‘He sends me the most insane text’: Florida woman goes on overnight date with Tampa man to Turks and Caicos. Then she meets his business partners

A Florida woman went on a date with a man she had been seeing. But the date wasn't dinner. It wasn't even in the same town. She ended up flying to a completely different country.

“I had the most insane, scary experience with this man from Tampa last weekend,” Julia Baer, a Miami TikToker, said in a video with more than 7,000 views recently. The experience in question? Meeting up with a man she had gone out with a few times and taking a trip to the Turks and Caicos.

‘I don't want this to happen to any other girls'

Baer, who made her post to warn other women in South Florida, described her dates with a man who invited her out to his business trips.

“I met this guy a few times through mutual friends. We'd gone out to dinners. He was always talking about how he always goes on these really fun luxury group trips with big groups of friends,” Baer said.

Baer said the man, whom she called Ian, invited her to go on one of his business trips about 10 times, but she didn't end up going. Eventually, she decided she felt comfortable enough to leave Friday and fly to Turks and Caicos with him. She planned to return Sunday.

At first, Baer thought the entire trip would be with a group, but she realized he scheduled the first day of the journey to just be the two of them together. By that point, she had some mild reservations. She went along anyway. Then, an hour into the trip, she found out something that changed her perspective almost immediately.

“I find out that he is currently married,” Baer said. “He said that him and his wife are separated, but that they have some kind of deal where any money that he spends on someone else, like, he has to pay double, and so I wasn't allowed to post that I was there.”

The revelation affected Baer's opinion of Ian for the entire trip.

A group outing on the water

On Saturday, they did end up meeting with the man's friends, she said, which was relieving to Baer. The man's business partner picked them up and drove them to meet with a few more people. In total, there were around six or seven members of their group, she said.

The plan was to travel around on the friend's boat, drink and have a good time. Baer and the other women who were on the trip got along immediately. The TikToker recounted that she had a few drinks but she felt relatively normal, and that she even switched phone numbers with the women who she spent time with.

After the trip, she went back to the place they were staying and passed out. The next morning when she woke up, she could tell something was off.

The morning after and the flight home

Baer could tell Ian was upset, but she didn't know why.

“You could tell… he had different intentions for the trip than how it ended up… I was just trying to get out of there. I really was not interested in this man whatsoever,” Baer said.

They got to the airport on Sunday and took a flight back to Miami. From there, they parted ways. Right after she left the man, he sent her a text message, which accused her of making fun of the man's business partner, saying she was better than other people, blasting house music and being “out of control.”

Some of the text read: “I have never been so humiliated, embarrassed, and had some one talk [expletive] to my face like this before. If I could have flown you home yesterday I would have!!! You are an absolutely rude entitled spoiled brat who is out of control. Zero common sense or courtesy. The audacity to tell anyone that you are better than them is insane. I am still mortified that you did that.”

Baer said she didn't know where the text even came from or why he sent it. “I am like, ‘That is not how I remember the boat day going at all.' I was shocked. I was disgusted.” She thought something happened that she didn't remember.

She texted the women she had met during the boat trip and apologized for her behavior. Both of them responded and said she didn't do anything wrong. Baer felt “totally gaslighted.” She had no idea where Ian's framing of the situation was coming from. 

What is gaslighting?

Gaslighting refers to situations where “someone is psychologically abusing someone by intentionally making them question their reality,” according to licensed psychologist Brittany McGeehan.

Gaslighting in intimate relationships is a form of coercive control, which seeks to distort reality, change narratives, and trivialize certain emotional responses. It can make those who experience it feel “confused and disoriented.” 

It's unclear based on Baer's post whether or not Ian was trying to gaslight her, but she walked away from the situation questioning reality. 

“Be careful because you might get an extremely unhinged text accusing you of things that did not actually happen,” Baer said toward the end of her video.

‘Always go with your gut'

Multiple viewers discussed the post in the comment section, with opinions on Ian's behavior split down the middle. One viewer theorized that Ian was upset because Baer didn't progress their relationship. 

One TikToker wrote, “definitely because you didn't get with him how embarrassing for him omg…”

Others questioned the issue in the video. “What's the point of posting this. How was it scary,” another viewer asked.

While Baer didn't say she had been seeing the man seriously, she did say that she knew him for a year before the trip. The sudden change in his behavior after the trip was a learning experience for her. 

Buzz News reached out to Baer via email and TikTok direct message for more information, but she declined to comment.

@jujubeaannn I told his wife OF COURSE but she hasn't opened the message 🫪 I've known this guy for a year so this just goes to show you never really know someone, stay safe! Also to clarify, I was pretty positive I remembered everything from the boat but receiving this text obviously made me question whether I just blacked part of it out and didn't realize. When I messaged the first girl that I was completely “blacked out” it was because I was under the impression that all of this happened and the only explanation for me being unaware was that I blacked it out. I'm now aware that my memory was correct, I was just being totally gaslighted #tampa #storytime ♬ original sound – jujubeaannn