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A young woman has revealed how she became the target of an obsessed fan after advertising her spare room on TikTok.
Sydney swimwear designer Sophia Kim, 30, shared a two-part video in which a potential roommate went from “love bombing” behavior to “blurring boundaries” of friendship, even hitting her gym after one meeting.
Sophia said her first TikTok video showing her downtown apartment and guest room quickly went viral, with the $650-a-week room attracting a lot of interest.
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Sydney-based swimwear designer Sophia Kim, 31, has shared a ‘horror story’ after trying to find a roommate for her inner-city spark plug apartment
“Since it went viral, I assumed the people who responded and messaged me were people who didn’t know me,” she said.
‘And a place to live, if necessary.’
But it became all too clear that a young applicant, a medical student, had done her research on Sophia and knew her very well.
“She would have had to watch a lot of TikToks over a long period of time to get all the information she had,” Sophia said in a two-part series about the “horror” encounter.
It started off well, Sophia and the woman talked on the phone before agreeing a time when she could view the room.
“She brought presents for me, my roommate and my dog, which I liked at first,” Sophia explained.
Looking back, it feels like the woman “bombed her love.”
Sophia said she really liked her gift and became suspicious that it was “too beautiful” for someone who shouldn’t have known anything about her.
She explained that the woman would blur her boundaries and message her on any platform if she didn’t get an immediate response
The swimwear designer also noted that the young woman had the same bag as her – initially thinking they “had the same style.”
It escalated after the initial inspection.
The young woman began to blur boundaries and immediately tried to go from stranger to best friend.
“It started to get a little too much. She started messaging me everywhere like on Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok. If I didn’t respond on one platform, she would message me on other platforms,” she said.
Sophia said she was overwhelmed by the sheer volume of messages where the young woman invited her to “grab matcha” or “grab food” together, despite having met twice.
The next red flag was the number of intimate questions the young woman asked.
“I was like I don’t know these questions are a little strange, coming from you, someone I don’t know,” she said.
Sophia went on to explain that the young woman would talk to her as if “she already had all that other information” about her.
Sophia said she didn’t expect someone who “knew everything about her” to sign up for the guest bedroom — because so many people had seen the video ad
“Although she pretended not to know me, she had never heard of me until she saw the video to move in.”
It escalated when the young woman decided that she and Sophia were such good friends that she could tell her more personal information.
“She started dumping trauma on me. She told me her ex-boyfriend was cheating on her with her best friend,” she said.
“Everything she said was trying to arouse sympathy in me,” Sophia said.
The video featured a tour of the apartment and footage of the incredible views – but limited information about Sophia
She added that they’ve only met twice and that “the first time wasn’t real” because it was just a viewing of an apartment.
Sophia noticed that the young woman started to create more of her own content, mimicking her style.
She said this didn’t bother her too much until she saw the young woman at the gym.
“She didn’t say oh my god Soph, I went to the gym too, because you talked about it in your videos. She just didn’t say anything and acted like it was all a coincidence,” she said.
Sophia has since moved out of the apartment and hinted that she was going to build a house in the Eastern Suburbs.
She promised a third installment in the ‘almost roommate’ saga, but it hasn’t been released.