On our final episode, we talk unsexy serenades, a game of Catan gone wrong, and a secret French affair.
10 years ago, Tinder made its dating app debut and quickly became one of the most used and infamous outlets for lovers and one-night stands. To celebrate a decade of dates, co-hosts Kaili JiMei and Logan Strufflebeam sourced and handpicked the best WORST Tinder first dates stories to share on their mini podcast series, 10 Years of Tinder.
Transcription
KAILI JIMEI, HOST:
We’re back. Hello again, and welcome to the third and final episode of Ten Years of Tinder, sponsored by Urban Plains.
LOGAN STUFFLEBEAM, HOST:
I’m Logan.
KAILI:
And I’m Kaili.
LOGAN:
And we’re continuing our series and bringing you some of the worst first date stories from the app you either love
KAILI AND LOGAN:
or hate.
KAILI:
So again, these are all unfortunately real and sourced by yours truly, Logan and myself.
LOGAN:
But before we get into it once again, Kaili, is there anything that you have from the weekend regarding dating apps?
KAILI:
Why do you ask me? It’s like you know! So, I will say just over the weekend, I convinced my two best friends to download Tinder
LOGAN:
Yes.
KAILI:
And I was the first to have it. And so it was kind of fun getting the like, help them set up their profiles and swipe. And so we just had like a little roomie session last night in the living room swiping left and right and like talking and showing each other all these different people.
It was quite the time and I have rubbed off on them.
LOGAN:
Good. I love Tinder. I used to use it as like a hobby. Like, it’s just like fun to do, like fun to scroll.
KAILI:
It’s honestly like a little game time too.
LOGAN:
I know, and now I, like, make my, all my friends get it. I like to live vicariously through them, so it’s great. All right, so shall we get into it?
KAILI:
We shall. And our first story is– I like to call it Unsexy Serenades– and it is from Megan from Ames, Iowa. She says “Hey Kaili and Logan. So we met on a tender process. I see we have music in common. He had Coldplay, Tool, and Sean Mendez in his top artists. So, no, we did not. But he seemed nice. We agreed to meet at a coffee shop near my place, and when I showed up, he had a guitar at our table.
Within 2 minutes of my sitting down, he asked what I wanted to hear and wanted to know if I would duet with him. I pretended I was on call for work and left after 20 minutes.
OMG.
LOGAN:
That’s a lot. Like A for effort, dude. Very good. I think it’s so funny. He was like, we had the same taste of music in common and it was very like mainstream. So I think that is very funny. This reminds me, I just hate it when people try to like, explain to me what music is and I’m like, I know, like, I get it.
Like, once I had a man that I met on Tinder tried to explain to me what Spotify Wrapped is– like, what you get every year. And I was like, bestie, I know what it is. So and he was like, yeah, I have a really alternative taste in music. And I was like, oh, like, cool, whatever. Like, what is it?
And he was like, Juice WRLD. And I blocked him immediately. I was like, don’t, don’t try to explain to me–
KAILI:
You with the block.
LOGAN:
Of course, I was like, don’t try to explain something to me and then hit me with that. Like.
KAILI:
So can we also talk about how serenades are just such a thing on a first date? I don’t know why?
LOGAN:
Me either, but–
KAILI:
but this one is incredibly– I get a car serenade, you know? OK, casual, casual, kind of expected. But to walk in and be serenaded with someone with a guitar in a public space… kind of interesting.
LOGAN:
And like at a coffee shop, like essentially a restaurant,
KAILI:
Mhm
LOGAN:
You’re hauling the gear to go there.
KAILI:
Yeah.
LOGAN:
You are on your way.
KAILI:
You are.
LOGAN:
You’ve got a guitar on your back. You, you think to yourself, yes, this is an excellent idea. It’s very planned out–
KAILI:
Full send.
LOGAN:
Could be romantic….. not my style, but.
KAILI:
Correct.
LOGAN:
All right. Again, A for effort.
All right. Our next story comes to us from Will from Seattle. I like to call this one Catan Gone Wrong. Will says, “Hey, guys. All right. So the gist of the story is that I matched with this girl on Tinder and when we match, she messaged me almost immediately. Nothing wrong with that. Totally fine.
But she asked if I would come over that night. And at the time we were talking, I was living outside the city of Chicago, and she was living in Chicago. I was kind of trying to figure out if I could really justify the drive. It was a weeknight, the kind of usual hang ups that come with somebody hitting you up sort of last minute.
I tell her I’ll be in the city that weekend to see a friend and we can hang out then. Her response: ‘Well, does he want to come over tonight?’ I didn’t really know how to respond to that, so I laughed it off. But she kept the pressure on and said, ‘You guys can both come over and we could play Catan.’
I ended up inviting two more friends to play and the four of us go over to her apartment. The vibe is weird from the jump. Two of my friends have never played before, and she’s kind of good because she plays a lot. We’re struggling and she’s dominating all of us. My friends are kind of playing casually, goofing around, and she’s dead serious about winning the whole time.
Some way through, her roommate comes out and asks how it’s going. Without a hint of humor, she says, ‘They won’t be coming back. The game ended shortly after that, and we left awkwardly and we did not talk again.”
Will says. “TL;DR My friends and I were so bad at Catan that it ruined a first date.”
KAILI:
Hmm.
LOGAN:
That was a mouthful. That was very intense.
KAILI:
Yes.
LOGAN:
Like okay, go off queen?
KAILI:
Where to begin?
LOGAN:
Very competitive about Catan. Good for you. But, I think that it was like a little rude that she was like, “Well, can your friend come over?” Like, “Can he come over instead?”
KAILI:
Yeah. It’s almost like a diss, because–
LOGAN:
Oh, definitely.
KAILI:
Yeah. It reminds me of, like, when you match with someone on Tinder, and then they say, “Actually, I like the girl in your other photo, can you give me her number?” And I’m like, “No!”
LOGAN:
No. Yeah, that is definitely like the same vibe. I don’t know. And then she showed no mercy. None.
KAILI:
Dead serious.
LOGAN:
Dead serious. They will not be coming back. Like, dominated them in Catan. And is this the reason why she wanted him to come over so immediately so she could play?
KAILI:
I don’t know.
LOGAN:
She had an itch. She needed Catan.
KAILI:
Well, I’m also wondering, if I were the roommate… do you think the roommate knows of this girl’s Catan thing? Like, maybe this was, like, routine for her. Like, people just come over and?
LOGAN:
Maybe it’s like the house party. Like she was using Tinder to find Catan dates.
KAILI:
Oh, my goodness. Wow.
LOGAN:
Maybe this is, like, serial Catan domination. I don’t know.
KAILI:
A lot to unpack.
LOGAN:
A lot to unpack. Probably. I would have left crying out of all the things….
KAILI:
Yeah.
LOGAN:
I’m sensitive, I’m not competitive. I think that this woman was so intense and so good at Catan, I would have left in a pool of tears with all my friends. So good for Will. He seemed to have kept it together.
KAILI:
You guys stay the whole time. So go you.
LOGAN:
Yeah go you.
KAILI:
Okay, so for our final story, this one is a lot. So hang on tight. It is called a Secret French Affair from Madison Kelly in Rochester, Minnesota. “Hey, Kaili and Logan. So I match with this girl on Tinder in Des Moines, and we decided to get coffee. Once I got to the date, I realized, though, she was not the person I thought she was online.
I don’t remember too many of our online conversations, but in person, literally, all she talked about was herself, her money and her family’s money. She also told me she didn’t have a real job. She just woke up every day and traded stocks for 2 hours and then went back to bed. She told me about finding an apartment in New York and how no one wanted to rent to her because she didn’t have a pay stub.
So apparently she printed out a slip saying she had $35,000 in her bank account and showed it to the landlord and they said, ‘Sure, of course you can rent.’ So during the whole date, I was just sitting there sipping on my drink, not even getting a word, listening to her money related stories. Then she offered to drive me home since I’d walked and I accepted.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to go on a date with her, though. She seemed sane enough and I wasn’t too worried about my safety. But then on her way home, she told me about how she studied abroad in France, and I was like, ‘Oh, cool, I’ve been to France before.’ And she went on to say that while she was there, she had an affair with a married woman.
Um… which is an interesting thing to say on a first date. She was basically telling me how it was a great time, but she can never go back. The husband wants her to visit because he thinks they’re all friends, but he does not know about the affair and she’s too ashamed to return. So, yeah, very strange to talk about on a first date, and we definitely did not go on another.
LOGAN:
How? Can I just say that… the Trading Stock Side Hustle? I wish that I had the just like mental capacity to know how–
KAILI:
The knowledge.
LOGAN:
– know how to do that because I would love to have a side hustle and not have a real job. That is my dream. Good for her.
KAILI:
Living in New York, those $35,000 pay stubs.
LOGAN:
Yeah, that’s very nice. However, talking about money on the first date.
KAILI:
Let’s discuss.
LOGAN:
Yes for money, transparency.
KAILI:
Yes, we love.
LOGAN:
We love that. But maybe not on a first date.
KAILI:
Also, not if it’s like clearly a flex that you are rolling in money.
LOGAN:
Yeah, I think the flex aspect, like it was just like a weird flex a little bit to me, which kind of gives me red flag vibes.
KAILI:
But yeah, very debatable.
LOGAN:
Very debatable. Honestly, And this woman sounds like she is like living the life. And it makes me wonder, like, is she lying?
KAILI:
Yeah.
LOGAN:
Like, if she’s not good for her. But it kind of I’m like, was that made up?
KAILI:
It’s so surreal.
LOGAN:
Like, the French affair is so like, it’s so much.
KAILI:
It’s like a scene from a movie.
LOGAN:
Yeah.
KAILI:
And that is why, Madison, if you were skeptical about this Logan and I are with you because that just seemed so. I don’t know.
LOGAN:
How do you even — How do you respond to that, like, “Haha. Yeah?” like? Cool?
KAILI:
Just interesting.
LOGAN:
It just is a lot of weird flexes for a first date, in my opinion.
KAILI:
A lot of oversharing potentially.
LOGAN:
Yes.
KAILI:
So I guess what wraps up all of our dates and to recap, per usual, on your next first date, if they show up with a guitar, if they challenge you to a Game of Catan, or if they tell you about a secret French love affair run.
LOGAN:
I guess that wraps up our Ten Years of Tinder podcast. Thank you guys so much for sharing your Tinder stories with us. They’ve been wild like a French affair.
KAILI:
Embarrassing, like reliving hamster trauma.
LOGAN:
And sometimes hilarious, like awkward and unreciprocated serenades
KAILI AND LOGAN:
Bye.
