Tinder Dating Nightmares

Ah, Tinder — the international go-to for hookup quests, and the occasional successful relationship match. Over the years, I’ve had a love-hate relationship with this eminent dating app, made apparent by my sporadic deleting and re-downloading of it.

During the latest episode of the Sex Talk With Amy Podcast, I shared some of my craziest, funniest, and most bizarre Tinder dating stories for your entertainment. Here’s a recap of one of them below.

#1 — The Racist Wedding Singer

For the sake of anonymity, we’re going to call this Tinder date “the racist wedding singer,” because sadly, that is, quite literally, what he was.

This Tinder story dates back to November 2021, which is shortly after the lockdown restrictions in Australia were lifted for vaccinated people. Bars, clubs, restaurants, and music venues were back in full swing, and many couples, long-term and new, were out and about.

My Tinder date was in his mid-to-late twenties. He was a tall, dark, and handsome musician — a wedding singer, to be exact. We met up for dinner at a cozy, romantic, candle-lit restaurant in Sydney’s Central Business District. The vibe was dark and romantic, aided by jazz music playing softly across the establishment.

The first half hour of our evening together was quite pleasant. He seemed like a nice guy, we had things in common, and our cheerful banter flowed naturally. However, it wasn’t long before he dropped the first red flag — his “crazy ex-girlfriend.”

Here’s the thing — talking about your ex on a first date, in any context, is a red flag in my books. But this guy took it a step further. Not only was he giving off the majorly–toxic vibe of, “All my ex-girlfriends are crazy and I’m just a nice guy who’s unlucky in love,” but in the same breath, he also managed to be racist. He wasn’t talking about any crazy ex. He was talking about his crazy Russian ex.

The super-ironic part is, later on in the night, this man talked about how he hates being racially profiled, and discriminated against, for his background, and how that’s been affecting him in the workplace, even though he literally did the same thing to two others during our Tinder date.

The second time involved another story about a crazy ex, which is wholeheartedly unsurprising — because let’s face it — it’s not enough for these self-proclaimed “nice guys” to have one crazy ex. They generally have multiple stories. This time, he talked about a woman he was in a relationship with briefly, after the Russian girlfriend. This one was quite a fresh breakup, and this particular woman was a nurse who had migrated here from China.

According to him, she was rather emotionally needy, which bothered him because he was quite busy with work and couldn’t see her or talk to her as often as she wanted him to. He recalled this one particular day when she came to a show that he was performing in. At the end of his set, she was helping him pack up when she accidentally dropped his Shure SM57 microphone on the floor. She then immediately apologised, picked it up, put it back in his bag, and didn’t make a big deal out of it.

He didn’t like this “attitude” of hers, apparently. He had an issue with her reaction because, according to him, she didn’t appear “remorseful” or “panicked” enough, and he would’ve liked her to appear more concerned about the state of his music gear.

Just for some extra context, SM57s are highly durable microphones. But obviously, I wasn’t there to witness the incident, gauge whether or not she was genuinely apologetic, or know for certain that no damage was done. But at face value, his expectations sounded emotionally manipulative to me — because, so what? — she accidentally dropped something while she was trying to help him, she apologised, and placed the mic back in his bag (which sounds to me like there was no apparent damage done).

While I understand that music gear is expensive, and it’s essential for his work, the way he said that he wanted her to “act more remorseful” really rubbed me the wrong way. Like, what was he expecting her to do exactly? Get on her knees and grovel? Why wasn’t he satisfied with a calm apology?

Anyway, after this incident, a fight broke out between them at the venue — instigated by him, of course, because she “didn’t look sorry enough.” Then, during the car ride back to his place where they’d planned to stay, he started telling her, “Maybe I should just drop you off at your house tonight instead,” because he needed some space to cool down and “think about things.”

What followed this statement was him giving her the cold shoulder. This, by the way, is a classic narcissistic move — icing someone out as emotional punishment for not behaving how they wanted. Unsurprisingly, it’s at this point that his girlfriend started to grovel, which is likely what he was waiting for the entire time — to break her down and exhaust her emotionally, until she finally gave him the reaction he wanted, so that he could feel important again.

She started to say things along the lines of, “Please, don’t drop me home, let’s just go back to your place and talk, I really am so sorry, please don’t do this, just give me another chance.”

This is the part when his racist behaviour reared its ugly head once more. As he was reciting the things she was saying to him in the car, he began mimicking her foreign accent and making offensive facial expressions. He was very clearly mocking her, with racial implications.

I felt sick to my stomach for many reasons while he told these stories about his exes. Looking back, it still never ceases to amaze me just how not self-aware some people are — they’re a walking contradiction, they’re always the victim, and they’re self-proclaimed nice guys who genuinely believe they’re a great catch, even though they’re perpetually single and going on endless dates where they tell the same stories about the same “crazy” women who supposedly did them wrong, even though, these two exes in particular whom he was racist and emotionally abusive towards, are now happily married — go figure!

And, regarding the second ex-girlfriend from China, I haven’t even gotten to the craziest part of the story yet!

So, at some point during this car ride, things escalated, according to the singer. His girlfriend was busy groveling for him to give her a second chance, and he was responding with statements like, “I don’t feel like you take my music career seriously, my gear means a lot to me,” etc.

Suddenly, while the car was in motion, on a main road, in the middle lane…his girlfriend reportedly flung the door open, stepped out onto the road without a second thought, and ran off…

Just a reminder, this woman is a nurse. A NURSE! If anyone’s going to know what happens to people who jump out onto the road, it’s probably going to be her, right? Because, let’s face it — she’s probably treated a few of them in hospital, for crying out loud!

At this point, this man started chuckling as he recalled how he watched the nurse almost get hit by a car that was approaching in the lane next to them, as she ran across the road and barely made it onto the sidewalk!

First of all…how is it funny when your girlfriend puts her life on the line because she’s that desperate to get away from you? Isn’t this man embarrassed to be that intolerable? What’s worse is that he seriously thought, for some reason, that this was a brilliant first-date story.

Don’t get me wrong — I’m glad he told it, because at least it made me aware of what kind of person he was. But still — Imagine being that unaware of yourself!

That’s generally how it is though, with people of this nature. In their augmented reality, they are never in the wrong. They’ll drive someone to the point of acting crazy and doing something out-of-character. Then, they’ll step back, point the finger, and say, “See? she’s nuts!”

Conveniently, however, they’ll leave out all the details that make them look bad — all the parts where they said and did the most twisted, unhinged things for months, that drove these women to the point of saying, “You know what? I’m getting out of here right now. I’m stepping out of this moving car right now, because I can’t stand to be around you for one second longer.”

In truth, I’d blocked this date night out of my memory for quite a while because of how pissed off it made me, but something recently triggered it all back…

Picture this: It’s February, I’m sitting on the couch, I’m flicking through the channels, and then I come across the Sydney auditions for Australian Idol 2023. I see the judging panel, comprising Amy Shark, Meghan Trainor, Kyle Sandilands, and Harry Connick Jr.

I see a contestant walking in to audition…guess who it is!!! It’s the racist wedding singer…

Anyway, he did get in. He did then get booted out, pretty early on in the competition, I believe. Now, he’s back to singing at weddings and posting quotes on Instagram like “love is love”….what could HE possibly know about LOVE?? Yikes…

To hear the rest of my Crazy Tinder Dating Stories, check out the latest episode of the Sex Talk With Amy Podcast by clicking HERE.