Step one, improvise some protective padding. Step two, assess your speed. Step three, find a way to slow down. Step four, wait for the car to turn. Step five, look for a safe(ish) landing space. Step six, open the door.
Step seven, jump away.
Well, this is how WikiHow tells you to jump out of a moving vehicle, but it doesn’t exactly account for the potential crummy date sitting next to you, driving the car, watching you.
And while her escape may not be as gripping as the one seen in the new Indiana Jones movie, or as dramatic as a Lifetime Entertainment production, this content-creator has officially had her fair share of abrupt car exits.
In a TikTok posted Feb. 18, TikToker Ruthy (@ruthyandthebrain) shared with viewers her “date from hell,” receiving over 999,600 views and 149,000 likes. It later became a five-part series.
“I literally just hopped out of a moving car,” Ruthy began. “I didn’t even wait for this man to pull over.”
Ranting to her phone, the Los Angeles based art director walks through the night-time neighborhood streets, rehashing what had just occurred. As she quickly spoke, Ruthy began to preface her daring decision-making, explaining the interactions she had with the anonymous man prior.
“He was over an hour late for our date, over an hour late to our date,” Ruthy repeated. “I should have known then to just cancel this [expletive], because [he’s] not respecting my time.”
But, giving grace, Ruthy believed it was only right to let it slide because of their long-standing acquaintance, stemming all the way back to high school. Not only that but the man allegedly made sure to stay communicative with Ruthy the entire night, keeping her in the loop with his timing dilemmas.
“We live here in L.A., [expletive] happens,” Ruthy said.
It was understood that because the man was coming from work and was responsive to Ruthy, there was no reason to call-off the date. Eventually, after an hour, the man met Ruthy at a public meeting spot to pick her up and take her out.
“When I get in the car we hug, ‘Hey nice to see you, haven’t seen you in a while,’ like you know ‘good to see you,’” Ruthy said.
But wanting to keep the man accountable for his tardiness, Ruthy informed the man that if he was to be this late again, she will not continue seeing him.
“I let him know like ‘Hey, like you are an hour late, like next time please don’t show up so late because I won’t go on a date,” Ruthy said.
“I wasn’t being firm, I wasn’t being a [expletive], I wasn’t being condescending, I wasn’t yelling, I wasn’t being aggressive, none of that [expletive],” Ruthy said.
In a response video posted a few hours later that night, Ruthy explained to her audience that she wasn’t trying to be hard on the man. Rather, she was just setting her expectations and boundaries with the man out of respect for her time and efforts.
@ruthyandthebrain Are the men ok!? #storytime #datenight #datingstorytime ♬ original sound – Ruthy
“I can be cool with this man being late and still not like it,” Ruthy explained.
This is when the story began to take a quick turn for the worst. Allegedly the man quickly turned toward Ruthy and grew outraged.
“I’m taking you back home… Who do you think you are telling me that I can’t be late picking you up to a date?” the man questioned Ruthy.
Explaining that he had driven 30-minutes out of the way to pick her up and that he had spent money on buying tickets for her, the man questioned Ruthy’s self-confidence. Allegedly asking her the question, “Who do you think you are?”
At this point in the narrative, Ruthy’s frustration developed as she looked lividly toward her phone screen.
“Who the [expletive] do I think I am sir? This is why they warn you don’t ever date the person that has chased you for a long time, that has wanted you for a long time, because they’re usually crazy,” Ruthy said.
“Are you seriously mad because someone told you don’t be an hour late to picking them up?” Ruthy then questioned.
Ruthy explained how she became startled by the scenario.
“Here I am being reserved and afraid to speak up for myself because I’m afraid of how I’ll be perceived as a Black woman to a Black man,” she said.
So, Ruthy turned toward her fight-or-flight instinct, and flew.
“I jumped out of [the] halfway moving car […] I left his door wide the fuck open and he like bust an [expletive] in the middle of the street, like peels off,” Ruthy said.
She later explained in another video that while the car was in-fact moving, it was coming to a stop but she no longer felt safe in the car and wanted to get out quickly.
Now while some commenters had opinions on her actions of the night, many also stood in agreement with Ruthy, praising her for her strength and ability to be straightforward and honest about her expectations.
“This is why being blunt and honest on a date is so important,” one commenter said, gaining over 2,200 likes.
“You find out who ppl really are when you hold them accountable and set boundaries,” another said.
Ruthy assured viewers that her previous relationship to this man was nothing more than acquaintances. She had never had any sort of romantic relationship with the man nor did she ever try and deliberately avoid him or play with his emotions. Yet, it seemed as though there was still some unspoken animosity.
“I feel like this is one of those moments where he had it in his mind the whole time to play in my face because he wanted to get back at me from 20 years ago or something,” Ruthy said.
Yet Ruthy is still combating males in her comment section, berating her choice to address the man’s punctuality and ultimately leave the date early.
“As a Black woman, I have to walk on eggshells to make sure that my facial expressions and my body language and the sound of my voice isn’t going to be perceived as [expletive] aggressive,” Ruthy addressed.
And While it is unclear if the man has tried to reach out since, Ruthy has made sure that he does not have access to her home address. She is also continuing trying to educate her viewers on the severity of what can happen during these situations.
The Daily Dot reached out to Ruthy via the TikTok comment section.