You’re Crossing the Line If You Do THIS on Dating Apps

The reason that dating apps like Bumble and Hinge are so great is because they're typically a safe, dedicated place where you can talk to people you've matched with because you're mutually attracted. And if you decide they're not your type, you can just unmatch and go on with your day.

So what happens when someone takes it upon themselves to reach out to someone they didn't match with on a separate platform to ask you out? In my opinion, that's not okay and crosses boundaries. If you saw me on Bumble, and we didn't match, it is not comfortable for you to then head to my instagram and ask me out there.

Just this past weekend, I was in Seattle and hanging with a guy friend. I started getting messages on IG from guys who said they saw me on Bumble/Tinder. He's engaged and not on dating apps and asked if that's socially acceptable or frowned upon for guys to reach out that way. While it's always made me feel weird, I hadn't really thought about it much, but realized it does cross a line. It's uncomfortable.

I've had this happen countless times. In Seattle, in Boise, on vacations. Typically, your IG is connected to your Tinder or Bumble profile. Yes, it's easy to find someone on social media after seeing them on an app and a lot of people put their @ name in their profiles. My insta is public. I'm technically a public figure because of my career in radio. I don't mind if you follow me. Even if all of those are true, why would you message someone and make them awkwardly have to turn you down or ignore you when you did not match and they are not interested?

Now, I have no idea who this particular guy from below is or if I've even come across his dating profile yet. His IG is private so I don't know if I'm attracted to him or not. But the fact that he's not in my match cue means that I either saw something that made me swipe left, or I haven't seen him at all yet. I even tried to allude to the fact that I'm on Bumble looking to talk to guys I match with. AKA, we did not match! So to keep pushing after that with "we didn't exactly match" and "it would be nice to not be left on read" is SO UNCOMFORTABLE. Don't do this! What do you mean, we didn't exactly match? We didn't match at all. You took to a separate platform to be pushy about asking me out. That's not okay.

And there's more. There's been lots of times that I've messaged for a bit with a guy and decided, he's just not my type or the conversation wasn't stimulating enough, so I unmatched. Only to have those guys reach out to me on Facebook or IG with something like "Hey, it's _____ from Bumble. Did you delete your profile? What happened?" Um, I wasn't interested and unmatched, that's what happened. And after 5 minutes of conversation, I don't owe you an explanation. This is literally the purpose of dating apps. To be able to chat with someone and decide if you'd like to pursue anything further or not. So why do you have to make it awkward by coming at me on a different platform? Cringe.

Now to be fair, this has happened to me as well. I've had a guy disappear from my match cue or messages. And you know what? Who cares. My favorite thing to tell myself is "you can't be everyone's type." This is so true. Not everyone is going to find you attractive. Not everyone is going to like your personality or get your sense of humor. We're all different and find different things attractive and valuable. And we should be okay with that. So if you don't like me, it doesn't ruin my day. I don't need to chase down someone who isn't interested in me.

I've actually deleted dating apps completely before because of feeling so uncomfortable from men invading my privacy by doing this. Can we all agree to respect the space of others? It's 2019, let's let women (and men) make their own decisions when it comes to swiping right.