Dear Richard by Harper Leeway

MTV’s Catfish taught us to be aware of online deception. But what if the swindler wants nothing from your wallet, photos, or even your reputation? Join Harper Leeway as she recalls a decade-old Tinder encounter of thrill, bewilderment, and the most unexpected of heartbreaks.

Yes, his name is really Richard and, yes, he does live in London still. Don’t worry, he’s not identifiable — and even if I were to say that he was a narrow white boy, floppy brown hair, played guitar in an indie-rock garage band, it still doesn’t give anything away.

Dear reader, I want to tell you a little story about how I, your humble and also beautiful narrator, was once played like an absolute fiddle by a boy I met on Tinder, so maybe you feel a little less alone today. (Sorry, but if you’re reading personal ads around Valentine’s Day, I assume you’re lonely.)

Let me set the stage: Almost exactly a decade ago, I was staying the summer in a Central European city known for the British stag parties and tourist culture of debauchery. See, doesn’t narrow it down, does it? Further proof that this can — and does — happen to anyone.

I open Tinder, I see our antagonist: a slim man, British, tousled brown hair — in the first photo, he’s playing bass, posed against a generic grunge background, film-camera flash. Walk with me here, it’s summer 2016 — everything was just like the photos, i.e. hyper-saturated and optimistic — and imagine you’re a Tumblr girl with 00 studded jean cut-offs, box-dyed cherry-red hair. You love the Arctic Monkeys, and you got your septum pierced last year… Exactly: You’re me, and Richard is your dream man.

He’s in town for the weekend, and we only match the night before he leaves. He returns home — but, for some reason, continues to message me. I write back. (In case you haven’t realised it yet — I didn’t until later — we’re in a psychological horror. Let’s do some foreshadowing.)

I do immediately deduce that this is a scam, but what could the motive be? I start investigating. He is a real person — I find his band online, along with additional photos of him. His social media profiles are updated, active. Months go by, we keep writing. We take turns responding and the message thread continues to grow longer and longer. He never asks for money, he never asks for nudes. When the school year restarts, I secretly tune into his student radio show, eight time zones between us, and hear his voice for the first time — that, dear reader, was as salacious as it got.

I had to know though: Who was this really and what did he actually want? Over winter break, I would visit my friends in Lewisham — my chance to find out. We had been talking for six months. We decided to meet.

It’s mid-morning in mid-December, we both arrive to the agreed upon location: the London Eye. He looks just like his photos. We decide to go for a short walk, he’ll show me the sights: South Bank, Tate Modern, Tower Bridge (where we take our first selfie) — and we can’t stop talking the whole time. The walk becomes 15 miles.

Finally, finally, we duck into a Chinese-themed dive bar just north of the river. It’s pitch black outside (5 p.m., winter), and the neon lights are burning into my fucking retinas. The discount bucket is six Red Stripe beers on ice. With each beer, I can feel the time running out. I still haven’t figured out what it is he wants. Every minute is going a little bit faster than the one before it. I don’t want to leave, but it’s not because I haven’t solved the mystery, it’s because I am having the best time. Third beer. Bucket killed. Check paid. We step outside.

We’re walking side-by-side, and I think our hands have just barely grazed against each other. Was it just wind? I almost can’t tell, but no, they definitely brushed just now. Our fingers bump clumsily this time (one last check), then we’re holding hands. We walk down to the side of the Thames, face each other, and kiss.

(I see you getting your hopes up — you crush them down! Spoiler: I wouldn’t see Richard until over a year later, spring 2018.)

Back to scene: We say goodbye, but hopefully not for too long. Next academic year, I will study abroad in London, and even though he goes to school up north, he says it’s only a few quid to come down on the National Express. Could it be this easy?

I get my U.K. student visa, my tickets to London are booked. We’ve been messaging, even video calling each other, but then one day he writes me that he doesn’t want to ever come see me — and he stops writing. So do I.

I think I finally reach out to him in the spring. I couldn’t tell you. There may or may not have been a night where I drank a biblical amount of wine and then spent all night throwing up red in my dorm room sink.

Your narrator is not only humble and beautiful and generous, her lifestyle is glamorous and she specialises in impulse control. Anyway, all of that to say, Richard got a message. He’s coming to visit his parents soon, but has time to come to London for a day if I’m free? We meet.

It’s like we live the same day as last time, but it’s spring now, and his hair is short. We go to another art museum (this time there’s a performance installation where we see a man dressed like a melon roll around laboriously on the lobby floor). (I only remember Melon Man and his rolling because our arms were so close I could feel the electricity coming off of his skin, and needed to focus on anything else.) We wind up in a pub, near my student accommodation. Round for round for round, I work up the nerve until it’s my turn to buy again. It’s my round, but I have a bottle of wine back in my room if you wanted a glass? (Yes, wine. I haven’t learned a lesson in my life.) We look each other in the eyes, unblinking, unsmiling for a few seconds — our feet have been touching under the table — the minutes are starting to speed up again.

Cut to us, in my dorm, there’s red wine in normal glasses on my desk, untouched, and we’re in each other’s arms, my hands are in what’s left of the hair. I’m curb stomping your optimism right now, before you can even get it up. We’re on my bed, and he bolts upright — he has to leave immediately, and he’s already at the door. I walk him out, watch him walk under one of the railway arches and disappear into the fog and the dark and the city. That’s all. He later said to me — wrote to me, I never saw him again — that he felt like he was walking away from something really good. But I’m not a thing, I’m a person, unfortunately, and unfortunately a person who was Tinder swindled into having a human emotion for someone who purposefully wouldn’t feel anything back. I was defrauded in a way that — for all of my research into catphishing scams — I was unprepared for. It’s been ten years now, so I am definitely over it, but just know that if anything similar has ever happened to you, you’re not alone, dear reader.

And, dear Richard, if you do happen to read this, and you want to get a coffee — just friends, for old time’s sake — write into Lonely Hearts.

This article originally appeared in Issue 02, published in February 2026. It was published online on April 11, 2026.