never mind. I figured it out. For those that want to know for future cases:
<?php $tags = get_the_tags(get_the_id()); foreach($tags as $tag) ?>
<?php query_posts('cat=23&tag='.$tag->slug.'&showposts=3&posts_per_page=3&paged=' . get_query_var('paged') ); while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
should note that this will be going in the query_posts function (tag= specifically)
Code works great. Only problem is that the code will be going into a <?php function so it needs to be converted.
I don’t know the exact way/term but it involves removing the <?php and the ?> being replaced by .’ and ‘.