It’s not often we get the other side of a story of a viral TikTok, but that’s exactly what happened as a man—who was previously criticized after leaving his date at a bar—shared his own perspective of what happened on the date.
The original clip, which has since been deleted, went viral in September 2021. It showed a woman lamenting how she went on the “worst date after” when, after saying she would buy a drink for anyone who could beat her in pool in a Hinge prompt, a man showed up with his own pool stick, beat her at pool, got his free drink, then left.
“He is the patriarchy. I didn’t even get to hit the ball,” the woman said via on-screen text in the original video. “What a jerk!” Segments of the clip have been reposted by the user, Ethan Keiser, who, at the time, defended his actions by saying he was “competitive.”
But now, months on, Keiser, who has 1 million followers, expanded upon the negative response he got following the viral clip.
“People are mad at me because I left a hot girl at a bar,” he explains in the video, which has amassed over 2 million views. “Essentially, this girl wrote in her bio that she’d buy drinks forever beats her in full. So we matched and agreed to play pool at the bar.”
He continues, “When I arrived, I brought my own pool stick. I also knew that she was filming me. And then I gave her that work in pool, made her buy me a drink, like she said, and then I left because I didn’t wanna be filmed.”
Keiser then showed a selection of purported comments he received in the wake of the date going viral.
“People were saying I should be embarrassed because I went home alone when there was a hot girl there,” he says. “And that because she’s a 10—and I’m a guy—that I didn’t have the right to leave. I don’t know. What do you guys think?”
“The nice thing about turning 30 & being fully secure in myself is Im willing to walk away from anyone despite their looks. … happiness>headache,” Keiser added in the comments section.
In response to this second viral clip, users were mainly on the man’s side. “I for one don’t like a camera shoved in my face all the time on a first date,” one comment read. “But hey, that’s just me.”
“I think you just got a free drink and a round of pool,” another commenter added, “No issue.” Several other commenters claimed that “if the roles were reversed,” and a woman left a date after winning at pool, she wouldn’t be receiving this level of scrutiny.
Not everyone agreed, however. “I can see why she recorded,” one comment read, defending the woman. “Bro bought his own pool stick to something she thought was a date.”
“I agree with what you did, BUT you did at least ask her to stop filming right,” another commenter asked.
Keiser did not immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment via Instagram direct message.
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