Man meets woman on blind date without realizing it was actually a prank. Then they fell in love for real.

For some, dating can be a straightforward experience, but others face the ups and downs of single life. In a surprising twist, a 28-year-old medical resident's love life took an unexpected turn when his friends played a prank by setting him up with a woman they thought he wouldn’t find attractive. Instead of falling for the joke, he ended up finding love through this so-called "prank," as he shared on Reddit under the username u/ResidentThrowRA.

With his demanding schedule, the medical resident hadn’t had much time for dating. "My friends have been pushing me to go out more, insisting that I need a break from the grind," the post read. "A few weeks ago, they set me up on a blind date. They wouldn't stop talking about how 'perfect' this girl was for me, so I thought, why not?" The medical resident met Emily (not her real name), a 26-year-old woman, at a restaurant. The date went smoothly without him realizing his friends' true intention. Despite finding Emily "a little chubby," the man was impressed by her cuteness. "She had this amazing smile, and the way she laughed just made me want to keep the conversation going," he wrote.

Emily turned out to be a geology student with a deep passion for her field. They ended up chatting about "volcanic rock formations like it was the coolest thing ever." By the end of the night, the doctor agreed that the topic was more fun to talk about than "cadavers." Clearly, a bond was forming between the duo who also connected over their late autism diagnosis. Unlike any other date, the medical resident claimed, "It felt like we didn't have to pretend much and that made the whole evening feel easy. We just clicked."

His friends had picked Emily for the blind date as a joke, assuming she wouldn’t be physically attractive to him. However, by the end of their date night, the duo exchanged their numbers and started texting regularly since then. "A few days later, though, I got a really sad message from Emily. Turns out, my friends told her that they set us up as a prank. They set me up with her because they thought she wasn't 'my type' and that they picked her specifically because she's chubby and not what they'd call 'conventionally attractive,' thinking it would be funny to see how I'd react," the post stated.

Emily, feeling apologetic, told him she’d understand if he didn’t want to keep talking. Proving Emily wrong, the medical resident reassured her by asking for another date. "I think she's beautiful—body and spirit. To be honest, she's my new type," he wrote. The couple would soon be heading out together again. This time with no pranks involved.

"Now, my friends are pissed at me. They're saying I ruined the joke and that I'm being 'weird' for asking her out again," the doctor elaborated. As his friends tried gaslighting him into believing that she was not the right fit for him, he asked the Reddit community whether he was in the wrong. People in the comments are rallying behind the couple for not letting pranks "dictate" their feelings for each other. "You have friends that act like this at 28? Eww. I'd keep the girl and ditch the buddies," u/ImposterSyndrome412 opined. "On top of all that, it is their inability to admit their assumptions were wrong. They assumed OP would be as superficial as them, and when he wasn't, it must be him, not them, that was wrong," u/Business_Sock_1575 added.

This article originally appeared 2 months ago.