If you have a smartphone then you're no stranger to receiving frequent spam messages via text and email in addition to robocalls.
Whether it's an unsolicited call about car insurance for a vehicle you don't own or a junk email revealing you are the winner of a sweepstakes you never entered, seeing a random phone number or unknown address can often be a waste of time.
However it's typically nothing extraordinary.
But what if that unusual message was not only really meant for you specifically and brought you an unexpected surprise in the form of a pretty big bombshell?
A TikToker by the name of Lane—@laneiscool14 on TikTok—uncovered a very big truth from a very small and strange instant text.
Almost a year ago Lane received a text from a random person that changed her life forever. Luckily for viewers, Lane documented this entire story on TikTok.
You can see the first TikTok Lane created here:
The message said:
"Hi Lane, this is not a spam text message, I think it' s really important that you take a DNA test from Ancestry.com and review your DNA matches."
Thinking it couldn't be real, she decided to seek out some advice on what to do about the bizarre text that left her with so many questions. Lane facetimed her friend and after telling her about the mysterious text she received, she was urged to follow up.
Something in her friend's gut said this was real and Lane had to reply.
So, Lane followed up the text message asking if there was any information the anonymous messenger could tell her.
The anonymous fingers behind the text replied with answers that only led to more questions, implying this would all become clearer once the test was taken and they were sorry if this news was upsetting.
Lane revealed to the mystery texter she had already done 23andMe the year before because it was on sale. She was hoping to uncover something unexpected and unique or maybe she was related to royalty, but as she thought she was just English and Irish.
Though she couldn't get any information from the concealed identity, Lane did note the person behind the texts tried to contact her and her husband on a burner Facebook account.
So, she decided to go to the one person who might understand all of this.
“They would not provide me with any sort of proof that this was real, and, obviously, I called my mom immediately, saying, ‘What the f*ck.'”
Lane told her mom and in a shocking turn of events, Lane's mom knew exactly what the text was about.
She then began to tell Lane about her biological father.
Lane's mother had an affair with a younger man while in college and never told Lane.
“My mom always told me this story that she was an alcoholic and my dad was a cheater. So, when I called her, she says, ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about, I had an affair'."
"I almost fell off my f*cking chair. She had an affair with a guy ten years younger than her when she was in college."
"It was a one-time thing, but he even saw her on campus and said, ‘Is that mine?’ and she denied it.”
Still in shock, Lane ordered a DNA test and found out the mystery man behind the texts was indeed her biological father. As soon as she received the results, she messaged the man who is British and lives in California. Lane's mom sent him a Christmas card years earlier and he had been following Lane on social media ever since.
Lane created another TikTok video telling viewers about how her father did his best to keep up with her through the years. She said he went as far as to call her workplace to hear her voice.
He even wanted to get a haircut by her at the salon she worked at, but his wife didn't feel like that was a good idea.
You can see Lane talking about her biological father here in a follow up video:
All of this was already hard for Lane, but one of the hardest parts was the strain this put on her relationship with her mother.
“You can imagine a secret of this magnitude requires a lot of lying and betrayal and manipulation to keep it up for this long. Cutting my mom off was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done."
"Never would I have ever expected it. We were like this [crossed fingers] growing up. I used to tell people she was my soulmate,”
Despite the tensions at home, Lane set out to build a relationship with her biological father, but the long-awaited encounter was less than what she had expected.
In Lane's 3rd video she tells viewer about her first meeting with her father and apologizes for the usage of the word "exotic" in her previous video. Lane had envisioned how this reunion might look once it happened but was surprised to find utter awkwardness and what seemed like indifference.
Unfortunately, the sense of detachment and unresponsiveness only got worse as time went on. The two had met over a stretch of a few days and he seemed to be uninterested in Lane.
He didn't make a ton of eye contact which only left Lane feeling “stupid.”
“Our interactions left me feeling very confused, very invalidated. I was there for like five days. We met up once or twice a day to hang out and go out to eat or something and every time I felt like I was prying information out of him, and I just felt like he didn’t like me.”
“I was A-OK until the last day, and then I got very emotional because I guess I was just hoping by the last day it would be different and when it wasn’t, it was just hard. So here I am back in New York, and yeah, I hope that our relationship continues to get better,”
Here is Lane's 3rd video detailing her encounter:
Commenters tried to lessen the disappointment by saying maybe the difference in attitude and mannerisms was cultural—maybe the British are just less open.
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
@Laneiscool14/TikTok
However despite Lane's first meeting with her father, commenters are still rooting for the two and many think the father's actions were commendable.
Jane Rosenberg
Jane Rosenberg
@arianagrande/Instagram
@arianagrande/Instagram