Wang's video showed her date serving food. Photo / Supplied
Wang's video showed her date serving food. Photo / Supplied
When it comes to bad dating stories, I pretty much have them all. Yet, even I'm feeling sorry for a woman in China who went to her blind date's house for dinner, then found herself caught in a lockdown.
Earlier this month, a 30-year-old woman identified as Ms Wang, headedto her blind date's house after he promised to show off his cooking skills and make her dinner.
"I'm getting old now. My family introduced me to 10 matches," she said in her original video, posted to Weibo (a Chinese social media platform) and since removed. "The fifth date wanted to show off his cooking skills and invited me over to his house for dinner."
When you factor in that it's pretty normal in China for parents to find a partner for their kids – nothing too unusual so far, right?
Dinner came and went, but when Wang tried to leave her date's house, she discovered that the Zhengzhou city neighbourhood they were in had gone into an immediate snap lockdown – leaving her stuck with a relative stranger and with no idea how long it would last for.
Wang posted a follow-up video to explain why she removed the original post after it went viral. Photo / Supplied
China has been using these immediate lockdowns to end local Covid outbreaks quickly as an important part of the country's zero-Covid strategy.
Lockdowns in around the world forced a lot of couples into making quick decisions about whether to move in together or not – and nothing kills a budding romance faster than being stuck with them 24/7. Heck, even couples who were already living together break up after being trapped together.
So it's not surprising that love doesn't seemed to have blossomed between the pair.
"During quarantine, I feel that apart from him being reticent like a wooden mannequin, everything else about him is pretty good," she told Shanghai-based outlet The Paper.
"He cooks, cleans the house and works. Although his cooking isn't very good, he's still willing to spend time in the kitchen. I think that's great."
Ouch. Apparently trying to show off his kitchen skills was a bit of a stretch. On the other hand, her video showed that this man cooked for her every night and made a stranger welcome in his home, so maybe he deserves to be cut a bit of slack.
In a new post this week (in Chinese, but helpfully translated by CNN), Wang explained that she removed her original video after some of her friends started contacting the poor guy.
She finished with some wise words for us all.
"Thanks everyone for your attention … I hope the pandemic will end soon and that single girls can find a relationship soon."
