Guns, virginity and nude requests: Students recount their Tinder horror stories

College students are often intimately familiar with Tinder, and the Pitt community is no exception. From handguns during sex to asking for nudes while mourning a grandfather, The Pitt News found three of the most outrageous Tinder stories from students on campus. 

“I was catfished, the sex was bad, I had to go buy Plan B, and then he pulled a gun out of his pants,” A. said as she recounted her first (and last) Tinder hookup.

A., a junior who has asked to remain anonymous, had never invited a man from Tinder over to her apartment before, but she was feeling adventurous on one April night and decided to give it a try. 

“It’s two in the morning after a night at Mario’s, and within three minutes the condom breaks and I’m like, ‘Well, we made it this far.,” A. said. “And then he’s getting dressed to leave and I turn around and he is holding a loaded handgun that was holstered in his jeans.”

A. didn’t know how to react, so she decided to ask him why he brought a gun into her apartment.

“He said ‘Oh, you don’t have one of these? You should really get one. You never know who’s out there, what creeps and weirdos you might run into,’ and all I could think was that he was ‘those people’ considering the fact that he came to my apartment with a loaded gun,” A. said. 

After he explained why he had the gun, A. said he then proceeded to hand it to her so that she could experience what it was like to hold one. 

“I’m sitting in my bed half naked, and he gives me the gun,” A. said. “And I say to him ‘Hold on. You really should not let me hold this. I’ve never even seen a gun up close before and now I’m holding one at three in the morning.’”

When the Tinder match finally left, A. said she learned a valuable lesson. 

“I went on my phone and deleted Tinder,” A said. “And now I know to never invite a Tinder match over if you’ve only spoken to them for 20 minutes. That was the first and last time I ever had someone from Tinder over.” 

Not all Tinder matches are made equal, and some show their red flags further into the relationship. M., a junior who has asked to remain anonymous, said she had a relatively established relationship with a man from Tinder when he made an irredeemable decision. 

“I had been talking to this guy for about a month, and we had actually met up before the incident,” M. said. “I was crying on the phone to him because my grandfather had recently completed suicide, and his response was ‘Your voice is turning me on right now. Do you want to send me nudes?’”

M. ended their relationship almost immediately, even as he tried to justify his actions.

“I said ‘Are you kidding me?’ and he said he thought it would be funny and lighten the mood,” M. said. “He apologized and asked for another chance, but he is also a 30 year old man and is old enough to know better.”

M. said she hopes this experience at least educated him on how to interact with people, especially those who are grieving.

“I told him I hope this teaches him a lesson on how to treat people, and then we never spoke again,” M. said.

B. recounted a story from her first year that has since sworn her off athletes.

“I matched with this football player and he took me to the Olive Garden,” B., a junior who asked to remain anonymous, said. “First off, I told him I was a little nervous to go on a date so suddenly after matching, and he told me ‘Well, I’m on the football team so I can’t do anything or hurt you because then I’d get kicked off the team,’ which, you know, was reassuring.”

However, once they arrived at the Olive Garden, the date took a turn for the worst. 

“In the middle of our dinner he asked me, dead seriously, if I was a virgin. Just looked me in the eyes and asked it out of the blue.”

B. answered honestly and didn’t plan on speaking to him again after the date.

“So after the date I was perfectly content to never be in contact with him again, but about a week later I got a Snapchat from him,” B. said. “He was graduating in the spring, and told me he got a job in a different city and that it wasn’t going to work out between us, but in a few years if we were both single and I was still a virgin, maybe we’d have a shot.”

B. said he had a reason for this very specific requirement.

“He told me he’d always had a fantasy about being a girl’s ‘one and only,’” B. said. “After that I blocked him and did my best to forget we ever met.” 

She offered advice to everyone currently using Tinder or any type of dating app. 

“If you’re a senior, do not swipe on freshmen,” B. said. “Also, stay away from offensive linebackers.”

A. also had words of wisdom to share from her experience.

“If you think there’s any possibility that your Tinder hookup has a gun on them, ask them to pat themselves down before entering your home,” A. said.