LW is confused as to what happened: TSM never swiped right on 'Sam' (thanks to the glitch - I know this glitch well) and thus never matched him, and thus never got unmatched. Additionally, people who don't pay the tinder subscription fee can't "rewind" to a previously left-swiped account or search for accounts or anything. Once you've swiped them, they're essentially gone forever - you can't even look up who you have right-swiped on.

As to the messaging - it is a little weird. But I don't know any man who'd be "weirded out" by receiving an unsolicited message. Ignoring it or blocking the user are trivial and takes essentially zero effort.

Yeah, uh, people need to pay attention. They didn't match. She was just looking at his profile and her phone freaked out. You can't search for people on Tindr, so it's not weird that his profile was just gone after that. I don't think it's weird at all to DM him on Instagram, as he attached it to his Tindr profile.

@1: Yes! There's a big difference between "I swiped right on someone, matched with them, and then they disappeared" (this means the person either unmatched you or deleted their Tinder account) and "the person's profile disappeared before I had a chance to swipe." Contacting someone in the former situation would be embarrassingly thirsty imho, but in the latter situation ... only a touch thirsty and perhaps refreshingly direct in this age of digital coyness. Hell, I met my sweetie because he saw me on social media and asked mutual friends to introduce us, a scenario my ego found extremely gratifying.

If TSM can't bring herself (or himself) to contact Sam via Instagram, there is a tiny chance he may show up in again in TSM's Tinder feed. If someone swipes right on you and you don't swipe right on them, it's not unusual for Tinder to show you their profile again.

Speaking of Tinder, I always thought they should add a "don't show me these people" option, where you designate people on Facebook (exes, people you're related to, everyone on your friend list) that you categorically DO NOT WANT to show up in your feed.

Don't you just swipe left on people you don't want to see and then you never see them again? I've only used the free version of Tindr, but I thought that was the whole point.

totally disagree with the "insight" -- not thirsty at all, especially as original LW was female and the potential match is male (so no creepy gender harassment issues), go ahead and DM him. if you had found his instagram stalking him, different story maybe, but he linked to it his profile meaning he's inviting people to go check it out

also, LW, he may have been a catfisher linking to a real instagram profile and then deleted *his* tinder. just a possibility

@5 maybe you changed your mind or swiped by accident; even in the free version some gay dating apps let you see who you've blocked and unblock them (at least, Scruff does)

I disagree that linking to Instagram means you're welcoming DM via IG. I link to Instagram to give people a better sense of my personality and interests than the limited pics Tinder allows but it makes me uncomfortable knowing that they can then discover more about my identify via my username. I handle it through willful obliviousness. I pretend it doesn't work that way and that I'm still anonymous even though I know that's false. I would be extremely creeped out if someone messaged me on IG and mentioned seeing me on Tinder.

I would understand that they didn't go out of their way to track me down, so I wouldn't label them a stalker, but I would think they had poor judgment for not respecting that invisible line. Similar to if I went on a date with someone and mentioned where I worked. It would disturb me if they sent me an email at my work address because they could easily find me in the employee directory. That's crossing a line. I provided the information indirectly but I wasn't inviting that type of contact. I think it's the same in this situation.

LW: he's not the only one. Don't stress. Tinder is buggy. You'll have plenty of others to swipe right on.

@4 generally speaking, this will never happen. However, a not-insignificant number of women create fake facebook profiles in order to sign up for Tinder, so you will occasionally see your friends that way, but there's no way for Tinder to know that.

all this talk about "well it's a female seeking a male, so it's not creepy" is pretty presumptuous. you're already on tindr, it's not like you'll never find another match again, just let it go. plenty of fish out there.

Perhaps the most obvious: if one is going to Fuck Tinder, only do it with a virtual condom.

Absurdist @ 12 - Ha ha! So you don't get one of those virtual viruses ...

Sportlandia @9: "a not-insignificant number of women create fake facebook profiles in order to sign up for Tinder"
Genius! The "you have to link to Facebook" thing is the number one reason I never joined Tinder, well that and the feeling of reducing human beings to choices on a fast-food menu. Thanks for the workaround.

I recently had the idea of combining Tinder with Yelp. Your prior lovers could leave reviews ;)

Big Hug Mug @7: You're female. I think most of us have far lower bars for creepiness than most men do, for obvious reasons.

She didn't swipe right; she lost his profile before that happened. I've had it happen to me. Check out Instagram first, go back to the app, it crashes. Open it back up, and the profile is nowhere to be found.

Cocky @16: One message is not "stalking." Repeated messages would be.
And yes, actually, based on what I've seen on some dating sites, finding a quality straight guy is like hitting gold. I don't blame her for not wanting to lose the opportunity to connect.

@14 I think, most do it so they don't need to use their real name, rather than strict cyber-security/hacking reasons. As to being a menu item, we're all menu items - there isn't really a reason to think that physical appearance isn't as valid a reason to be attracted to someone as is, say, sense of humor, fashion sense, or good credit rating. We all sort.

@6 - "especially as original LW was female and the potential match is male (so no creepy gender harassment issues), go ahead and DM him"..... HMMMMMMmmm.....Totally agree with the gist of what you're saying, but this statement is far, far too sweeping. I've known plenty of guys who have been creeped out by the legitimately stalker-like behavior of women. Just sayin'.

Sportlandia @19: "physical appearance [is] as valid a reason to be attracted to someone as is, say, sense of humor, fashion sense, or good credit rating."

Agreed. There are MANY factors that go into attraction and compatibility. Tinder reduces them to just one: physical appearance. Whereas with my preferred site, OKCupid, you get photos AND a detailed profile AND a match compatibility rating, so it's more about the whole person than just their looks.

@5: I only ever used the free version of Tinder as well, and I found that when I swiped left on someone (for those of you who haven't used Tinder, left means "not interested" and right means "hi there"), it didn't necessarily guarantee that they would never appear in my feed again. A small percentage -- maybe one out of 20? -- would reappear a day or two later. I had a theory that these repeat fellows had swiped right on me, and sure enough, if I went "thumbs up" on their second appearance, it would be a match. A had a couple of female friends using Tinder at the time and they experienced the same thing (although straight male friends did not). This was over a year ago though, so maybe things have changed?