When a Tinder date resurfaces

Sydney Holmes
Aug 22, 2017 · 5 min read

The other day I was with my friends at a bar, when I saw an alarmingly familiar looking person emerge from the bathroom.

You know how New York is huge and you can see millions of people in a day and not realize it? It seems we also for get it’s a GD island and we’re all just wandering around her like PacMan trying not to fall into a river on either side.

This person’s name was Ravi** and we had gone on a few lackluster Tinder dates last year. Now, since ya girl (me) literally never forgets a face, I immediately recognized him, remembered the bar we went to (Roost), what he ordered (gin and tonic), and specifically how odd he was (pretty). Keep in mind our last interaction went like this:

It was the end of our second date, which was fine. Not great, not horrible. He walked me to the L train and lingered with his hand on my forearm. Not on my hand, not pulling me into him, nothing.

So he lingered just looking at me for what felt like four days, and I finally said “Are you trying to kiss me or, like, what’s the deal here?”

But, why?

Ya girl does not have time for this kinda shit, the Bachelorette is on, let’s make some moves.

His response? “Well, yeah. I don’t know? Should I?”

“Well not now, bye.”


And with that, I was gone. That was the last time we saw each other. Inconsequential. Somewhat boring. We follow each other on Instagram. Or, we did, until I got bored with his pictures of himself and Bengali tigers (he travelled once by himself, and thought he was Jack Kerouac).

To be fair, I am very easily irritated.

Nevertheless, I remember exactly who he was. I immediately turned to my friends:

“Holy shit, I went out with that guy last year.”

He and I are now sitting back to back — he at his table and I at mine. I pull up his Instagram and hand it to my friend Jenn**.

“Is that him?”

Jenn swings around, completely unaware that I am going for subtlety.

“Oh yeah a million percent that’s him,” she says, loudly enough for the bodega across the street to hear. Jenn is an asshole.

He eventually turns to me and says, “Hey, I really like your pineapple shirt.”

Uh, first of all it’s a body suit, but I will let that go because I do, in fact, have pants on. He, too, is wearing a pineapple shirt. We bond over that. We are making direct eye contact and it STILL does not register that I am clearly the one that got away.

After a few (four) vodka sodas I turn to him and say, “You’re Ravi, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” he said.

“Ok, this is random but we went on a couple Tinder dates last year. Thought I’d say hey.”

“Remind me your name again,” he says.

“Sydney.”

“Oh, Holmes!”

Uh, holy shit he is in love with me.

“You look good, you lost weight!”

Ok, first and foremost, I think this was a compliment but it also made me feel SO WEIRD. You don’t remember that I am a person you invited back to your apartment to smoke weed and “see what happens,” but then immediately remember that I was fatter when we dated?

“Uh, yeah a little bit. Not a ton, but ya know,” I said. I feel weird about my body anyway, so for someone to comment on it, even if that person is my mom, I still feel like my trachea becomes a straw and I can’t wait to not speak about it anymore. So, two Tinder dates does not a body advocate make.

“Yeah, don’t worry. It’s a work in progress.”

OK, LISTEN. Now, to the untrained, skinny ear, this may not sound horrible, but for someone who has been told that by and (sometimes) large, her body is not to be desired (which, bullshit), for someone who barely remembers I existed to tell me how my body is not quite there yet is very irritating. I was wearing a body suit FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.

So then I said thanks. He jumps into this narrative about how he wasn’t ready to date when we met each other, and how he wishes he would have been because I was “cool.” I told him thank you.

“I’m still not ready to date, though,” he says, tentatively.

So not only has this person determined that I need his opinion on the state of my body, but is now assuming that I want to date him again. Oh noooo, whatever will I do? Oh, I don’t know there are 8 million people in this city. I’m sure I’ll figure something out.

I told him it was fine that he’s not able to date.

“We should hang out, though.”

“Oh, no, I have a boyfriend now.”

“Oh, sick.”

Sick indeed, my friend. Sick indeed. This person has gone from not remembering me, to remembering I was thicker last time he saw me, to telling me that I shouldn’t be worried about how my body looks (I wasn’t) because it could change any minute, to telling me he doesn’t want to date, to telling me wants to hang out. Da hell?

Anyway, I guess my point is that you don’t know where someone is in their relationship to their body. Don’t comment on shit that you don’t know — especially if you haven’t spoken to that person in over a year a half and the last interaction you had was drunkenly inviting them to Fat Cat.

**Names have absolutely not been changed in the slightest.

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