A viral TikTok video shows user Starr (@trashstarrxx) recording her Tinder date “gaslighting” his mom in a phone conversation.
Starr posted the video on Friday, and by Monday it had more than 226,000 views. In the clip, Starr records their face as they listen to their date’s phone conversation. The TikToker appears to be sitting in a car. “On a tinder date listening to this man gaslight his mother,” the text overlay says.
“I said yes in the beginning,” Starr’s date is heard saying.
His mom’s voice can be heard through the phone. She replies, “OK, all right, so—”
Their date cuts off his mom by saying, “How did you forget that?”
“You and I, we kind of talked with each other back and forth,” his mom says.
“No, I said yes a long time ago,” the date says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You sound crazy right now. Are you forgetting things?”
“I’m not forgetting things,” his mom says. “Really?”
“Are you OK though because I said yes from the beginning,” he says.
“I don’t remember you saying yes, I recall you bitching a lot,” the mom says.
According to Psychology Today, gaslighting is a form of manipulation and psychological control done by making someone doubt their reality. With gaslighting, the abuser denies the facts that the other person is saying. Doing this makes the other person question and lose trust in themself so they end up depending on the manipulator.
A 2019 study found that gaslighting makes people feel “crazy” and is often gendered and rooted in misogyny, in which a man makes a woman feel “excessive emotionality.”
In the scenario in the TikTok video, Starr’s date calls his mom “crazy” and insists she’s forgetting things when that might not be the case.
In the comments, one commenter said the date’s gaslighting was “so sad and scary.”
“No way you’re lucky you witnessed this early,” another TikToker commented.
“How they treat the parents is the easiest way to tell how the relationship is gonna go,” one person wrote.
“RUN,” a user added.
The Daily Dot has reached out to Starr via Instagram and Twitter direct message.
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