Ghosting was not an immediate option for these two.
A woman in Zhengzhou went viral last week when she posted videos on the Chinese social media platform WeChat about how she unintentionally got stuck at her blind date’s house during a very sudden lockdown, the Shanghai-based outlet The Paper reported, according to Agence France-Presse.
The woman, identified only by her last name, Wang, explained in a social media post that she had recently traveled to Zhengzhou ahead of the Lunar New Year, the BBC reports.
“I’m getting old now, my family introduced me to ten matches,” Wang told local media, per AFP. “The fifth date wanted to show off his cooking skills and invited me over to his house for dinner.”
Unfortunately, during the meal, she discovered that her date’s community had gone into very sudden and swift quarantine due to a surge of COVID-19 cases. She told local outlets Sunday that she had been stuck at her date’s house for four days, according to the BBC.
And for those who are wondering if this unique situation has blossomed into a meet-cute, let’s just say you may want to check out a Hallmark movie to get that fix.
One of Wang’s videos made its way to Douyin (China’s domestic version of TikTok), where she expressed her true feelings about the situation.
“Because we don’t know each other very well, it was not so convenient for me to live at his home. I felt a bit embarrassed,” she says in the video, according to a HuffPost translation.
She also gave more details about her, uh, chemistry with her date to The Paper, per AFP.
“Besides the fact that he’s as mute as a wooden mannequin, everything else (about him) is pretty good,” Wang said before adding:
“Despite his food being mediocre, he’s still willing to cook, which I think is great.”
China has a zero COVID-19 policy, meaning that prompt lockdowns are routinely imposed in communities when cases of the virus are detected. In late December, the country placed 13 million residents of the northern city of Xi’an in lockdown following a wave of coronavirus cases.
In the past week, more than 150 cases have been reported in Zhengzhou, the Global Times newspaper reports. Aside from the very rapid lockdown that Wang experienced, the city also tested 12.6 million residents in six hours in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus.
It’s unclear if Wang is still stuck on what might be the longest and most awkward first date of her life, because she has since removed most of her posts about it from social media.
Wang explained in a video online that she removed her posts about her never-ending date because they received too much attention from the media, causing friends and others to reach out to her date — “and I think this has definitely affected his life,” she said, per AFP.
As for Wang, however, it seems like she may have enjoyed the social media response.
“Thanks everyone for your attention,” she said online, per AFP. “I hope the outbreak ends soon and that my single sisters also find a relationship soon.”
In other news, if you feel like deleting Tinder, Bumble or Hinge right now, we wouldn’t blame you.
John Zhou contributed reporting.