For an app that’s supposedly designed to be deleted, Hinge is surprisingly hard to, well, delete. In fact, it’s been a near-constant feature of my phone home screen for the last six years. Download, delete; rinse, repeat.
I most recently redownloaded it after my last relationship came to an end. We had, fittingly, met on Hinge, and we’d been dating for a year and a half before she called things off. It was the first time I’d been broken up with, and, to me, it felt like it came out of nowhere. In hindsight, I can see that our once-solid friendship foundation had been slipping from beneath my feet for months before the break-up. Not to mention that our relationship hadn’t really been romantic — and certainly not as sexual as I would have liked — for a long time.
And that was something I missed. So, a couple of months after the initial shock and rejection of the break-up wore off, I felt no remorse redownloading Hinge in pursuit of just that. No trouble, I thought, I’m a Hinge veteran now. One that is decidedly going to have sex. This will be easy.
Instead, I found myself — shock, horror — repeating old patterns. Conversations flowed with the women I was dating, but the sexual chemistry didn’t. A peck on a first date with one woman made me question whether I had something stuck in my teeth (spoiler: I didn’t), but the same thing on a second date sent me into a full-blown spiral. More than eight dates without having sex (unless you count some brief drunken fingering in the bathroom of a bar) led me to consider whether my mindset towards sex was the problem.
I was beginning to think I was the only sapphic woman who wanted to have sex. Or maybe I was just going for the wrong kinds of people. The situation was getting so dire that I found myself asking my friends, “Am I not giving ‘horny’?”, and somehow provoked my therapist into telling me it sounds like I need to have “really good sex with a woman” (well, duh!).
And so, the list of things I love and want to do more of this year that had long graced my Hinge profile gained a new clause — namely that I wanted to ‘be sluttier’. Desperate times call for desperate measures, okay?
But then a miracle, of sorts, happened. The opportunity arose to be coached by Hinge’s very own love and connection expert, Moe Ari Brown, on how to implement the app’s new Follow-Through Formula — that is, how to successfully land a second date after the first — and I leapt at the offer.
Having asked 3,000 global Hinge users about their dating concerns, Hinge discovered that half of daters (49%) hold back on follow-up texts after a first date because they worry about coming on too strong. Hinge’s website, then, offers the formula as an antidote to yearning. This is done via examples of messages you can send to let someone know that you want to see them again after a first date, as well as crucial insights into when the best time to message is.
And while (humbly) landing a first, second, or even sixth date is not something I’ve had much trouble with — look, I’m a queer woman; we move fast — I do need all the help I can get with intentionally dating people who are a good match for me.
So, over to Moe — with whom I share my dating profile (slutty prompt and all) and the spiel about my entire dating history. We sit down for two coaching sessions together, in which he essentially therapises me on WTF I’m doing wrong when it comes to dating.
Friendzoned for... life?
My problem is not uncommon among WLW daters, Moe tells me. Whether they’ve dated queer people in the past or not, women are socialised to be receivers. Combined with the complete lack of a blueprint for LGBTQ+ relationships, “it can be hard for everybody to figure out who should do what,” he says (read: when to make the first move). “It’s easy, especially among same-gender relationships, to stay in the realm of conversations you might have with your friends,” he adds. “Kicking out of that comfort zone into dating territory is very vulnerable.”
He’s right: often, the dates I go on with women will linger in the realm of friendly chit-chat for hours before someone (usually several drinks in) dares to venture into flirtiness. Pretty much always, the conversation gets deep — I like to ask my dates heavy hitters like, ‘What’s your fatal flaw?’, or for details about their devastating heartbreaks (sexy).
Sometimes the vibe doesn’t shift at all — I once had what felt like an entirely platonic sleepover with someone on a first date. But a lot of the time, I find myself asking if I can kiss someone after what feels like an appropriate amount of time has passed.
“Most people are waiting for someone else to make the move,” he says. So if you’re the one to do that, it can be easy to establish yourself as the initiator early on. Add to that the fact that I’ve written and podcasted about sex and relationships for the last five years (which I sometimes worry sets the false perception that I’m an expert in my personal life) and that has become a dynamic I’m somewhat accustomed to.
The diagnosis
Quickly, Moe identifies that I’m over-functioning in relationships. Namely, that I’m putting more in than I’m getting back, which can leave my own needs and desires unfulfilled. “You do all of the things that make people think you are a safe person to go on a date with or be in a relationship with,” Moe tells me.
What has, crucially, been missing from my own dating life in the past, though, is evaluating whether others are safe for me to date. Consistently not being met at the pace I move at has also made me admittedly sensitive when it comes to intimacy in particular. “If you’re initiating intimacy in any kind of way and you’re not being met, it can leave you with an imprint that you should not be putting yourself out there like that,” Moe explains. “So many of us do walk away with narratives that we’re too much or we’ve done something wrong or we’re too intense.”
Finding a solution
It’s not all ‘woe is me’, though. Solving this comes partly down to knowing myself — what attracts me to someone, how I want to show up in a relationship, and my dealbreakers — and knowing how to tell when someone has the capacity to meet me in the middle.
Moe challenges me to think about what my dealbreakers are before my next date. “Because then you will have a compass you can use as a checkpoint for things you know you have to have for a relationship to be solid,” he says. “And I don’t want you to overthink the list of dealbreakers. Just start scanning for them — like earmarking a book because you want to come back to that page.”
On the date itself, Moe encourages me to show up with playfulness and fun (“joy is also deep,” he reminds me), rather than jumping straight into the deep end of the conversation pool. “In earlier conversations, talk about what makes you feel attracted to somebody, what gets your attention, and makes you want to flirt with them,” he says. “Once you know that, it gives you a guide to follow because when you’re able to draw that out of them and engage authentically, you’ll get a little bit more of the energy you desire and create a scenario where you’re met.”
When someone does fill that criteria, the key to securing the second date — Moe says — is timing, enthusiasm, and intent. And ofc, we live in a digital world, so your post-date text is the best way of doing this. Hinge’s research shows that 75% of daters want a text within 24 hours of meeting someone for a first date, so not attempting to play it cool is crucial. Secondly, and most importantly, Moe says, the message should clearly show your excitement. He suggests referencing a specific moment in the date, and sharing how it made you feel; then setting the intention to see them again.
Putting the coaching into practice
Once we hang up the call, it’s time to take this advice into the real world; I schedule a first date. Ahead of the date, I take time for some Self Reflection: I make a list of my dealbreakers, what attracts me to someone, and how I want to feel on the date. Ideally (and this is not baby gay propaganda, I’ve just been burned one too many times), I want someone to have experience dating women. When someone has weird, niche hobbies, something blooms inside me. Ditto when they’re emotionally intelligent, without being wanky and tortured by it. Crucially, I want to feel whimsical when I’m with them, catch myself giggling to punctuate everything they say, and looking for excuses to touch them.
Half an hour before we’re due to meet, it starts pouring with rain. I try to stay optimistic. Outside a wine bar under the awning, I ask her about her family and friends, who she lives with, and how she feels about her birthday. We discuss what makes us feel attracted to someone; we flirt.
This is new for me. It feels good to inject some lightness into the date; to remind myself this was, until just now, a complete stranger. She walks me home and we kiss in the rain — except this time it’s a real kiss, not just a peck. It’s just what a first date should be: nothing more, nothing less. By the time I finish the debrief with my flatmate, my date texts me. Using Moe’s formula, I text back my favourite moment of the date and suggest we do some crafts next time. Second date = secured.
A twist of fate
When I wake up the next day, I reflect on how easy it feels to go on a date that I haven’t made unnecessarily heavy. I feel pretty proud of myself for sticking to my challenge to keep things light. Even though it’s a baby step, I already feel like I’m getting closer to the feeling I’ve been chasing — or rather, letting that feeling find me. That dread I felt at having to go on yet another date is replaced by excitement for the next one.
Little did I know, though, that we’d never get there. In a cosmic shift, someone else enters my life — well, kind of.
While I’m telling a friend about my date the next day, something in her expression flickers. She looks… jealous? All of a sudden, facts tumble into focus in my mind: more-than-friendly texts, lingering glances, little frequent touches. The events of the last few months fall into place; I’m having a Clueless experience. Then it clicks: I have feelings for her — and if I’m reading the situation right, she feels the same.
Maybe the countless dates that went nowhere and the hours spent agonising over why the attraction simply wasn’t there could be explained by the fact that everything I was looking for had been in front of me all along (okay, romcom! Cue “You Belong With Me” by Taylor Swift already!). Something between us shifts. We kiss, catapulting us violently out of the friendzone, and later she confirms my suspicions.
That’s when I realised Moe was right: understanding my dealbreakers and desires was the first step in the equation — telling my friend about my dates has handed her a guide to meet me, unequivocally, where I am. “The tools for the Follow-Through Formula are totally relatable, even as you build on a friendship,” says Moe when I tell him my news. “Now you have to make it very clear that this is romance, and it will require continued conversation and communication.”
We’re both having to undergo a great unlearning: that what were once stolen glances can now be intentional, we can hold hands not just ‘as friends’, and that knowing each other as we have for the last few years doesn’t automatically equate to knowing each other as lovers. It’s an entirely new kind of blueprint for our relationship; one that we’re writing everyday.
In just two weeks — and what kinda feels like a bad business decision for Hinge — the app designed to be deleted has coached me into deleting it. Talk about a good match.
Honey is the Senior Sex and Relationships E-commerce Writer for Cosmopolitan, Women’s Health and Men’s Health. She covers shopping guides and reviews of the best sex toys; deals events — including Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday; and sex, dating, and LGBTQ+ trends.
Her journalism career started in 2020 when she started Sextras, a podcast and digital magazine about sex and relationships. Find Sextras on Spotify or Substack, where she writes and chats about everything from positive masculinity and how to practise sex magic, to why the latest kink or porn category is blowing up.
She has an MA in Magazine Journalism from City, University of London, and previously reported for HR magazine. Her features also appear in Glamour, Refinery29, The Independent, and more.
When she's not asking everyone she meets invasive questions about their sex and dating lives, you'll find Honey singing around her flat, teaching herself a new craft, or working her way through a new '90s/'00s box set with her flatmate.
