Man flies 650 miles for first date with woman he met on TikTok
The internet really does bring people together.
A man flew more than 650 miles to meet a woman he met on TikTok and now they’re in a relationship.
Matt Bannon, 26, of Dallas, Texas, posted a video of himself swimming that went viral and received hundreds of responses from women who said they were interested in him — including an Olympic athlete, according to SWNS. One comment caught his eye.
Taylor Bier, 25, of Omaha, Nebraska, wrote: “Ooo 25, single, saw there was an Olympic athlete on board – I might not beat that.”
It seems she did because Bannon replied to her comment and the two started exchanging messages, SWNS reported. Bier told the news agency their messages were “super easy.”
“Every conversation sparked a new conversation,” she added.
She soon asked Bannon to FaceTime to make sure he wasn’t faking his account. They talked for two hours on that first call, she told SWNS.
“He was way more handsome than I ever thought he was going to be,” Bier said. “We both half–jokingly, half-seriously, mentioned that after the first time we met in person, we were kind of hoping we’d feel like more friends than anything more. That would make everything easier, but, clearly that wasn’t the case.”
However, just two weeks after they started talking, Bannon bought a plane ticket to Omaha so he could meet Bier in person.
“He booked it a month out, so we still had a full month to get to know each other before he actually came here for the first time,” Bier explained.
Bier posted a brief video of their first meeting that also went viral, with more than 4.5 million views.
“Meeting in person was so much better than I could’ve ever expected,” Bier told SWNS. “It’s super crazy how things work out.”
Bannon added: “Thank God for TikTok, right?”
According to SWNS, the two are now officially dating and have visited each other a few times already. The news agency reported that they plan to meet one weekend of every month.
“We are taking things one month at a time. We both know we really like each other and that we’re not interested in meeting anyone else,” Bier said. “Matt jokes that this season of the TikTok Bachelor is over.”
“It really does not feel like it’s only been three times of seeing each other in person, just because of how often we FaceTime,” Bier added. “We are away more than we are together, but we look at it as those three or four days together as so worth all the missing each other in between.”
Bier explained that typically, she doesn’t comment on strangers’ videos or follow strangers on TikTok.
“But in this instance, I don’t know what got into me, but I did both of those things,” she said. “This was indeed a chance encounter, but because of the way things are panning out, I now more than ever, have full faith in the fact that everything does happen for a reason.”
