What to Practice When You Come across Someone You Know on Tinder

I saw a longtime friend on Tinder recently. One time I got over the daze of seeing a picture in which he has a visible penis line (and the shock of realizing he'due south the kind of guy who posts visible-penis-line pictures on dating apps), I laughed and swiped right. We matched. "HAHAHAHAHA hello hottie," I said. He replied with three cat-with-hearts-for-eyes emoji. The side by side time I saw him, nosotros laughed nearly it. And then he made a laissez passer at me.

I thought we'd swiped right in a sort of friendly, common acknowledgment — the equivalent of waving hello across a crowded bar when we are both decorated flirting with other people. But he thought the wave itself was a amour, that my correct swipe indicated a desire to add together "benefits" to our friendship. I'd given positive feedback after seeing his penis line, after all.

Though online dating'south been around for a while, the etiquette around information technology is still evolving. (And now that Tinder has introduced a Snapchat-like photograph-sharing function, the stakes are college than e'er!) And and then, after inspecting my own habits and questioning others most theirs, I've concluded that at that place are six main strategies for reacting to a familiar face on an online dating app.

1. The Wave-Hello Right Swipe: This is one of the more popular default choices between friends, due generally to the gleeful novelty of running into a buddy in an unexpected place. An unspoken (or barely spoken) acknowledgment created by swiping correct on Tinder or Swivel, rating someone with v stars on OKCupid, or just clicking and viewing their profiles in apps where you tin can view lists of "visitors." "If it'due south a friend, I presume he doesn't want to blindside me, because nosotros would have done it by at present," my friend Maya explained. "So commonly we're all 'hahaha hiiii.' If we actually want to fuck, we'll figure information technology out some other time."

The wave hello becomes a problem just when you're interacting with someone who is not waving hello. Someone who is engaged in activeness like …

2. The Egotistic Right Swipe: Because I am extremely curious and ruthlessly self-centered when it comes to dating, I right-swipe everyone I recognize on Tinder. I desire to know if they retrieve I'm cute! This is a savage tactic that confuses people and unfairly toys with their hearts, and I freely acknowledge that if I met a man who admitted to doing this, I'd call him a douchebag and detest him. And however, I would right-swipe.

Narcissistic right-swipers take 1 of three options when they "lucifer" with people they know in real life and don't actually similar: ane, block them immediately if you truly detest them. 2, ignore letters or flake strategically if you lot demand plausible deniability. Three, feel then guilty that you end upwards going on a string of ambivalent dates "just to run into." All iii options are horrid and inexcusable, but beloved is a battlefield and sometimes information technology's every bitch for herself.

three. The Principled Avoider: Though "I never date people I piece of work with and/or live near and/or share friends with" tends to be an excuse, it is true that some people categorically avert known quantities when dating online. Sometimes this is to avoid entanglement. Other times, it is a simple acknowledgment that, if you liked each other enough to engagement, you'd exist doing it already. You're dating online to run across new people, not the same old ones, right? Men who already had (and perchance messed up) their chances with yous must go, in the words of Beyoncé, "to the left, to the left." You can accept another him in a minute, with the assist of vast online databases of eligible men.

iv. The Nervous Avoider: Other times, avoidance is driven by fear. What if you both swipe correct, just don't know what to say? What if you lot date, only information technology doesn't work out, and it's bad-mannered for the residual of your lives? Dating is socialization gone nuclear — powerful just explosive. "I saw this guy from higher on OKCupid, and even though I SO SO SO wanted to click, I couldn't let myself," a female person friend said in a Gchat. "He was in a lower social strata than me in higher, and if he saw me in his 'visitors' list, information technology would lower me to his strata and I can't bargain with that." Single and unlucky in beloved, she needs to cling to something.

5. The Screen-Grabber: Any of the above options may be combined with screen-grabbing, usually for gossip purposes. (Or to text it to the person in question, as a variation on the "wave hello" right-swipe.) Screen-grabbing is a piddling cruel — nosotros are all at our well-nigh vulnerable when advertising romantic availability online — only, ultimately, non and so different than garden-variety dating gossip. Hell hath no fury like a girl whose BFF comes across her ex-beau's online dating profile but fails to take a screenshot.

6. The Person Who Doesn't Play Games and Actually Swipes Right to Indicate Sexual and/or Romantic Interest: Earlier my emoji-true cat friend fabricated a laissez passer at me, I'd assumed this type of person did non exist. When using apps that treat dating similar a game, is it fifty-fifty possible to cut the game-playing and relate to one another in earnest? Tin can a preexisting friendship blossom into something more, with the help of an app designed for superficial hookups?

"Here'south the thing," my visibly penised friend said. "You lot can't look at someone you know on Tinder and not retrieve about fucking them, if only for a split second." And though we didn't claw up immediately, once the idea had been planted in both of our minds, well, somewhen, we tested it.

When You Run into Someone You Know on Tinder