A woman from Sydney who went to Bali for a first date has described the humiliating moment she realized she had been stood up.
Jess Austen, age 29, boarded an aircraft to Indonesia to see a man she had been corresponding with online for months after he requested her to join him on vacation.
Jess said she felt “dumb” and “embarrassed” after her boyfriend ghosted her after paying for flights and traveling more than six hours, leaving her to fend for herself in a new country.
Ghosting is the act of vanishing without explanation, and it is prevalent in the current dating world.
In a final horrible twist, Jess encountered her “ghost” on her journey back home, when he dealt another brutal blow.
Jess Austen came to Bali for a first date, but was rejected.
TikTok/@jesszautsen
She told news.com.au, “He was seated in front of me, so I saw him in person and confirmed he wasn’t a catfish.”
“If he spotted me, he ignored me, but how could he not? I was waiting to enter my row while standing next to him.
“I would have wanted to have done anything to call him out, but I was a little ashamed that I had traveled all that distance, been ghosted, and was now sitting alone behind him on the plane.
“Feeling uneasy, no words were exchanged. He didn’t even bother to look around before beginning his descent.
A professional matchmaker with more than 20 years of experience, Louanne Ward, noted that “ghosting” is typically performed by individuals “lacking emotional intelligence” in an attempt to “avoid emotional confrontation”.
Jess Austen eventually saw the man who stood her up on her return journey home.
TikTok/@jesszautsen
“The rejection weighs heavily on the ghosted’s sense of self-worth,” she said on news.com.au’s Ghosted podcast.
“It is extremely soul-crushing when someone vanishes without explanation, especially if you had high hopes for this individual.”
Back at home, Jess was so humiliated by her experience that she decided to recount it in a video that rapidly resonated with women who had faced similar circumstances.
She told news.com.au, “People were eager to raise red flags on his behalf, and some were even guessing as to why he did it.”
“However, there was a great deal of support and lovely notes. People are well aware of how terrible ghosting can be.
“It is terrible after being able to communicate with someone to have access abruptly turned off with no reason.”
In her over 35,000-view TikTok video, Jess shared texts from her no-show date after their initial match on the popular dating app Hinge.
Jess begins, “Originally, I was planning to make a video titled ‘Come to Bali with me on a first date,’ but we’re going to have a ‘what the f–k is wrong with men?’ FBI session instead.”
She goes on to explain that they had been communicating intermittently on Instagram for several months, but due to their previous relationship status, they had never met.
However, he recently informed her that he was now single, and Jess replied that she was in the same position.
“He asked, ‘Would you like to go on a trip to Bali next week?’” Jess explained that her response was “Yes, it’s quite tempting.”
She claimed that she can be “impulsive” in her decision-making, but nonetheless displayed communications in which the two planned dates and excursions to different parts of the popular tourist location.
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At one point, he even sent her a message saying, “I’m extremely excited about you arriving.”
In another, he wrote, “So I’m definitely seeing you on Monday night?”
However, after she landed late at night, she did not hear from him, but Jess was not concerned because they had already spent a week together.
Several messages were exchanged between them as he repeatedly pushed back their date, until eventually he stopped communicating with her and unfollowed her.
I attempted not to let it affect me too much and used the time to regroup, but I was undoubtedly disappointed.
However, since her video went viral, she was able to have a brief talk with him, and he revealed why he performed a disappearing act.
“He told me that he’d met someone in Lombok, and he was so humiliated that he’d invited me all the way there, that he simply vanished,” she said.
“I lectured him on how cowardly that is and how he shouldn’t have invited me if he was going with the idea of meeting anybody he encountered and going with the flow.
Even though he invited me, there was obviously little value placed on our meeting. It was so inhumane.”
Women in the comments section concurred, describing the unidentified Sydney man as “a complete coward.”
Who would do that? How cowardly! You are very stunning. “WTF?” one user wrote.
“Oh Jesus. “I am so outraged,” remarked another.
“Disappointed but not shocked,” wrote a third.
Jess hopes her video would help people comprehend the consequences of ghosting, adding that an explanation benefits both parties.
“Uncomfortable talks are not pleasant, but they provide understanding for both parties and demonstrate that you have the bare minimum of human decency to explain oneself as opposed to leading someone on and leaving them in the dark,” she said.
Louanne as a matchmaker agreed.
She stated, “Ghosting is cowardly and slows the emotional development of both the ghoster and the ghosted.”
»I travelled to Bali for a first date, he ghosted me, and we ended up on the same aircraft back«