Summer love may be uniting people in the blazing hot sun, but one recent rejection has caused an ice-cold division across the internet.
On July 11, a post on the subreddit r/Tinder went viral, garnering more than 35,000 upvotes in just three days. In the post, Redditor u/Zhinii1, whose first name is Vance, shared his experience proposing an ice cream date and quickly being rejected.
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“I guess ice cream dates are considered a terrible idea nowadays,” Vance captioned the post which included a screenshot of a text exchange between him and an unnamed woman. Their chat starts out pleasantly enough, with smiley faces sent from both sides, but then the conversation quickly goes south when our suitor suggests the pair meet for some frozen dessert.
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“Hope you’ve had a good day, I’m excited for tomorrow. I can pick you up but if you’re not comfortable with that we can just meet there,” texted Vance. “Idk why but l’m feeling like getting some ice cream in this hot weather 🥵lol.”
Suffice to say, the woman did not share the same craving.
“Sorry if this may come off as rude but I don’t do ice cream dates,” she responds. “I’m a 26 yo woman and a date like that seems like the absolute bare minimum for me. Meeting up would be a waste of both of our times since we probably don’t have the same vibe. Best wishes.”
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Vance also mentioned that she unmatched and blocked him on both Tinder and text, so his “Cool 😎” response didn’t make it through to her.
The post bought up a lot of feelings for people on Reddit, with more than 7,200 commenters leaving their two cents under it.
“I went on first ice cream dates before, they are fun, light, and contain sprinkles. Who doesn’t appreciate a little whimsy?” commented one Reddit user, mirroring the sentiment of many others who thought a scoop of rocky road and conversation would be nice. “Glad OP dodged that.”
“WOW. I’d be so happy with a date idea that wasn’t the same old thing,” wrote another Redditor. “She’s missing out. You’ll find someone to appreciate your ice cream date.”
“It’s a first date from an app. Why would you even want to risk being stuck with someone for a long ass time at an expensive dinner. A lot of girls prefer coffee dates off apps cause it’s so low pressure,” commented someone else.
“If you get a date suggestion that you don’t like, the most reasonable response imo is to decline and counter it with a date suggestion of your own,” wrote another Reddit user. “There’s not much reason to immediately cancel the idea of any date just because the person suggested the wrong thing the first time they tried. Pretty harsh from my pov.”
“Good dodge there, she sounds FAR too serious and rather boring,” wrote another, to which someone else responded with a sentiment that added another scoop onto this debate sundae: “She probably wanted a free meal.”
“Someone who can’t enjoy the little things in life. That’s sad,” wrote another Reddit user, to which another replied, “Someone who can’t handle the INEXPENSIVE things in life. She wanted him to throw down.”
While most commenters seem to be on Vance’s side, there were some who empathized with the woman.
Most notably, a post on the subreddit r/TwoXChromosomes titled, “You’re allowed to not go on a date if you think it’s low-effort,” says they saw Vance’s original post and had some thoughts they wanted to share.
“Of course posting about her is just an excuse for a thread of rampant misogyny from men commiserating about how women use men for free meals,” wrote Redditor u/Faintingoats. “The woman here was polite, communicated clearly, and in my opinion did nothing wrong or worthy of being mocked by hundreds of strangers.”
“She is allowed to not want to meet you. She is allowed to think an ice cream date isn’t fun or interesting or worth her time,” added the Redditor. “She is allowed free will and to be picky even if you disagree with her personal standards. Women are allowed to SAY NO and NOT give men a chance, and no amount of complaining on Reddit with other angry, lonely men is going to change that.”
“Jesus, it’s just ice cream. If a woman not agreeing to getting ice cream with a dude is going to trigger such a tantrum, maybe they need to stay away from women and work on that,” one Redditor responded, to which another replied, “The upset in that thread was about the woman refusing to go on an ice cream date, calling it “not a real date”. Implying that only more formal and expensive meetings were actual dates, and that was the reason for rejecting him. OP here has left out some very important information.”
At this point in the thread, Vance decided to weigh in and provide a little more background on his failed courtship:
“Hi 👋🏾 I’m OOP, the only information left out was the conversation on the app prior to her giving me her number. It was a brief interaction. We’ve matched before (a while back) and i asked her out again this time around. She agreed and told me she was free Thursday. She changed her mind and said she was busy and said that she was still free Tuesday. I replied by asking for her number since that would make coordinating easier and she agreed. The post is what’s happened after. She blocked me after her text and unmatched me before I responded back. My last message never delivered. Hope that clears things up 🤙🏾”
Vance's text exchange has since spread to Instagram, Threads and Twitter, where even more debating has been happening.
“Ice cream is not just a good first date — it’s a good ANY date!” wrote one woman on Threads.
“I’m twice this woman’s age, but I think an ice cream date for an initial meeting is pretty cool. After two marriages and a number of dalliances, I offer this advice. The first meeting is a time to just see if there’s a vibe. Why not enjoy a sweet treat while seeing what’s good?” wrote @blackgirlinmain in a tweet that also went viral.
“Who is too grown for ice cream?” the Twitter user continues. “Some of ya’ll got weird ideas on what being an adult is about.”
Perhaps the best case for saying yes to an ice cream date comes straight from our 44th president and first lady, who famously started their courtship among the cones.
“Michelle was up for an ice cream date,” pointed out another Twitter user, sharing a screenshot of TODAY.com's story about Barack and Michelle Obama’s first date in 1989 at Baskin-Robbins.
President Obama revealed to O Magazine in 2007, “I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
