Should you expect a date to pay $3 extra for cheese on their burger? The question has become a viral litmus test for unrealistic dating expectations after a recent TikTok video sent the internet into a fuming frenzy — over a story that wasn’t even real.
New York City resident Dafna Diamant took to TikTok last week to vent about a first date, telling the camera that she paid the bill and walked out after her date allegedly complained about the $3 upcharge for adding cheese to his burger.
“I texted him, ‘The check is taken care of, you should have gotten the cheese,’” Diamant said in the video. “And I blocked him.”
The video, which reached more than 6 million views within a couple of days, has unleashed heated debates all over social media about whether it’s a red flag to skimp out on a few dollars for an add-on to your meal — or rather, whether Diamant’s date dodged a bullet and made the right financial move.
As viewers gravitated toward the latter position, opinions began pouring in.
“i wouldn’t pay $3 for cheese either lol,” read one comment that racked up more than 150,000 likes.
“Bro is financially literate,” read another with nearly 95,000 likes.
But the story now being circulated all over the internet wasn’t actually what happened. Diamant’s date didn’t spurn any cheese, she said, nor did she walk out and block him.
Instead, the pair overheard a man at another table ask a waitress about the price of adding cheese to his burger, then decline it upon hearing it would cost $3. The interaction sparked a conversation between the two about what each of them would do in that situation.
“If I’m sitting on a date with a person and I feel like he’s cheaping out on something that will make his meal more enjoyable, he’s going to keep cheaping out on the rest of our dates,” Diamant told NBC News. “It’s not about the cheese. It’s about going to a restaurant and enjoying a good time with your date.”
Diamant said she shared with her date why a negative response to the upcharge would upset her, and that her date agreed with her perspective. That discussion, she said, generated the idea for the ensuing TikTok video, which she said her date was on board with from the start.
What they didn’t expect, however, was for what they thought would be a silly video to blow up into impassioned discourse on dating expectations. Diamant said all the attention has been a bit overwhelming, especially after reading comments calling her “crazy” or claiming she’ll “die alone.” She tries not to watch the stitches to her video.
It’s not about the cheese. It’s about going to a restaurant and enjoying a good time with your date
-TikTok creator Dafna Diamant
Still, she said, she aims to view the situation through a facetious lens.
“He thinks it’s funny as well. And we’ve only had one date, so he’s not obliged to me in any way, but he’s checking in to see that I’m fine,” she said. “And I try to not take it personally, because it didn’t really happen.”
In the days following Diamant’s TikTok, one creator who implied that he had been Diamant’s date that night received 7 million views on his video, surpassing even the original. He wrote in a comment that he dodged “Not a bullet, a nuclear strike.”
Diamant, who confirmed this creator was not her date, said it’s amusing to see how easily people believe false stories online. She said this willingness to embrace assumptions, combined with many viewers’ strong interest in stories about dating, makes it easy for discourse on controversies like this to grow more and more sensational.
“It seems like people who had an opinion against me get the affirmation that they are right, so they kept on the conversation and commented on even the videos [on my page] that have no relation whatsoever to the story,” she said. “If I wasn’t a person with enough self-assurance, some of these comments can really drive someone to do crazy things. So I hope people will find something better to do than comment bad things on somebody’s videos and pictures.”
As for the identity of her actual date, she said he prefers it to stay private. In a separate TikTok video, she said the two have plans for a second date.
