I filmed my crush in a bar and 4 years later we’re engaged… but people say my methods were ‘creepy’
A WOMAN who filmed a perfect stranger in a bar left people stunned when he proposed to her four years later.
Maria Camila Solis was out with friends in when she decided to film a short video of a bloke she found attractive at the bar.
Mesmerised by the stranger‘s ‘smile and beautiful eyes’, Maria attempted to catch his attention all night before deciding to head home – but not before covertly videoing him on her phone.
However, one of Maria’s friends had approached the man after she left and passed along her number without her knowing.
The mystery man was 31-year-old product manager Nathan Falk who messaged Maria later that night about meeting up for drinks.
Four-and-a-half years later, the pair, who live in San Francisco, California, US, are now engaged and can’t wait to show the video of the night they met to their future children one day.
But online trolls have described the footage – which has been seen more than three million times on TikTok – as ‘creepy’ and pointed out the ‘double standards’ if a man did the same.
Defending the secret recording she made in November 2021, Maria said the filming was ‘not malicious or creepy’ and her future husband was actually ‘flattered’ by the video.
Maria, who works as a colour and material designer, said: “Nathan wasn’t bothered at all. There’s definitely different ways why people can film other people and a lot of the time it’s with malicious intent but this wasn’t.
“He was flattered and appreciated that I was intrigued by him and his smile. He knows it wasn’t meant in a creepy way.
“If I hadn’t filmed, we wouldn’t have this memory to look back on. I don’t feel weird about it. I understand where people are coming from and Nate gets why I did it which is what matters.
“It is amazing we have footage of the day we first met to look back on forever.”
Maria believed she would never see the mystery stranger again after neither party made a move – despite exchanging glances the entire night.
Maria said: “We arrived and were just having some drinks before separating for Thanksgiving. Then in the table in front of us arrived a group of four men.
“When they got there, I told one of my roomates ‘I like one of them’ and she told me to go to talk to them.”
Maria said he couldn’t keep her eyes off the handsome stranger all night in the bar, “I told my friend ‘I’m going to be with him’. They just thought I’d had one too many margaritas,” she said.
In fact, her friends tried to get her to talk to him for most of the night without any luck – despite the tension and eye contact between them both.
“I filmed him at one point and sent it to my best friend in Colombia saying ‘look at this cute guy at the bar’. At one point we were standing next to each other at the bar but at that moment another guy came in between us asking to buy me a drink and all my friends said ‘no!’.
“That was my one chance. I went home and thought I’d never see him again. When I was leaving, my friend said she was going to give him my number when I leave and I told her not to do it.”
Maria woke up the following day to a message from the mystery man – and the pair agreed to go on a date the following week.
Early on in the relationship, Maria told Nathan she had taken a video of him at the bar to send to a friend – which he described as ‘flattering’.
“I told my friend ‘I’m going to be with him’. They just thought I’d had one too many margaritas
Maria Camila Solis
However, social media users branded the video ‘creepy’, with one troll writing: “Creepy. If a guy does this it’s called creepy and wrong. If a girl does it. It must be love.”
Another said: “Call the guy a predator if he does the same.”
A third added: “Imagine a guy secretly filming a woman in the bar. Double standards.”
Defending the recording, Nathan said: “She told me about the video early on and it didn’t bother me, I was flattered. I took it as her being really excited about me.
“It’s really great we have that footage to one day show our kids and grandkids. It makes it even more special.”
After four years together, Nathan and Maria became engaged during a trip to Maui, an island in Hawaii, in February 2024, with plans to tie the knot in Colombia next year.
