An exchange between two online daters has gone viral after an aspiring doctor wasn’t prepared for her match’s pickup line, leading to a dead-end for their communication.
In a post to Reddit, the med student’s match posted a screenshot of their interaction, in which the student told them they were waiting on a “cheesy pickup line.” In response, the poster wrote that they couldn’t tell it to them, because they didn’t “have the ‘patients’ to handle how ‘sick’ it is.” Not getting the pun, the med student corrected the poster’s grammar.
“Patience*,” the student responded. The post has received more than 92,000 upvotes since it was posted, along with almost 1,000 comments from Reddit users picking up where the pun left off.
Andrii zastrozhnov/getty images
The med student’s dry response was all it took for the poster to shut down the conversation completely: “Well, I’m done,” they answered.
The post sparked hundreds of amused and frustrated reactions on Reddit, where users debated whether the joke fell flat or if the correction killed the vibe. The post also prompted a thread of memes making their own puns. “Well said,” one meme read over a photo of a microphone being held up to a well.
“This has been my favorite reaction meme thread,” wrote one user.
Another suggested the joke could have gone even further: “Follow up with, ‘Hope you get your (humerus) checked,'” adding another layer to the medical pun.
Some commenters criticized the med student for derailing the moment, while others admitted they didn’t catch the humor either.
“Correcting someone’s spelling while flirting is a massively stupid move,” wrote one Reddit user, while another posted that the med student’s correction might have been a symptom of burnout. “I’ll give them the benefits of the doubt and say maybe they are so exhausted from being overworked that they weren’t mentally capable of detecting the joke,” the poster commented.
“I don’t see the pickup line either, all I see is a dad joke,” one person wrote, sympathizing with the student.
Regardless of whether the poster or the med student was responsible for killing the vibe, it seemed possible that the chemistry was probably doomed from the start.
“That dialogue is … awkward. I’ve never been in a relationship that’s started out that dry,” one person noted.
Whether the joke was too subtle or the correction too harsh, the consensus was clear: sometimes, it’s best to just let the pun live.
Newsweek reached out to u/ZackHasURBack for comment via Reddit.
