Mariah White of Arlington, Texas, said she had been receiving, and largely ignoring, a consistent chain of texts from a man she met in early November — that is, until she got a text from him on Friday that truly astounded her.
After over a month of "hey" and "how are you" texts that went unanswered, the 22-year-old received one that made her crack up by how obviously faked and creatively conceived it was to get her attention, she told BuzzFeed News.
"Hey mom... I just transferred $2800.00 to your account.... you should have told me sooner that you needed help... text me when you get it...love you!" a first text read. Then, the text was immediately followed up with, "Wrong text....my bad...."
White said she knew immediately he was pretending he sent her a "wrong text" as a "flex" to show her what a good guy he was. Despite his best efforts, she thought the gesture was "messed up."
"I knew right away that was messed up because how do you send a whole text with all those ellipses and not realize it’s going to the wrong person?" White said. "What are the odds that M-Ariah and M-Om are right next to each other in the contact list? It just did not add up."
White said she met the man, who's in his forties or fifties, while she was driving for a ride-hailing company and he was her passenger.
"We had a really good polite conversation about my unique major, the university, being the only black people in our departments, stuff like that," she said.
So they exchanged information, hoping to network. She said she sent him a text with her full name so he could look her up and add her on LinkedIn later.
"That was stupid," she said, laughing.
White said she received a first text from him on Nov. 2, and has received a steady stream of texts from him since. She said she immediately received "weird vibes" from him, and after politely responding to his first texts, she got eight more from him that went unanswered.
Still, he continued to text her week after week.
"I didn’t block him earlier because his messages were so infrequent I didn’t even think about it," she explained.
White thought his last attempt was so ridiculous that she decided to share it publicly. It's now gone viral, and strangers aren't sure either whether to laugh or cry at the flex.
@mariahjenae @GOODMlAD Her: ignoring him Him:
"This is the adult version of that 'he got hit by a car, he wanted you to know he loves you, he loves everyone' text," someone wrote.
This is the adult version of that “he got hit by a car, he wanted you to know he loves you, he loves everyone” text https://t.co/Xs8zP2g8kx
Others were inspired to try it out for themselves.
@mariahjenae trying my luck
Some, however, are responding to and direct-messaging White to tell him she's not interested and to block him. To that, she said, "A girl has the right to stop talking to you if you decide to be a creep."
@mariahjenae @Lex_P_ You could save him his time by replying “Not interested” .
"I’ve gotten a lot of nasty DMs telling me I should have stopped wasting his time and just told him I wasn’t interested, but this was a grown man who somewhat misled me into giving him my number in the first place," White said. "You should know when to call it quits when someone is clearly uninterested."
White has not responded to the text, although "some would say me tweeting about it is technically a reply," she said.
