A person was caught in a lie after a man they had cancelled a Hinge date with had accidentally spotted them across the street.
TikTok user @itsmeimbinches documented the awkward moment in a video that now has more than three million views. “Told my Hinge date I was out of town for my grandpa’s funeral,” the on-screen text reads. “But then he saw me f**k up a chicken caesar wrap across the street.”
In the clip, the TikToker films their purported Hinge date standing across the street, wearing a blue button down shirt and black trousers. The man carries a Trader Joe’s grocery bag with his Airpods in his ears, as he makes a deadpan face towards the camera. The TikTok user then zooms into his expressionless face from across the street.
No update video has been posted to the account since, so it’s unclear what occurred after the cringeworthy moment. Nevertheless, the viral TikTok sparked a debate about online dating.
The online dating app Hinge – which describes itself as the app “designed to be deleted” – emphasizes forming long-term relationships with fellow matches. But that can be difficult when “ghosting” is so common in dating culture today. Ghosting is a newfound dating term that occurs when a person cuts off all communication with someone, seemingly without any explanation.
Many social media users found the TikToker’s unexpected run-in with their Hinge date to be funny, while others simply saw it as another example of “toxic” dating culture.
“His face says it all,” one user wrote.
“That’s going to be his villain origin story,” another person joked.
“This feels like something that would happen to me,” said someone else.
One person said: “Bro, just be an adult and tell him you’re not interested or can’t go out. Seriously why is communication so hard for some people”.
“Why can’t people just be honest if they’re not interested or don’t wanna hang out?” asked another user. “Dating shouldn’t be so toxic.”
“Glad he was able to witness that red flag in person before making any sort of commitment,” wrote someone else.
Since gaining popularity in the last two years, the social media app TikTok has become a virtual hub for users to share some of their most horrifying dating stories. In June, one woman explained how she was ghosted by her fiancé after she woke up from a three-month coma.
As she started to regain her memory, she said that she had reached out to her fiancé, who she’d been with for four years. When she tried to call him, she learned that he not only did he never visit her in the hospital, but he had ghosted her entirely and started seeing someone new.
“There has been zero contact,” she said. “I have been blocked on every single platform including his phone. The only contact I did get was from his new girlfriend. She sent me a message saying she was insecure and made him block me on everything. Go figure. I was still in the hospital.”
