So, I matched with a guy on Tinder back in February. He’s not from where I am, but was close, so we matched distance wise. He was nearby for the weekend volunteering. We got along really well and after about a week of chatting, he mentioned he’d be nearby again and asked if I’d want to meet for dinner.

Well, we met up and the date went stupidly well. I was nervous that in person conversation would be awkward, but it was far from it. We ended up staying a little past closing just because we were so deep in conversation. When we parted ways, we agreed to get together again in a couple weeks when he’d be back. We exchanged numbers at this point, too. He texted me before I’d even made it to my car thanking me for a great evening, I wished him a safe drive home, all was well.

The next day, I texted him just to shoot the breeze. I didn’t get a response. Didn’t really think much of it. Texted the following day, same thing. I started to wonder if he was just gonna ghost.

On the third day, he ends up texting me sometime in the evening. He starts telling me that he has something to talk to me about and ends up telling me that he was married and has been divorced for two years and isn’t really looking for anything long term right now, but that he also wants to see me again. I responded that that was fine, him having been married wasn’t an issue and that I wasn’t seeking anything long term either and that yeah, I’d be down for hanging out or whatever. After that he got better in terms of response time as far as messaging so I figured the “secret” about his past and not being upfront had gotten to him. Things kind of escalated and we both got flirty with each other. Texting continues.

Fast forward to mid March, just before corona got real. He’s going to be in the area and we arrange for him to come over, bring pizza and watch a movie. He ends up coming over and time gets away from us and before we know it, it’s 3am. He asks if I want him to stay and I say yes. We don’t end up having sex, but there’s lots of kissing and such. He leaves the next morning and we agree to do it again soon.

For two weekends after that, we tried to get together, but life happens. I had a birth in my family that I needed to be on alert for in case I needed to travel and according to him, his parents were due to arrive home after being stuck out of country. I should mention here, we are roughly the same age (in our 30’s, and we have the same birthday, but are a year apart. He mentioned living with his parents while saving for a downpayment.

The week of lockdown (so like… March 17th-ish) he texted and mentioned “trying to come see me” I said ok, and then never heard anything. I would text and not hear anything in response. Sometimes when he was good about responding, I’d need to double text so it would make him see he’d have a message to respond to, but I wasn’t obsessive over it. This went on for well over a week. Radio silence I figured he just up and ghosted. Sent him one final text that was basically like “hey, hope you’re doing alright, I haven’t heard from you in awhile so I just want to make sure you’re ok”. Checked to see if we’re still matched on tinder because I figured he’d be smart enough to unmatch if he was gonna ghost me. He ends up responding that night saying that his phone has been “in a drawer and shut off” for the week and that he had a family member pass away from covid-19. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to “do this” right now, etc, etc, etc. I expressed my condolences and told him I understood if he needed to take a step back. We’ve briefly texted on and off since, but it’s mostly been radio silent on his end. I get that he’s grieving and spending time with family, but putting the pieces of the puzzle together, there are things that don’t add up.

1) Nobody just… doesn’t check their phone at least once a day. I understand he works, but there were a number of times he’d respond over 12 hours later. Same goes for that excuse about his phone being in a drawer. I don’t believe that at all. Wouldn’t his friends or family be trying to reach out? He also works in the justice system and is in court a lot, so I thought maybe he keeps his phone on silent for that reason and never has alerts turned on. Or, maybe he’s just been selective with my messages, who knows.

2) I tried to find him on facebook after our initial date and I couldn’t. I get not everyone uses it, but in this day and age, it’s rare.

3) After telling the whole spiel to one of my friends, she googled him and found his LinkedIN profile, everything on there was correct in terms of where he told me he worked, schools attended. She google imaged him too and ended up finding pictures of him and his “ex wife.” Now, some of them have dates that would match up with him being divorced for the amount of time he says, but there were only a couple of them together and only one with a date.

So, I’ve literally come to the conclusion that he’s still married and is hiding his phone and responds to messages when it’s “safe” to do so. Plus, as much as I get that downpayment are costly, there aren’t many men in their 30’s I know who wouldn’t want the privacy of their own place.

I dunno, the whole thing is just fishy and weird. We seemed to have a good thing going, even on a friendly level, so this just makes me angry, but at the same time, it’s tinder.

What say you, r/dating?