One of the great things about dating apps is that you can expand your network and match up with people you would never have met otherwise. One of the downsides of dating apps is that you can match up with people you wouldn’t otherwise want to meet. You can tell a lot from a dating profile, but you can’t see everything.
How can you get yourself out of this situation if things aren’t going that well? How do you not match on Bumble? How can you stop the chat if you don’t like the chat? How do you get off a bad date without being rude?
Dating is a minefield of unpredictable behaviors, expectations, and emotional reactions. That’s what makes it so fun but also so challenging. Today we’re going to cover those times when things didn’t quite go according to plan. Here are some suggestions for ways to handle online dating when things go wrong.
Don’t Match on Bumble
Depending on where you live, you may have hundreds of potential matches or just a few. You can get so used to swiping left or right that you end up doing it unconsciously. So what happens when you swipe in the wrong direction? Not all apps allow you to undo your swipe, and you won’t always need it.
If you’ve swiped right on someone you don’t want, that doesn’t mean you have to contact them. You can ignore the match and not contact them or respond to the chat. Most people who use dating apps will get used to this behavior and will likely move on.
Bumble is an app that lets you undo your swipe to match or not match. If you swipe right on someone you don’t want, you can unmatch on Bumble by shaking your phone right after. If you swiped left and wanted to swipe right, you can do the same. These are called Backtracks and you get three of them at once.
How to stop a conversation when it starts to go wrong
Most of us have been there. We’re chatting about a super hot match online and the conversation either takes a weird, nasty, or downright ugly turn, and it’s time to end it. How can you do this without being rude to the other person or giving an excuse to make them behave worse?
The easiest way is to stop chatting with them. Delete the conversation to close the app and continue. This avoidance technique won’t work for everyone, especially if you’re someone who doesn’t want to be rude or look over your shoulder. Honesty is always the best policy, but sometimes it’s the most problematic, especially if you don’t really know who you’re dealing with. Sometimes it’s best to avoid.
Other ways to deal with this is to simply say that you need to be in one place. End the conversation on a positive note like ‘it was nice to chat but I have to be somewhere soon’. Most people will accept this as we all have a life outside of our phones.
How to escape a bad date
Most of us will have been here. A date that looked so promising and then fell so hard. It’s either behavior, weird speech, friends intruding, or something else. So how can you escape without being rude or opening yourself up to more negativity?
There are two ways I use to manage this. The first is to always have a limited first date. An afternoon coffee, a lunch date, an after-work drink, or something like that. You only have limited time for lunch or you have to take the bus or subway home. Both are the ideal, conflict-free way to end a date without wasting too much time.
The second way to manage dates is to set a limit. It’s like, ‘I’m free for dinner but I’ll have to be home by 9 because I have an early presentation the next morning’. If the date goes bad, you can run away as you arranged. If the date goes well, you can earn more points by staying longer and saying you had too much fun to get home early. Either way, you leave on a positive note.
Tried-and-tested pretending to be sick, a friend calling you, saying you’re tired, or a friend ‘bumping’ on a date is all effective but also transparent. Use them or not, depending on how you want the other person to feel.
Flirting is truly a roller coaster ride, and whether you need to stop matching on Bumble or escape a date that has turned out to be unreal, you now have several ways to do it. Do you have a story you want to share about avoiding bad dates?
