Tales from the internet: Hinge horror edition.

So we decided to pass the mic and hear some stories directly from oxio customers. With Valentine’s Day here, what better time to ask our customers how they found love… or situationships, online?

We interviewed an oxio customer who told us the following Hinge horror story.

Me quickly looking up what Hinge is - Hinge is a dating app allegedly run by researchers, behavioural analysts, and matchmakers. It’s marketed as making “dating effective, not addictive.”¹

For anonymity's sake, we’re going to call him… hmmm…. let’s go with Oliver. Yes, I did just watch Saltburn² before writing this.

“Oliver” resides in BC with his partner (Who may or may not be the person in this story - Only one way to find out). He is a chef, enjoys the food market, loves the song Moon River by Frank Ocean, and was a pleasure to chat with!

Note: This story is told in first person by our oxio customer. We kept everything as raw and radically transparent as possible and only changed some bits to help it flow when read.

So, I first moved to Vancouver and I was on Hinge for a little bit on and off.

I met this person on Hinge and we went on one or two dates. I remember she liked Italian food.

Green flag. I mean, who doesn’t?

After a couple of dates, she ended up staying the night one time. I didn’t really think anything of it, and I left my phone by my bedside.

I then went and showered and got ready for the day. I came back and everything seemed good.

We ended up hanging out a few more times after that, but what was super weird was I noticed I wasn’t hearing from a bunch of my friends. Like, people that I would talk to or see every day.

I would send them texts and the text’s either wouldn’t go through or it would show up green, which was super weird.

But we ended up seeing each other for a little bit longer, and I think it was about a week in, I was hanging out with one of my friends, and she asked to see my phone as she thought the whole situation was a bit weird too. Now, no one had access to my phone, other than this person I was seeing. So my friend goes through my phone, and she looks in “Blocked Contacts” in Settings, and we find she had blocked all of the female contacts on my phone.

So I kind of confronted her…

Me interrupting - “Did she have your passcode, or scan your face, or was the phone already unlocked?”

At that time I didn’t have a passcode.

Oh…

I was one of those guys. But after that, I put a passcode.

So after that, I messaged her and said we would need to have a conversation and that I couldn’t see her again.

She started writing me paragraphs about how confused she was and then called me and started to yell. And keep in mind, this was someone I had seen maybe 2 or 3 times.

So some time passes, and I block this person’s number and their profile on Instagram.

And, oh yeah, she sent me a film camera. She dropped it off at my front door.

Me having watched too many thriller series - “No way. Was there a recording or pictures on it?”

It was completely empty. But it had a big note saying sorry and to accept this as an apology.

If there were pictures on it that would’ve been so creepy.

Me slightly disappointed there were no pictures on it but relieved for Oliver.

So life goes on and I let her know I didn’t want to move forward with our situation.

Of course.

So about 4 or 5 months go by, and I meet my partner whom I’m with now. (For anonymity's sake, we’re going to call her Venetia).

I post a photo of the two of us on my Instagram, and I get a text message from a number that I’ve never seen before with the message, “So you’ve got a f***ing girlfriend…”.

So after realizing I was being stalked, I blocked that number.

And one thing I forgot to mention, is that she was a photographer.

Ah ok. The camera makes more sense now.

So I also checked this person’s photography/portfolio website, cause then I remembered she had taken a bunch of photos of me.

Ummm…

I looked on the website, and every 2 or 3 photos was one of me, each with the caption “Stranger”.

So really creepy, but I have to say, the camera is actually sick. I still use it now, and it stamps the photo and date.

Me asking Oliver - “Wait, wait, wait. So when you saw these photos, did you contact her to take them down?”

No, I wasn’t going to risk it. I didn’t want to be on a Netflix documentary and avoided it at all costs.

Probably the right call.

Thank you to “Oliver” for sharing his online dating story with us. Oliver and Venetia are still together and Venetia promised to never block his friends. If you’re still searching for “real love” with your internet provider, check out if oxio is a match for your home here. Happy Valentine’s Day!