If you’ve ever been ghosted after a Tinder hookup — don’t worry it happens to all of us from time to time — you know the confusion and shame that comes along with it. (After all, not all Tinder stories can end jetting off into the sunset with the person you’ve been messaging for three years.)
Ghosting is the dating phenomenon that happens when someone is too much of a chicken to actually end things and chooses to disappear off of the face of the Earth instead.
But imagine getting ghosted and then seeing the guy who ghosted you every day — talk about awkward.
Well that’s exactly what happened to one New York woman when a Tinder date decided he wasn’t interested anymore.
A woman we’ll call “Pam” to protect her identity, shared her story about getting ghosted with Elite Daily.
So Pam is a Long Island girl who travels into Manhattan daily for work on the LIRR. For the past seven to 10 months, she’s been taking the same train at the same time every day. And she started noticing someone else who had her same routine. Someone she named “Cool Shirt Guy,” presumably because he wore cool shirts that caught her eye.
For months the two rode the train in isolation until one Sunday evening in June when none other than Cool Shirt Guy popped up on Pam’s Tinder.
What a conundrum. Obviously, Pam was interested (because you know, cool shirts), but she didn’t want to make for an awkward ride to work every day, so she held off on sending him a message.
She didn’t see him on the train on Monday, but she did get a message from him on Tinder later that day.
“This may sound really weird/creepy but do you take the LIRR from Massapequa?” Cool Shirt Guy asked.
Obviously, Pam was excited and replied that she did, in fact, take that train. They talked late into the night.
On the train the next morning, they chatted some more. And they kept chatting throughout their hour-long train rides every day that week.
If you’re thinking this is the beginning of a perfect love story, not so fast.
Apparently, Cool Shirt Guy had to go to Ireland for work that Friday.
Then she got a message from Cool Shirt Guy saying he was deleting Tinder because some of his co-workers had found him on there, and he thought it was “awkward.”
OK, Cool Shirt Guy, it’s 2017. Tinder isn’t awkward anymore it’s just a fact of life at this point. Red flag.
Pam said she didn’t find it weird, though, and gave Cool Shirt Guy her number. He responded with his.
And that was the last time they messaged each other.
Pam saw him on the platform when he got back from Ireland (if he was even really there) and they talked briefly before getting on the train and that was it.
They still both ride the LIRR from Massapequa every morning, from the same entrance, but they just act as if the other doesn’t exist.
“It’s honestly so awkward that neither of us is willing to say anything to each other, and it’s even crazier that he’d go out of his way to message me after matching with me on Tinder, KNOWING we saw each other every single day.”
Agreed, Pam. Agreed.
