A 24-year-old woman gets revenge on a Tinder date who ghosted her

My name is Jenny, I’m 24 years old and I’m reliant on Tinder to boost my self esteem.

A few years ago, just before I graduated from university in London, I matched with a guy who had a glorious profile. He was a singer with dark hair and blue eyes, and he had a funny bio and goofy pictures. We had a few mutual friends, so I did a quick background check. All seemed good.

We texted for a while and agreed to meet up at mini-putt—so romantically cliché. Immediately, we had a flirty competition going. “If I win, you kiss me. If you win, I kiss you,” he said. He beat me at golf; I beat him at air hockey. He won me a tiny parachuting army man from a claw machine. We had a great conversation and he showed his sweet side: he knew sign language, he paid for everything, he continuously complimented me. There was an instant connection that I had not felt in a long time.

Unfortunately, there was no date number two, because I graduated and moved back to Toronto. I celebrated my newfound adulthood by coming down with a rough case of mono. At the same time, Tinder-boy was recovering from surgery to repair a torn ACL. It felt like a modern fairy tale: we were forbidden from seeing each other because we were both bedridden. We texted and Skyped every day for weeks. Eventually, he started talking about our future and getting more serious. I talked about waiting until I didn’t have mono so I could stay awake for more than an hour at a time. So, yeah, it was going well.

One day, he messaged me while I was with some friends. I told him I’d be free in a few hours, and he said he’d Skype me then. When I texted him to let him know I was ready, I never heard back. I figured something had come up. It was getting late, so I texted him good night and went to sleep. The next morning, I checked my phone and was surprised to have no messages from him—he usually texted me at all hours. I texted him to ask if he was okay. A few days passed. Nothing. I left a voicemail. Another week passed, and I became less worried and more upset. I checked his Facebook and Instagram and found he had been posting since we last spoke. I couldn’t believe it. He was ghosting me.

Petty bitch that I am, I immediately plotted my revenge. I went on Kijiji, created a personal ad, posted his phone number and wrote, “Best Taylor Swift impression gets a free N64. Phone calls only.” It felt good to know he’d be receiving endless covers of “We Are Never Getting Back Together.” I was satisfied and tried to forget about the whole thing.

One day about a year later, my phone pinged. It was him. In a long Facebook message, he explained that he had become a devout Jehovah’s Witness and said that he had stopped talking to me because I had become “too tempting.” I didn’t need to worry, though, because he wanted to tell me all about the holy light so that I could join him as a Witness and be together with him, appropriately, in God’s eyes. All I needed to do was call.

I didn’t. It was my turn to ghost him.