30-something woman turns horrible internet dating texts into works of art
Sareytales calls out the hilarious, sexist, and just plain weird from online dating

Detroit, Michigan - Meet Sarey Ruden: a Detroit-based, single, 30-something Graphic Designer who, like many men and women her age, use a slew of dating apps and sites to look for love. Tinder, OKCupid!, JDate, JSwipe, Bumble and Plenty of Fish are just a few of the places Sarey has tried out in hopes of finding a nice, normal guy. However, more often than not, she found herself at the unsolicited receiving end of some pretty sexist, and often cruel, messages.

“From time to time I’d receive completely random mean messages and texts,” says Sarey, who says that most of the messages are a result of her telling the would-be suitors she’s simply not interested. “I filed them away knowing I’d use them for something someday. At the very least, I always had stories to tell me friends about my awful dating disasters.”

“I read these ugly words and thought, I should turn this into something beautiful,” she said. “In a way, it allowed me to take power over this meanness and create something that was different, something that was mine.”

Posting a few of her designs on Facebook led to an almost instantaneous response. Women from all walks of life resonated with her posts, as victims of misogynistic, sexist and just plain creepy texts and unwanted advances from online dating.
Some illicit shock while others, a chuckle. She’s carefully curated hundreds of messages into categories such as: Tales of Fetishes, Tales of Aging and Tales of Random Acts of Meanness, just to name a few.
What began as a fun little project of crafting clever designs from cruel words has evolved into something much larger. Sarey feels that she has really hit a nerve among other single women (and men) in a similar position, as the submissions from fellow online daters pour in.
Sarey would like to think that she has inspired others to change their perspective of the cruel messages they receive via the digital dating scene. Mean and ugly words may sting, but they can also be used for good. Thoughtless, cruel and ignorant texts can be turned around and inside out and emerge as something beautiful.