A woman from Australia who packed in her whole life for a Tinder love from Scotland was dumped before she was due to fly out.
Stephanie Gorton met the unnamed Scot on the dating app while he was visiting 'Straya in 2017 and was 'totally sold' on him.
For a year, they saw each other on a long-distance basis, with Stephanie flying out to visit him on his travels around the world.
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But after much deliberation and planning, the 27-year-old moved out of her house, quit her job and sold her car to trade in Perth, Australia, for Perth, Scotland.
However, just four weeks before her flight, he went silent on her.
Speaking to Mamamia, Stephanie said: "In those four weeks I was always trying to chase him up... I was even contacting his mum.
"In hindsight, there were red flags all the way through. It wasn't like it was the perfect relationship, there were trust issues... but I adored him.
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"I thought it was love, and love 'wasn't supposed to be easy but you fight for it'. That was my mentality.
"It's like my heart and my gut already knew, but my mind needed to find logic and reason behind it."
Desperate to know what was going on, she scoured the web for answers - and found them.
She said: "I dug and dug and dug and dug, and eventually dug up that he had been spending a lot of one-on-one time travelling around with some girl from South America."
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Then, two weeks before she was due to board her plane, he called.
"'Steph it's just too hard, it shouldn't be this hard. If it's hard now, it's going to be even harder later. You're going to come over and have no friends and you'll just be relying on me and I am not in a good place financially [right now]. Let's just take a step back and give it a bit more time'," he told her.
It was clearly a bit late for all of this though, and she subsequently found out he had been travelling with other women too. Worse than that, though, was having to grovel for her old job back, feeling 'deeply ashamed' all the while.
But fear not, dear reader - there is a happy ending to this tale, as the awful ordeal actually turned out to be a critical turning point in Stephanie's life.
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She said: "I woke up for the 14th morning in a row crying my eyes out in total misery, and I thought, 'Steph, you really need to get a hobby, honey, you can't keep doing this.'"
This hobby turned out to be flower arranging, and she quickly started running her own workshops. Within nine months, she had quit her old job - again - and was working full time on her start-up House of Hobby.
The business grew rapidly, and within months she had 14 staff members working across three locations.
The success of the business inspired a second, just 18 months later - business coaching.
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She's now sold House of Hobby for a six-figure sum and is on her way to bringing in AUD $1 million (£553,000) in her new venture by the next financial year.
She told Mamamia: "For me it's wild to think that three years ago I was sitting at my corporate day job, heartbroken, and now I am sitting in my home office working four hours a day doing what I love. It's actually wild.
"I had spent my whole life relying on my looks because I thought I was 'stupid.' Male bosses telling me I was a dumb blonde... boyfriends always joking about my lack of intelligence... my worth was always intricately tied to my appearance.
"But once I started my own small business I realised I had more to give."
Good on ya, Steph. As they say - when life gives you a bag of s***, make lemonade.
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/Stephanie GortonTopics: Dating, Inspirational, Interesting, Tinder, Community