If you’ve ever tried online dating, you know it’s basically a second job. You spend half your time swiping through pictures of shirtless men in their bathroom mirrors or holding up fish at questionable angles. The rest of the time you’re trying to decode messages like “U up?” into something that remotely resembles intelligible human communication.
And if you’re over 40, let alone 60, the whole experience feels less like flirting and more like surviving an obstacle course you didn’t know you signed up for.
The good news is, you’re not alone.
TikTok user @madisonthestallion recently posted a video titled “My Grammy finally downloaded a dating app and this is how it’s going.” In the video, her Grammy is innocently messaging a potential male suitor on an online dating app.
What happened next is the stuff of hilarious nightmares, because honestly, it could happen to any of us.
The video shows Grammy retelling the now-infamous moment with Gary, her potential match. The poor woman had been trying to craft a warm and personable message with just a little bit of flirting.
She opened her message with “Hello, Gary, nice to meet you. I love the picture of you on the swing. Looks like fun.” Cute, right? Sweet, even. Nothing to raise an eyebrow at.
But then… she added the line that changed everything, “And I love to swing too.”
@madisonthestallion Someone please get this women on the Golden Bachelor #goldenbachelor #grandma #dating #swinging #momtok #secretlivesofmormanwives #datinghelp #goldenbachelorette #abc @goldenbacheloretteabc ♬ original sound – MadisonTheStallion
Oh, Grammy. That message took the vibe from OurTime to Tinder real quick.
In her mind, she was just connecting with Gary over a photo of him on a swing. Innocent. Wholesome. But to anyone with a basic knowledge of dating lingo, that sentence didn’t exactly scream “grandma-next-door.” It screamed, “Hey Gary, Want to take a quick trip to Hedonism II?”
As she recounted the blunder in the TikTok, she laughed until she could barely breathe, which honestly made me love her even more. Because when you’re trying to navigate dating apps at any age, you have to have a sense of humor.
The next day, Grammy’s intuition must’ve kicked in because she reread her message and realized what she had accidentally implied.
Cue the panic!
She immediately followed up with the absolute kiss of death, another message to clarify her oopsie daisy. “Hi Gary, I just saw that I labeled myself as a swinger. So sorry. I am not a swinger. The complete opposite, to be honest with you.”
Which, honestly, is the perfect way to say, “I don’t swap husbands, Gary. Please don’t block me.”
She went on to apologize for her “bad choice of words” and begged him not to let it “deter” him from reaching out. Of course, in her haste, she wrote “goes” instead of “does.” WHATEVER. She’s just a girl. But now she’s the victim of a double whammy because she’s not just a “swinger,” she’s also a typo queen who double-texts.
So the big question is did Gary ever reply?
According to @madisonthestallion’s TikTok update, nope. In fact, Gary un-matched with Grammy the next day. COME ON, GARY! Not even a courtesy “LOL”? Which probably says more about Gary than it does about grandma.
If a guy can’t laugh off a harmless word mix-up, is he really date material?
And if nothing else, grandma got something better than Gary. She got a TikTok with 1 million views and a fan club of thousands cheering her on. Honestly, that’s more satisfying than any first date I’ve ever been on.
So the next time you accidentally embarrass yourself on an app, remember, if Grammy can bounce back from “swinger-gate,” you can bounce back from anything.
