Around this time last year, I was seventeen and waiting for my birthday. When my birthday came, I asked a guy out on a date that was four years older than me, thinking that we would date, fall in love, and get married. He agreed to the date, I turned eighteen, and then he DM-ed me on Instagram saying, "I'm currently talking to someone I graduated high school with." I was devastated.

So, I did what any heartbroken newly eighteen year old would do, I downloaded Tinder and made an account.

That's when I turned into a monster. I went on Tinder dates with college guys or guys with jobs, every night to every other night, and lied to my mother about where I was going. And Tinder Monster Jada was horrible. One week, I had the "brilliant" idea to swipe right on every police officer, firefighter, and veteran I saw on Tinder that looked cute and called this action public service. And if they asked me out on a date, I'd be serving the public. One, because they literally dedicate their lives to the safety and common good of the general public, and, two, because I'm cute as hell and me going out on a date with that kind of man would be a service to them.

So, that's when Chris comes into play. He was a 25-year-old volunteer firefighter and his photos looked fairly askew. In some, he looked like a fairly chubby kid that's straight out of the late '90s. In others, he looked like a divorced man with a cubicle job that hates his life. And me, not thinking, and only caring about a photo of him in his full firefighter gear, swiped right.

"I'm going on a Tinder date at six," I told my mom as I stood in the doorway to her bedroom 48 hours after I swiped right on Chris.

"With whom?" She replied.

I told her about Chris as I stood in the bathroom getting ready. I lied and said he was nineteen and a student. She demanded that I send her a photo of him, I take a photo of his license, and I told her where we were going just in case.

He forced me to walk alone fifteen minutes away from my house in the dark because he didn't want my mother to see his car even though I assured him that she wouldn't because she was dropping my sister off at an event across town. I refused to meet him inside of the Dunkin' Donuts we chose as a meeting place because I didn't want people that knew me to gossip and see me with someone who looked like he had two toddlers and an unsuspecting wife at home.

I yelled at Chris to drive a bit slower. He was a reckless driver that seemed to not have any care for my life or his, even though it was winter and there was ice on the ground. Plus, he was driving on narrow winding roads and it was nerve-racking.

"I want to go to Friendly's," he announced.

"But I thought we were going to the mall," I replied.

"I hate the mall. We're going to Friendly's."

"Friendly's went bankrupt when I was in seventh grade."

He parked the car in the restaurant's parking lot and we both got out. My mom was blowing up my phone because I still didn't send her the photos she asked for. With my mom's constant calling and texting, I started to panic and have a small anxiety attack.

Chris wasn't the most supportive person because he began to insult my mother and how I was raised. So, that's when Chris decided to announce in the nearly vacant Friendly's that when he was twenty-one, he dated a sixteen-year-old. Now, I looked up the consent laws in my state and I know for a fact that the age of consent in Connecticut is sixteen but the maximum age difference there can be between two people in two years.

So, Chris just admitted to technically being a pedophile. And I was shook.

I wanted to go home at that point but I didn't have a debit card and I didn't want to be rude and I really wanted to eat the chicken quesadilla I ordered. So, I guess I was stuck with him. He kept trying to play footsies with me under the table like it was cute or something and I was not in the mood for it. I didn't want his oversized feet nudging mine or trailing up my calf because it wasn't sexy. It was annoying as hell. So, I hissed at him to stop.

"You're not the spunky girl that I met," he told me.

I rolled my eyes. I could have told him that his photos on Tinder didn't match what he looked like now but I decided to be the bigger person. I was so done with this date and it wasn't even over. I felt like I was wasting my Friday night and I knew that I deserved to be treated better by this WalMart version of my mother's old boss. The check couldn't come soon enough.

After my horrible date with Chris, he tried to see me numerous times and pestered me to borrow money from my friends or family to come to Vermont and stay in his dorm room for a week because after a shitty date like that, I'd want to see him again. Looking back on it, I don't even understand why I continued to text him for a few days after that when he kept calling me on the phone and saying very creepy things to me.

I learned from that date that I needed a debit card ASAP and that I shouldn't be afraid to call my mom from the bathroom and ask her to get me so that I didn't need to continue to be disrespected by a man but also to put myself in serious danger with someone who was admitedly a pedophile. And, that was my worst Tinder date.