Tickle Me Elmo - A Tinder Tale

80% of the reason I am on Tinder is for the stories the experience provides. There are some truly hilarious characters out there in the world and you can bet you’ll find a vast majority of them on Tinder.

This story comes to you from New Zealand. Because I am not using the site completely as it's intended to be used I’ve set my profile up so that prospective suitors span the entire globe. I am developing a good little collection of tales to share of some of the conversations I have had with some….strange….folk. This being a little favourite of mine.

NZ boy started off messaging me with one of my favourite (it isn’t, I hate it) lines.

‘Hey beautiful how you doing?’ but he didn’t quite get there with the spelling, instead sending ‘Hey butiful how you do in?’

I couldn’t resist, my troll came out, and I really did try and hold her back, I promise.

‘Well, when I do in I usually just avoid doing out, that seems to work.’

It made him laugh, or so his ‘lol’ reply indicated, but he didn’t understand what I meant, asking me again ‘How you doin beatiful’. Even trying to misspell ‘beautiful’ now, to reflect his own spelling, my phone wants to correct it so I am not sure how some of these spelling errors slip by. At least he got the sentence better as a whole.

‘I am doing very well thank you, how are you?’

That’s how it goes. When starting a chat it’s almost always the hi, how are you's followed by a ‘good’ or ‘great’ and a return of the question, also followed by ‘good’ or ‘great’. As boring as that is I would have preferred it over what I got. No, I wouldn’t, not really, then I wouldn’t have this gem of a tale!

‘Horny and itchy’

I think I sat open mouthed for a good twenty seconds, trying desperately to erase the image of him scratching viciously at his crotch while a porn played in the background.

‘Oh’ was all I could think of as a reply.

‘Yeah, itching for sum fun wit u babe’

‘Ahh, I thought maybe you had a yeast infection. What are your views on Liz Truss as the new Prime minister for the UK?’

‘wat u mean babe?’

‘Well, I was wondering if you believe she will be more a principled or opportunistic leader?’

‘I don’t no. U wanna send me a snap?’

Yes, yes I did. I had to download Snapchat and try and remember my log in details from the last time I used it ages ago, but I got there and sent him  a picture of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson.

He sent me his penis.

I sent one of the Queen and Boris during the kissing hands ceremony.

He sent his stomach and the top of his groin. I sent one of the English flag and he sent a full length, nude body shot.

‘Send me a pic of u babe’

So I sent him a picture of the letter ‘u’ with Elmo sitting on it.

‘No babe send me a pic of ur body’

I couldn’t think of anything clever to reply to this. I sent a nice, clean photo of my fully clothed body, neck to stomach.

‘Oh nice babe. Take off ur shirt’

I actually obliged, but quickly replaced the shirt for a jumper and sent him a new photo.

‘Oh nice babe, take off ur top’

Which I did, and replaced it with yet another jumper, sending yet another photo.

‘Send me u waring nothin’

So I sent him the letter ‘u’ again but one without Elmo.

And finally I was blocked.

Not even a good bye.

His profile was very clever and insightful. ‘No games no drama h8 fake ppl 100%. Down to f*** will make u c** msg for best sex. Don’t want fake ppl if ur fake swipe right ( I think he meant left?) gud sex only swipe left (I think he meant right?)’

Shortly after NZ I started talking to a gentleman who lived fairly close to me. All was going well, at first, until he asked me if I had any pets. Replying affirmatively, and with a little story about my lovely Ripley, I returned the question.

‘No, my wife is allergic to dogs and cats, she won’t let me get a pet or sleep with me and I’m so lonely…’ and I tell you, no word of a lie, this man poured his little heart out across 4 messages that all required a couple of finger scrolls to read. Not wanting to be cruel, but not condoning infidelity, I offered a little bit of advice, strongly centred around not pursuing the course of action he was taking, and genuinely wished him well.

His reply, ‘I wanna cheat on her so she worries about me getting it elsewhere and starts sleeping with me again, can you just pretend we slept together so I can show her the messages?’

There will be more! I’m certain.

Stay kind to others and have a happy day!