Help! Someone I sort of know liked my Hinge
By Connor Petts
It’s midnight. You are lying in bed, scrolling on Hinge, when bam – a familiar face pops up on your screen. You’ve seen him in seminars before and know he hangs around with a couple of your housemates. Instantly you start to panic. Is this some sort of sick joke? You don’t want to make things awkward, so you are faced with a dilemma: do you respond, or ignore him? Here are five of our top tips on how to react when a friend of a friend sends you a like.
- Notify all mutual friends immediately. Before you take any action, it’s important to gain as much context as possible that could explain the interaction. Try to find out if they have ever brought you up in conversation before or mentioned seeing your Hinge profile recently. Probably someone hacked their account, or they mistook you for the slightly hotter girl you sit next to in your Tuesday seminar, but it is good to keep an open mind.
- Establish whether there is chemistry between you. Are you interested in them romantically? Was the awkward eye contact you made in that one lecture fueled with desire? It may sound obvious, but it’s important to make sure that you like someone before you pursue them. Remember, it’s always ok to say no, regardless of whether it would make things weird between you and them.
- Temporarily stop attending contact hours. To avoid any awkward interactions while you decide what steps to take, it’s best to avoid anywhere you could bump into each other, including lectures, seminars, college, and the entire city centre. Also steer clear of communal spaces like the library or the TLC and avoid any social events they could be attending. This will give you time to focus on yourself and bury the feelings of embarrassment deep down inside of you.
- Drop out of university. By this point, you have decided either that you don’t like them back or that it was a dare, and the risk of making eye contact with them again is still intolerably high. The simplest way to eliminate all potential uncomfortable scenarios at this point is to create physical distance between you and them, which can be achieved by running away and reconsidering your life choices. It may also be helpful to completely cut off your friends and family to make sure this humiliating event never gets brought up in front of you again.
- Fake your own death. After dropping out, if you are still struggling to forget the traumatic incident, faking your death as a last resort could be the right decision. This way, you can leave your old life behind with your Hinge account and set up a new profile in a new name – maybe even try Tinder. Just make sure to block all of your ex-housemates first…
Image: Santeri Viinamäki via Wikimedia Commons
