Serial dater Noa Bar (@heyimnoabar) has uploaded another banger after a date ended in failure–again. In a viral TikTok, Noa shared how her date “punished” her for a common request while eating out.
In the clip, Noa removes her makeup as she shares her dating story.
“Just got back from a date,” Noa starts, the iconic opening line she uses for several of her TikToks. “He took me out to lunch, and I ordered alcohol, and he was like, ‘Why are you drinking at 2pm?’”
Noa was taken aback, telling her viewers, “Oh my bad, was I supposed to go through another dating stage sober?”
Noa asked in the caption, “Like what am I getting punished for my guy??”
Is dating in L.A. the worst?
The majority of Noa’s TikTok views stem from her dating horror stories, but is she unlucky, or is something more sinister at play? It appears it’s the latter, and it has to do with geography. In one of her TikToks, Noa reveals she is looking for love in Los Angeles. (“Why is L.A. full of boys and out of men?”)
The City of Angels is notorious for being a dating hellscape. In a Time Out article from February, the site reported a survey that found only “26 percent of Angelenos think it’s easy to find love in L.A.”
“Angelenos have such a dismal view of the dating scene here that L.A. was tied for fifth place (with New York) for the worst cities in the world for finding love,” the site states. And Noa isn’t the first to complain about the men in L.A. Several users have called the people in palm-fringed and star-studded L.A. vapid and entitled. As the home of influencers and tech bros, it’s not hard to see why.
Still, those looking for romance turn to Reddit and TikTok to ask for advice.
In the r/AskLosAngeles subreddit, one hopeful romantic asked, “Why is dating in LA so difficult?” Almost a thousand comments offered advice. One user offered a possible explanation.
“LA attractive isn’t the same standard as everywhere else. We’re surrounded by celebrities, influencers, the rich n famous that have the funds to look however they want,” they wrote. “But this creates a problem in choosing a partner because it feels like everyone is always looking for ‘better.’ More attractive, hotter, more influence or money, connections, etc.”
But is it really only L.A.?
While L.A. may bear the brunt of modern dating criticism, it’s only the microcosm of a larger problem at play. With the normalizing of dating apps like Hinge and Tinder, “swiping” left or right is easier than ever. This can lead to too many options and too little commitment, per Marriage blog. It also blurs the boundary lines of what constitutes cheating and what doesn’t, as one Mary Sue story covered.
The latest dating horror to join the fray is artificial intelligence, which is “a threat to authentic intimacy,” per the BBC. Some dating apps may include chatbots or help in the preliminary conversations with matches. However, that’s not the only AI folks need to worry about. In a viral TikTok, one woman shared how she caught a Tinder match using ChatGPT to talk with her for days before their first IRL date. Needless to say, she was incredibly disappointed when she met him in real life and found out he was nothing like he was on text.
@heyimnoabar Like what am I getting punished for my guy?? #datingstorytime #datingadvice #dating #fyp #date ♬ original sound – Noa Bar
Undoubtedly, this is just the early stages of a trend where folks looking for love will ironically become even more disconnected and people source out intimacy to ones and zeroes.
The Mary Sue reached out to Noa via Instagram direct message for comment.
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