, are faced with people full of annoyance and frustration at being “catfishes”

– Urban Dictionary 2018

Now I never thought I would get catfished, I mean does anyone. If I was going to throw down stereotypes, I would say men get catfished, not women. But alas, its 2018 and well here is the story of the time I got catfished.

Being a tall gal that I am, 5’11 if anyone is really interested, my perpetual fear is that I potentially meet ‘The One” and he turns out to be shorter than me. Oh and if he put tomato sauce all over his food. Both things that I would just say no to even if he was perfect in all other areas.

So when a tinder profile says heights, its a factor. If I think a guy looks short in comparison to his friends in his profile, I’ll just swipe left.

You can imagine my surprise when I stumbled across Matt.

I will tell you right now, that I have mastered the art of looking shorter in photos when standing next to my male counterparts because I love a good pair of tall heels. On a very serious note, all kitten heels should be burned along with pickles. Both are the spawn of the devil. But back to Matt, who I absolutely swiped right on.

A couple of days later we matched and we started talking. We got on, he had a bit of banter and he told me how he had jumped back between the UK and NZ.

He asked me if I would want to meet for a drink and I agreed. Though the evening we had agreed to meet, I had a rather busy evening ahead, your girl had triple booked herself. I had said that I would pick my best friend up from work and fought traffic for an hour to get him because no one should catch the bus on their birthday. I said that I would have drinks with Matt and just to keep it interesting I said that I would also have drinks with another Matt later in the evening.

How to date in 2018, just do it all in one evening. Like a tasting course but with shit company and lots of gin.

On my way, Matt and I were chatting about the fact that he might be finishing work late and that our drinks at 6pm might have to be postponed. Bear in mind that we had already called a rain check on drinks twice before due to other commitments.

I was about to merge onto the motorway when the guy threw me a curveball. I said that I could be potentially late because of the traffic situation and that I had an event to go to that evening (by an event I really mean, another Tinder date). Word for word, this what he said:

“I’ve got good news and bad news babe.

Good news is I can come meet up!

Bad news is I probably don’t have time for a full sit down drink 😦 

Shall I bring some beer or a wine over to yours?”

To which I responded 

“Oh I’m fine for just A drink at Mr Toms, I have a dinner party to go to at 7.30”.

I thought it was weird that he didn’t have time to meet me in a bar for a drink but was willing to bring around more than one drink to my house, to meet me. Crawling through traffic I texted him back and said we can cancel if need be as I can’t miss my event/ dinner party and that I wasn’t getting off the motorway.

So fast forward, I’ve picked my best friend up and we are heading back to the city with good time and I am applying a face of makeup as Matt texts me to tell me he was just about here.

He gets 5 brownie points because be offered to pick me up but minus 8 points for being super early.

Matt sitting at -3 brownie points even before the date.

Face applied, outfit checked and the man kept waiting, I headed out the door.

Now he wasn’t lying when he said he was tall. I hugged the dude and I totally had to go for the underarm snuggle because I would have to climb him like a tree to even attempt an over the shoulder hug.

We jumped in his car which he seemed to cram himself into like a clown into a mini and drove just down the road to a bar.

He opened the door for me (+ 2 points) and told me to grab a table before asking me what I would like to drink and headed towards the bar (+2 points).

Sitting at a high table I suddenly heard my name. Which for someone with a very uncommon name I thought I had heard Sarah. However, it was, in fact, someone asking for me.

To my disbelieve and utter amusement on waiting for my gin and tonic to arrive, standing before me was the father of the girls I nanny for.

Auckland may have 1.5 million people but this was proof that it was a small city. Awkwardly explaining to him that I was on a date and that my date was now coming back to the table I think had to do bloody introductions.

Just imagine introducing your date to your boss and not skulling your drink. If I could have melted into the floor, I would of.

Sensing my uncomfortableness my boss excused himself to the bathroom and Matt and I got chatting.

This is what I know about Matt:

1. he was born here
2. split his childhood between the UK and NZ
3. went to The University of Canterbury
4. works as a digital analyst
5. he is a wet blanket

I switched off after 20 minutes and I was trying to figure out how many times I could stir my gin and tonic before the lime flew out.

Matt then said he was going to pop to the bathroom and when he got back he wanted to know all about me. As he left the table he asked the bartender for another round. This is the one and only time I have almost turned down gin.

He gets back and starts to ask all the normal questions; do you have any siblings, can you explain your thesis to me, what do you want to do with your degree, blah, blah blah.

People and hospitality talk about a fake laugh or smile they put on. I believe I have found my fake amusement for Tinder.

I can’t remember what we were talking about but I distinctly remember Matt telling a story about himself and saying:

“my mate was like to me, ‘Greg don’t be such a dickhead'”

Greg.

Greg?

Who the fuck is Greg?

He was meant to be telling a story about himself or did I miss something.

Ive had two gins and I am not sleep deprived. I swear I just heard him say, Greg.

Either way, now I’m frowning like a child who has just been told no by their mum in the supermarket and my tinder date is finally getting the signal that its time to go.

I excused myself to the bathroom, fire off a message to the best friends about what just happened and that we were leaving the bar.

He drops me back at my friend’s apartment, tells me he had a lovely time and to have a nice evening.

Dude was nice don’t get me wrong, but nice guys finish last.

Then I was back out the door again to the next tinder date.

I can tell you right now, that was a far better improvement than what I had just experienced.

Oh and if no one has figured out yet, women who date are fucking savages.

Cue the weekend.

Matt texts me, multiple times. I just don’t reply.

My gut is telling me not to text him back.

So after my last experience, I don’t.

Cue June and I am back swiping through tinder at 3am when this came up.

That looks like Matt.

With the same bio, the same age but different photos.

I wasn’t tripping balls.

I, Seren Powell-Jones got catfished.

Now you might be asking how did you not notice when you met him? Did he not look like the photos?

I couldn’t see his face when its in the outer stratosphere.

I can tell you he drives a white Rave Four like car and that he listens to rock. But the details of his face are as clear to me as Auckland harbour after it’s been raining.

So I took a screenshot, sent it to my best friends and then I super liked him.

Sadly it wasn’t an instant match and I hate drunk Seren who cleared out her Tinder.

To conclude, this is where I call on the power of the internet.

I’ve tried to reverse google him to no avail.

So, does anyone know who Matt, Greg or Jeremy is?

Or if they know anyone matching the description of the man I described?