She’s an actual trip!
A Jersey girl has sparked an important date debate.
Zach, a 34-year-old software engineer from FiDi, made plans for a primary date after matching with a Jersey City woman on Hinge, but as soon as they set the time for the meetup, she demanded — “How am I getting there?”
“My initial response was ‘Oh, this woman absolutely wants me to call her an Uber,’ that’s slightly little bit of a red flag for me, but I’m going to provide her the advantage of the doubt,” Zach told The Post.
The exchange was posted to online dating coach Erika Ettin’s Instagram handle @alittlenudge and quickly generated over 370,000 views and greater than 1,000 comments.
The back-and-forth continued with Zach giving his match a pair of public transportation options. “I feel it’s closest to Brookfield Place by boat or WTC [World Trade Center] on the Path.”
She wasn’t impressed. “Oh. I believed you were going to send me an Uber.”
A Connecticut native who moved to the Big Apple three years ago, Zach explained why he thought the request was out of bounds.
“I haven’t met you yet … I didn’t know this person’s last name, I had never laid eyes on her,” he said.
“If I used to be going to call her an Uber, she would have needed to send me her address, which is a extremely weird thing to send to a random man.”
He had initially offered to travel to the Garden State, writing “I’m not aware of good first dates spots. Got any favorites? Otherwise, I’ll suggest some things in Manhattan.”
When the lady, who was around 30, said she was fairly recent to Jersey and was “open to Manhattan suggestions,” he gave her two options. She selected drinks at Treadwell Park in FiDi.
After the lady made it clear she wanted him to shell out money for her voyage into Gotham, Zach tried to lighten the mood, writing “I wish you had phrased it as ‘Call me an Uber,’ so I could have said, ‘You’re an Uber,’” but she never replied.
He still showed up for the date “just in case.” But when he messaged her to say he got them a seat, she replied, “I’m not coming.”
He wrote back, saying “it was slightly strange” that she asked him for an Uber, especially since he offered to return to her — and he or she retorted, “I’m traveling almost an hour to fulfill you for a primary date, not even for dinner. The least you may do is canopy my transportation. It’s not an odd concept to a gentleman.”
Instagrammers were shocked at the lady’s nerve for assuming he’d foot her travel bill, calling it “ridiculous,” “outrageous” and “super tacky.”
“That is probably the most insane thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve never heard of such a thing,” one wrote.
“I’d haven’t believed this if it weren’t posted,” one other added.
Many blasted the lady’s logic, and guaranteed Zach he “dodged a bullet.”
“Spending lots of of dollars on a lady who can’t spend quarter-hour on a train, can’t communicate that she’d prefer to be chauffeured all over the place, and calls him ungentlemanly because he didn’t do something that the overwhelming majority of people that live in NYC would find outrageous? It’s a no for me dog,” one said.
Single women from everywhere in the world said they’d have traveled to fulfill Zach — with comments akin to “would happily cross state lines to fulfill this guy,” “I’d actually cover my very own travel from London to NYC for this date,” and “what I wouldn’t give for a man to point out this level of effort and thoughtfulness for a date in my city.”
Although most sided with him, some were Team Jersey girl.
“He initially said he would offer options in her area,” one said. “Then when he wasn’t aware of her neighborhood he said, ‘That changes things.’”
Although he was burned by one Latest Jerseyan, Zach said he remains to be open to dating women from across the river.
“Why would I judge everything of individuals in a single state by a nasty experience that I had with someone,” he said.
He can also’t help but ponder what might have been if he would have just traveled to the Garden State in the primary place.
“I ponder what would have happened if I had just gone and picked a spot in Jersey,” he said. “Who knows, right?”
