Woman Gets Revenge On A Guy Who Asked Her To Meet His Parents After 5 Dates & Then Said He Just Wanted To Be Friends
Things moved way too slow, then too fast, and then suddenly not at all. So she got even.
Dating is not for the faint of heart, and with all the mixed signals and ghosting and catfishing, the experience can be as confusing as it is disheartening.
But imagine having to navigate all that as a person from a different country where the dating culture is totally different. That's the situation a Japanese exchange student on TikTok found herself in when she began dating American guys at her university, an experience she's found totally mystifying.
Especially when things with the guy she was seeing took an extremely strange left turn extremely early in their relationship.
A TikToker's date asked her to meet his parents after just five dates, then dumped her to be 'just friends.'
The situation was so weird and upsetting that the woman decided to get even with him in the most hilarious way possible.
The TikToker says dating culture in Japan is totally different from the United States, so things started off strange right from the first date.
TikToker Yumeka, known as @yumekaumemori on the app, says that in Japan, they don't really have what she calls the "talking stage" when dating. Things just tend to move a bit quicker over there—you meet and you cut to the chase and go on a proper date, as opposed to chatting for a bit first like we do here in the States.
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"I was ready to experience some cultural differences in terms of dating," Yumeka said. Dating customs do vary widely from country to country in all kinds of ways most of us would never expect, as the video below shows.
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But the way things actually went down kind of left her a bit shocked all the same.
"We hung out like five times before I went to his house for the first time," she says in her video, which surprised her as things move faster where she's from. But since "he was nice and we were having fun" on their dates, she decided to take him up on his invitation to his house.
But when she got there, things got even weirder.
When the TikToker arrived for her date, his parents and grandmother were all at his house.
"I was like freaking out," Yumeka said, "because in Japan this doesn't happen that much. If you do this in Japan it's like you're marrying that person or you're in a real serious relationship with that person."
Yeah, same here in the US, Yumeka. You just ended up with a guy with a really... let's say "unique" approach to dating! Most of us would run the other way if we were asked to meet the parents five dates in, right? But Yumeka figured this was just another cultural difference and rolled with it.
She says she calmed herself down and introduced herself to her dates family, and they were all really lovely. And her date's dad even asked her if she was considering coming back to America after her exchange program so that she could be with his son.
That seemed like entirely too much too soon to her, but it also made her think that the relationship was going somewhere. Reader, it was not.
After meeting his parents, Yumeka's date said he just wanted to be friends.
"I was pretty happy about it," Yumeka says of her budding relationship. "Until I found out he just wanted to be friends with me."
"I was like excuse me," she said, noting that she didn't get mad about the situation, but more puzzled. "I was just curious about what he was thinking the whole time." Yeah, who wouldn't be.
When she confronted him about it, he told her that he's "focusing on himself" and insecure about his past relationships and doesn't want anything "super serious."
...So you take a girl home to meet mom and dad and grandma? All due respect sir, but what is going on with you?! And that's not all—Yumeka says on the app they used to meet, they had both indicated they were "looking for a relationship."
"I felt so disrespected," Yumeka said, going on to say she felt like she'd been lied to.
Yumeka decided to get even, asking herself, 'Why don't I use him for a bit?'
Yumeka figured she should get something out of this experience, so she "decided to use him as a transportation system since he had a car."
She went on to say that she's "not a b-tch like this" but she was really mad about what the dude did—and needed a ride. So she kept hanging out with the guy for transportation—and then, of course, he decided he *did* want to be with her.
"I was thinking of like asking you to be my girlfriend or something," he told her, to which she flatly responded, "No."
In the end, Yumeka was able to get the hang of how American dating works from the experience and has resolved to "become friends with guys first" before trying to have more with him since that seems to be the order of things.
Commenters agreed, ruefully telling her that "that’s the real US dating experience lol" and applauding her for getting something out of the arrangement. "Yes use him for his car. Don’t give him gas money either," one commenter cheered.
Still, she's a bit bewildered. To close her video, Yumeka bemusedly asked her fellow TikTokers to explain how on earth American dating culture actually works. "Like how do you guys do this?" she wondered.
If we ever figure that out, you'll be the first to know, Yumeka.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.