If you're dating right now, I don't have to tell you that it's pretty rough out there, mostly because a lot of straight men refuse to get their *ish* together.
Jenny Nguyen-Don, a 29-year-old dater currently living in London, knows exactly what I mean. She recently shared this TikTok detailing her experience with a man she set up a date with. Only, they almost didn't go on the date because he blocked her number after she didn't respond to his texts fast enough.
In the video, Jenny details her full experience: "I had a date tonight, and the plan was to meet at Leicester Square at 6:15 [p.m.] ... So I messaged the guy at 5:30 being like, 'Leaving now, I should be there on time.'"
After that, Jenny explains that she took a subway line that doesn't have cell service, so she wasn't able to receive or send text messages while she was traveling to meet her date. Once she arrived at their meetup spot, things took a turn. "I arrive at Leicester Square at 6:17, so I am two minutes late. I pull out my phone, I'm gonna message the guy, and all my notifications pop up ... and apparently, the dude message[d] me like twice while I [was] on the tube. I didn't receive them."
The first text from Jenny's date, sent at 5:47 p.m., was pretty casual and positive. But the second one, sent at 6:09 p.m. after Jenny didn't respond right away, said, "You pranking me, Jenny?" And when Jenny tried to text her date that she'd arrived, his picture in WhatsApp was ~magically~ no longer there. AKA he blocked her.
Jenny tried texting him a few more times on WhatsApp, and still no reply. So she decided to message on the dating app they originally met on and explained the situation. A minute after she let her date know that she was at the restaurant, he ~magically~ messaged her on WhatsApp again, and his picture reappeared.
Finally, Jenny and her date met up in person, and she called him out for blocking her, which he immediately tried to deny: "He's just like, 'Oh, no, um, my WhatsApp is really glitchy, all my friends say that. Sometimes they say that they can't see my photo for some reason."
Jenny concludes the video by saying, "After that, I was just like, what a loser." And then she hits us with the final nail in the coffin: "And he was 36 years old!"
Now, listen: I am in no way saying that 36 is "old." However, I am saying that 36 is too old to be acting like THAT.
Nearly 5 million people watched Jenny's video, and of course, there were some who didn't believe her story. Luckily, she had the receipts:
BuzzFeed reached out to Jenny, who said that although she thought her date's behavior was "odd" and an "overreaction," she didn't want to jump to conclusions. "To be honest, I really just wanted some chicken and didn't want to go alone. I had been putting off seeing him for a while, so thought it was an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Our conversation did reach a lull and fizzled out a bit, so my excitement in meeting him wasn't that high, and then for him to react that way, I was like, 'Well, alright then.' I'm sure he felt similarly."
After the blocking incident, Jenny explained in a follow-up TikTok that she and the guy she met did actually go through with the rest of the date, but the vibe was off and she knew she didn't plan on seeing him again. She told BuzzFeed, "After the date, neither of us messaged one another. Then my TikTok video went viral, and I was a bit worried he might've seen it. I texted him a few days later, asking what he meant when he said, 'You pranking me, Jenny?' Then, when I didn't get a response, I thanked him for the TikTok content before blocking and deleting him."
As for the response her video has gotten, Jenny said, "It's made me chuckle. The vast majority of the comments are in support of me, letting me know I dodged a bullet, or other women sharing similar bad date stories. There's a sprinkle of negative comments who try to make excuses for my date, saying he could've been on the tube as well and didn't receive reception, or that he probably was ghosted in the past, which is why he reacted the way he did. I mean, fair enough. There's a very clear divide between how the women feel and how the men feel in the comments."
Jenny's story even made it over to Twitter, where a user commented on how she and everyone else in the dating scene are "in the PITS."
a girl on TikTok talking about how she had a Hinge date, texted him letting her know she was on her way, got on the tube, he replied while she’s underground and by the time she arrived and had reception back, he’d already spiralled and blocked lol we’re in the PITS.