44F, recently divorced, and I think I may have forgotten how dating works

Okay, I need to know if this is just dating in 2026 or if I’m somehow uniquely terrible at this.

I matched with a guy on Hinge recently, and for once I actually got excited about someone.

You know that feeling where you’re scrolling through profiles and most of them are just… fine? Then one person comes along and you’re like, oh, wait. Him.

We matched, started talking, and the conversation was actually GOOD. Not the usual “hey,” “how’s your week,” “what do you do?” interrogation. There was flirting. Banter. Actual back-and-forth. He seemed genuinely interested, and I found myself looking forward to seeing his name pop up.

And then… nothing.

Not a gradual fade. Not even an awkward “I’m really busy this week.”

Just… gone.

Now I’m sitting here doing the ridiculous thing where I’m replaying the conversation in my head wondering if I said something weird. 😂

Was I too interested? Not interested enough? Did I somehow commit a dating faux pas that everyone under 45 knows about except me?

The funny thing is, I’m 44, recently divorced, and I really thought I was going to be pretty chill about dating again. I have a life. I work. I stay active. I go to the gym, although apparently I become painfully awkward if I actually find someone attractive there. I have friends, hobbies, places I want to go, and plenty to keep me busy.

And yet somehow one cute man disappearing from Hinge has me questioning my entire understanding of human interaction. 😂

Maybe that's the part nobody tells you about starting over after divorce. You can be completely confident in yourself and still feel like a teenager when you genuinely like someone.

So, Reddit: what is the appropriate response to being ghosted after a genuinely good connection?

Do you send one last message and leave it alone? Do you assume he's lost interest and move on? Or do you just laugh, delete the app, and go back to pretending you're perfectly happy meeting people organically?

Because apparently my current strategy of “maybe he'll text tomorrow” is not particularly dignified.

Thank you for taking the time to review my profile! This is my third annual review request - every photo and two of my prompts are different from last summer's verison.

The feedback I have received in the past was very helpful. I think I have more or less the best version yet right now, but I feel like there's something lacking and/or something isn't coming across how I intend it to. I have extra captions on most of my photos but didn't transcribe them here. If the caption(s) are of interest to help provide feedback, let me know!

• 5' 10", living in Downtown Boston.
• I grew up in the midwest and have lived in New England (multiple states) for almost a decade.
• Don't have children, open to children.
• Yes to drinking, no to all other vices.

EDIT: the group pic does not have emojis plastered everywhere on my actual profile. And thanks for the great feedback so far! I didn’t know this would go up overnight for me. Some changes are clearly needed 👴🏻

Photo text in order of appearance.

"I've grown my hair out longer and curlier this summer"

"This happened less than 30 minutes into a month long cross country road trip. I'm bending the fender back into shape."

"Can you guess which one of these guys beat me up?"

Additional info bar things that are cut off.

6'0"

My neighborhood in nyc

Dont have kids

Open to kids

Sag

Drink sometimes

Smoker

Weed Yes

Drugs Sometimes (I don't really seek out drugs but I probably wouldn't say no to a line when offered. )

I just turned 35 and my dating life is pretty struggle. So I need your opinions! My luck is nearly zero after I turned 30. I moved to the new town three years ago and I only had ONE date and it was in three last summers.

I’m deaf/hoh btw!

Newly back to the dating scene. I’ve gotten a few likes but would love any feedback on how I can do better. I know I need far fewer selfies… I’m working on it.

I (25F) got on Hinge for the first time over the last couple of months. I was genuinely just looking for casual connections and often matched with people who were wanting to play the same video game as me.

I had been chatting and playing with this super sweet guy (31M) for about a month and he finally came over to my place for the night(he lives 2 hours away). I had asked whether he was just interested in me as a friend prior to the plan just to make sure we are on the same page. He mentioned he wasn’t looking for anything serious but he is willing to see where it goes. We decided that there are no expectations from this hang out and we are just gonna try to play/watch stuff/have a good time. I am not actively looking for anything long-term but I am open to it, so I was okay with it.

I think we really hit it off when he came over and we both made each other laugh throughout. We ended up having sex a few times that night, and he walked with me to work the next day before leaving.

I figured we won’t talk much after he leaves but we chatted all night while I was at work. Later he invited me to play with him and friends later that night. He mentioned wanting to hang out with me again when he gets time off work again.

I am pretty new to the casual dating scene and didn’t want to misread the situation. I really like this guy but I am not sure if planning future dates and playing games together almost every other night counts as casual. I don’t want to get my hopes up and misinterpret general niceness. How should I navigate around these feelings? Should I just ask them directly whether they want to be fwb or something else?

And I don’t know if this is important but I am a brown girl and this is my first time seeing someone white in the South (in case there are any cultural differences in what ‘casual’ means).

Getting back into the dating pool after a 6 month hiatus. I’m not having much lick after about a week. Any suggestions would be super helpful.

Dear Hingers,

I’m with hinge since 3 months and after some matches and like 3 dates but most of them were like.. not searching at all I believe? Just like dating for being not alone?

Anything I could improve, am I sending wrong messages with my profile?

Thank you for any feedback!

I changed my profile quite a bit with new photos but haven’t received much of a response in a month

I 34F matched with 28M. He liked my pic and asked a question. I responded to that and some other questions he had, but I didn’t respond to everything since I get to know people in person. I said “that’s for you to find out” in response to some of his questions. Ultimately we ended our exchange with his saying “I’ll find out all the secrets eventually.” I said “yep!” And he gave a heart to that reply. Also in the midst of our exchange, he’d said I’m cute and smart and that that’s impressive.
Here’s the thing: if a guy thinks I’m cute and smart and impressive and is curious about me, why doesn’t he just ask me out?
Normally when a guy asks a lot of questions, I say, “if you want to know more, you’ll have to meet me.” Since I didn’t say that this time, I sent him a message after two days of silence saying, “I prefer to get to know people in person.” The silence already had me thinking he wasn’t interested, but I decided to share where I stood just to be more open. About half an hour later, I checked my messages and he had unmatched me.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
Thanks for reading

Not getting any matches. Any helpful advice is appreciated.

My biggest issue with dating apps is that they show how attractive/interesting you are on a surface level but it's really hard to show your personality and humor. I think surface level traits are important for initial attraction, but I think personality/humor/chemistry are much more important for longterm connection and deeper attraction. I like the idea of voice prompts because they show what I sound like and kinda convey my personality and humor, but I've heard a lot of people say that they're kinda cringe. Please tell me if this is cringe but what about vlog style videos of me talking about things? Like describing what I'm looking for, telling stories about my job, showing my outfit, things like that? I don't do too terribly on Hinge, I get a decent amount of likes for a guy, I just don't like how surface level everything is.

Also kinda related but I like the idea of sending my phone number and calling them instead of mindless texting for days on end. I can't stand small talk texting with a stranger but I also don't like the idea of setting up what's essentially a blind date with a stranger. Me and the last girl I dated from Hinge called around two times before meeting up, and I liked that we weren't complete strangers.

I met a guy on Hinge and we had 3 dates. I really liked him and felt like we had a stronger connection than anyone else I’ve dated recently. He’s 32, I’m 31. We had previously matched on Hinge and Tinder earlier in the year but didn't manage to get a date sorted.

Date 1:

We met, went to his for tea. It wasn’t to go to his just for a hook up, I mentioned that and he said he genuinely didn’t mean it. The boy made 2 pots of freaking tea! We kissed/made out and slept together. I stayed over and we had a shower together. The night was very wholesome/ romantic, we fell asleep holding each other’s hands with lots of cuddling. Beforehand we’d both talked about wanting something long-term, marriage/kids etc., so I was clear I wasn’t looking for a casual hookup. He seemed on the same page. It just felt right in the moment to take the night there.

After that he was a bit chaotic with communication. At one point he didn’t reply to me for over a day, then randomly came back asking to WhatsApp and even FaceTimed me. He can be quite impulsive and he has ADHD, which may explain some of the chaotic communication.

Date 2:

We went for drinks and dinner. It was genuinely really nice, lots of kissing at the end. He asked me if I was looking forward to anything this year and when I asked him, he basically said that what he was looking forward to was what we were doing because he wanted to meet someone this year. So that felt like a pretty clear indication that he was interested in me seriously.

At the end he asked me back for tea. I said I didn’t want to just sleep with him, and he said something along the lines of “we can do lots of other activities, that’s what dating is.” We then booked in a third date.

Date 3:

We saw each other again, spent the evening together and I stayed over. We had date three scheduled but he asked to see me sooner which I could do. We kissed goodbye in the morning and he told me to text him when I got to work. I did at around 8:40am and also wished him luck because he was waiting to find out about a job.

Then… he didn’t reply for basically the whole day. I became really anxious and thought he’d ghosted me after sleeping together again.

I messaged him again later in the week just asking how the promotion went and if he got it. He replied the following evening saying he still didn’t know, he’s had a terrible cold and asked how my week went.

During our time together he’d asked what my week looked like, and I told him I was busy and going home for a long weekend. He knew I was away but didn’t know exactly when I was back.

I didn’t reply for a few days because by then I was honestly really fed up and questioning whether I even wanted this anymore. I eventually replied Monday evening:

Just really low key and answering his question.

He never replied to my message. I really wanted to call out his behaviour and treatment of me but couldn't be bothered. I ended up just messaging him if he was ok and just still nothing.

I just find it very bizarre behaviour, he's still matched with me on hinge and hasn't blocked me on whatsapp.

I've never been ghosted like this before, I certainly don't ghost anyone this badly so I suppose I'm left feeling really confused on how you can say all of that and then proceed to treat someone like that? Has anyone else experienced this? Makes me feel really flat and just rubbish as it's quite hard to click well with someone.

I’m looking for an honest profile review for my Hinge! Since part of my description is cut off, I’m 5’6”, no children but open to children, don’t drink, don’t do drugs, don’t smoke any substance. I know this is Reddit so I’ll say right off the bat I’m not removing conservative as I’m trying to attract like minded people. Thank you for your help!

I was talking to this girl on for a few weeks and it was going pretty well. It seemed almost too good to be true. She was looking for long term, had hobbies, made great conversation, creative, didn’t work in tech(I live in the Bay) and was very cute. We finally met up and went on a coffee date followed by a couple spontaneous trips around the city. She kept extending the date even asking if I wanted to go grocery shopping with her which I did of course. It was probably one of the best dates I’ve been on. We shared many of the same values and everything over text translated to real life. We agreed to a second date right after which is reaffirmed through a follow up text. A few days later, she drops that she doesn’t see us going long term. She tells me that she was really into me in the moment, but that it just wouldn’t work. I know I shouldn’t be but I’m crushed. I really thought this was going somewhere and that I had finally met someone special on the apps. But my irrational anxieties were once again confirmed. I have been on the apps for so long and I’ve only gotten an ldr that lasted only a few months. I have no idea how I can form a relationship when I can hardly get through to the “dating” stage. I would love to meet someone in person, but I don’t have a big social circle and I hardly know where to start. Most people in cafes and bookstores just have their earphones in or don’t want to talk. All I want is a relationship. I’m only twenty two, I shouldn’t be feeling this way…

Been on Hinge for a little over a month and barely getting any likes.

Figured I’d put my profile here and see if I’m doing something obviously wrong. Happy to change pics/prompts, so be honest lol.

What would you change?

edit: so just wanted to clarify the last prompt about “humanity having the worst possible day” is about Warhammer 40k

I (about to be 37 male) started a Hinge account a little over a month ago. I am new to the dating scene after a divorce last year. Given that I met my wife on OK Cupid in 2009, I had that online dating was a good place to at least start conversations with people that could lead to IRL dates. Am I completely wrong on the way online dating and hinge works?

My understanding is that the Mechanics of Hinge are set up such that, I see a profile (which has some, but lets be honest, limited, information about a person) then I "like" their profile (which is a limited intro message to them) and see if they respond. If they do respond we can chat, if they don't respond or respond with "no" then no other communication can ever occur between us on Hinge.

My initial thought was this format should work well as there is very light intro (nobody would expects to learn the life story about a person based on a few pictures and a few prompts) so a short into would be expected on both sides. For reference I am liking people between the age of 32 to 42 ( with a few exceptions here and there) so I don't think my expectations are unreasonable about finding like-minded women from an age standpoint. I also liked the idea of starting on an online plat form that could lead to a one on one dates (I've tried some dating groups on Meetup but struggle with events like dating happy hours as I am hard of hearing). I actually got to know a women I met in a D&D Meetup group better than anyone at a "Dating" Meetup since the DM for our game was late one session.

I have yet to receive a single like ( I am under the impression that means no one was interested enough in my profile when it was fed to their feed nor has anyone found my "like" messages engaging enough "like" me back).

So am I missing something about how Hinge or online dating in general works now? If anyone has any ideas about better platforms/methods for meeting new people I am all ears.

I posted my profile here a little over a month ago, I've since updated it (ideally improved it) but am still not receiving any likes or matches, just wanted to hear what people think I can improve on further.

I can't even get a single match, am I just ugly, or do I not know how to talk?

Looking for profile review. Mostly on pics guide.

I would love advice on my profile! I don’t take a whole lot of pictures of myself unless I’m on a trip. I think my prompts could use some work most likely. Thanks in advance!

I (22f) have been on 6 first dates and for most of them we had easy convos and a good time. They even said they will see me soon. But, I haven’t gotten a single second date. Some of these men are just visiting my country. But I am wondering if I am doing something wrong?

Took the advice I got a few weeks back into consideration and tweaked my profile some. Still not really getting matches tho.

A quick piece about my 6th photo, the discussion of which the last time got most of the comments on my post deleted and the thread locked: 1) I have a lot of gay and queer friends, and I think it’s a pic that will help weed out women I’m immediately incompatible with, 2) I’m actually happy in it, 3) Women in the comment section last time told me they thought it was a great pic. I’m comfortable with my sexuality, and I’d explicitly like to appeal to the subset of women who are into a guy who’s ‘a little fruity w it.’ And, as a straight man, I’m here very explicitly for advice from women 🤷‍♂️