Pretty much since I started online dating again, I’ve had friends ask me if I was sick of it or over the dating app thing. When I started, I answer was honestly that I was not because it was still all exciting and new to me. I hadn’t used dating apps in a while before starting up about 2 years ago and apps were very different from what I experienced before.
As time went on, the same questions came up and I was still not really over it. I had some pretty negative experiences but the positive ones still outweighed them. I wasn’t even getting frustrated with being ghosted because I think the novelty of everything was still there. Once I started working on my book, I think that helped me stay in that same mindset. All the moments that probably would have made someone else want to delete their apps became awesome stories for my book. I think having that book in mind really has helped me keep my sanity in what should be an overwhelming and potentially negative situation.
There have been plenty of things that have made me very angry with online dating. But I’ve realized most of them were situations I had happen multiple times and the first few times they were funny. The more often they happened the more annoying they became. And I experienced one of those this past weekend.
I was going on Tinder to go through my matches and message some of the guys I had been texting with. I was trying to make plans to meet for coffee with a guy so I wanted to get things planned out and ready for that evening. But when I went to the app, I got this screen.
This isn’t the first time I have been banned from Tinder. It happened after I called out a married guy on there a while ago. I know that he had to have reported me for something because right after I mentioned him being married I got banned. I’m guessing he reported me for harassment or something and then I got banned. I did some research into how to get banned and multiple guys have to report you. So maybe all the married guys I called out reported me or maybe random guys randomly reported me because they didn’t like what I was saying. It made me wonder if Tinder actually reviews these reports or not because I know I didn’t do anything wrong.
When it happened before, I immediately reached out to Tinder for an answer and all they would tell me is that I violated the terms of the app. I read those terms multiple times and I still have no clue what I did wrong. But there was no fighting it because they refused to help me. I did open a new account so I could get back online, but I lost all the matches I had on that first account.
When this happened again, it was a complete shock. The only messages I had been sending were to find out what part of LA guys lived in or to find out their schedule. There was definitely nothing I did in a message that was against the rules. I had also recently had a date with a guy that I didn’t want to see again, but nothing was said in the app or in person that would have been something I could get banned for. Tinder has not been responding to my messages trying to find out what happened and it’s so frustrating.
Having something happen like this has made me feel more over online dating than anything else. I had been putting in work to try to meet guys on the app and it was taken away with no explanation and no way to reach out to guys I was speaking to. It’s so frustrating that if I was to go back onto Tinder that I would be starting over again. I know a fresh start can be a good thing, but not when you didn’t want to have one. I felt like I had been making progress and now I’m back to the beginning.
I still have other apps that I’m on so I’m not leaving online dating, but it has made me wonder how much longer I could do this if there is a risk of this happening again. Fortunately with the apps I’m still using I know the employees review any reports and I know I’m not breaking any rules. So if guys were falsely reporting me for something, hopefully my profile wouldn’t be removed. And I am still having fun dating and I don’t know of ways to meet guys in person so I am motivated to keep going. But having a moment like this is a reminder of the fine line I’m balancing between having fun on the apps and being over them.
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