Would you ever fly cross-country to spend Valentine's Day with a stranger you'd met on social media? What if he paid for the entire trip and made the two of you matching T-shirts? If you said "no," you're smart. It's hard to know who to trust these days. If only #StrandedBae had been as cautious.
StrandedBae is the nickname of a woman named M'Kalia who found herself in a messy situation last spring after she started messaging a guy named Aaron on Twitter a few weeks before Valentine's Day. The two quickly became enamored with one another, and Aaron wound up flying his crush from Houston to Washington, DC, in mid-February. That's when things went terribly, hilariously south.
M'Kalia missed her flight home after Aaron dropped her off at the airport on her last day in DC. He not only ignored all of her calls that following evening, leaving her stranded at the airport for hours — hence #StrandedBae — but also proceeded to mock her on Snapchat in a saga that went ridiculously viral.
If you're thinking, "Wait, what? How could anyone do that? Why?!" just read on for the astonishing details…
M'Kalia's story began with this single tweet, which has been reshared nearly 14,000 times (and counting) since she posted it last February.
M'Kalia had a pretty standard online relationship with Aaron at first, albeit one that moved slightly fast.
Aaron went all-out once the pair decided that she was flying up from Houston to DC to visit him for Valentine's Day, buying all of his crush's airfare.
OK, this is cute! Aaron was doing so well at first, you'd think he and M'Kalia had been dating for years.
And after M'Kalia missed her flight home following their whirlwind trip, Aaron was nice enough to offer to pick her up… well, initially.
But then he never showed up.
(Buckle up: This is where things get really, really weird.)
M'Kalia tried texting Aaron's friends to see if they knew his whereabouts. No luck.
But THEN she noticed that Aaron was posting pictures and videos of himself with his friend on Snapchat.
The plot thickens!
After 10 (!) whole hours passed, M'Kalia STILL hadn't heard back from Aaron. What on earth could he possibly have been doing?
M'Kalia waited and waited and waited… until Aaron's friends began tweeting. That's when things finally started clearing up.
Eventually, M'Kalia realized that Aaron was planning on abandoning her at the airport all along, and that his friends — the same ones she was texting earlier — were in on his scheme.
M'Kalia was (understandably) fuming at this point, so she caught a cab and made her way back to Aaron's house.
It was 5 a.m. when M'Kalia finally pulled up to Aaron's house, but no one answered the door when she knocked. Eventually, the police were called, and our protagonist was escorted away.
When Aaron FINALLY managed to text her back sometime the next day, all he had to say was, "You ate?"
Really, dude?
Later, when she looked at his Snapchats, she saw that he'd thrown the stuffed bear she'd given him on the ground. The nerve!
At this point, our #StrandedBae just wanted to know: WHY?
Then she learned the truth.
And the truth really, really hurt.
What a saga. WHEW.
Moral of the story: Never fall in love over Twitter.
