Tag: Hinge

It’s no secret that people are having a hard time finding a long-term partner through dating apps. Women have it especially gnarly.

Beyond the usual ghosting and being left wondering exactly what went wrong, there’s also a lack of care and attention when meeting up for the first time. One woman reported spending time getting ready for a coffee shop date to find the man had already ordered only his coffee.

Then there’s getting discarded for something minimal, thanks to the many “fish” in the dating app “sea.” One woman says a man cancelled their first date simply after she told him she doesn’t drink.

Now, TikTok creator Angie Cotti (@angiecotti) says her Hinge date intentionally put her through what she described as a “humiliation ritual.”

What Did Her Hinge Match Do?

“I’m really trying not to crash out right now,” she begins. “But I’m actually really [expletive].”

Cotti explains that she had recently matched with a man on Hinge and initially felt optimistic about the connection.

“I matched with this guy on Hinge,” she says. “He’s really chatty, funny, playful.”

According to Cotti, the conversation progressed quickly. The man asked for her phone number, and the two had plans to go out the following night.

“We were gonna go out tomorrow night, right?” she says.

At one point, she says, the man texted her his Instagram handle. “He texted me, ‘Hey, here’s my Instagram, creep if you want to,’” Cotti recalls.

She says she looked him up, noticed his account was private, and sent a follow request. That’s when he did something she didn’t expect.

“I go back to Hinge,” she says, “and he unmatched me.”

At first, Cotti says she tried to rationalize it. “I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird. Maybe because he already has my number,’” she explains.

Then She Checks Instagram Again

“I’m like, ‘I’m gonna see if he accepted my follow request,’” she says. “Blocked on Instagram.”

Cotti says the sudden unmatching and block left her flabbergasted. “How is that supposed to make me feel?” she asks.

She acknowledges that the simplest explanation may be that he just wasn’t interested, but says the way it unfolded wasn’t right. “I’m like, ‘Did he look at my Instagram and think I was ugly?’” she wonders.

Cotti becomes more emotional as she talks about dating in general in this day and age.

“I am really having a hard time with dating,” she says. “And I don’t know how to make that not about me, because that really hurt my feelings.”

She ends the video sounding exhausted and discouraged. “I just don’t understand these freaking men,” she says. “I am so over this. I don’t want to be doing this.”

While she acknowledges that dating apps are often how people meet now, she questions the emotional toll.

“I know this is how you find people,” Cotti says. “But at what cost?”

In the comments section, viewers mostly discussed Hinge and dating apps in general.

“I truly believe the men you meet on the apps are people you would never cross paths with in the real world. Most of the men left on there are bizarre,” stated one user. “Free yourself from the apps.”

“Babe you have to change your mindset – the things they do are ALWAYS ABOUT THEM AND NOT YOU,” another chimed in. “What he did was a blessing, he eliminated himself and did you a favor to move forward in your journey. Think in a way that favors you.”

“They do this literally just to upset you,” claimed a third.

Do Dating Apps Actually Produce Marriages?

According to the Pew Research Center, chances for marriage—the most popular choice for long-term commitment—are slim if you’re on a dating app.

Their 2022 survey found that 52% of U.S. adults who have never been married reported using a dating app, compared to just 16% of married respondents.

Elinor Greenberg, Ph.D., wrote about the issue for Psychology Today, saying dating apps lead to mismatches because people end up on dates with someone they never would’ve gone out with if they first met them in person.

Her advice is to prioritize socializing and choosing someone you have a mutual attraction and understanding with before taking things further.

@angiecotti I know I need to put myself out there but good lord I already want to delete it!!!!!! #datinginyour20s #hinge #apps ♬ original sound – angiecotti

The Mary Sue has reached out to Hinge and Cotti via email.

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Dating someone you’ve never met can feel like a gamble, especially when you don’t share mutual friends or have any way to vet them beyond an app profile. It gets even more stressful when you don’t really know what they look like, and they have no online presence.

For one Philadelphia woman, it put her in a dilemma. In a recent TikTok video, she asked viewers whether it was worth going on a date with a man she matched with on Hinge, even though she couldn’t find a single clear photo of him anywhere online.

TikTok creator Molly (@molly.dicarlo) shared the situation in a video that has pulled in more than 237,300 views.

‘I Can’t Find Any Pictures Of Him’

Molly starts the video by explaining that she doesn’t usually talk nor date her Hinge matches.

“I usually never talk to the people that I match with on Hinge,” she says. “I play it more like hot or not.”

That changed when one man caught her attention through a prompt.

“He had his prompt as, ‘You should not go out with me if you’re a Yankees fan,’” she says. “And I slid up and said, ‘Don’t worry.’”

The conversation continued, and eventually the two moved to texting. That’s when Molly realized she didn’t actually know what he looked like.

“His Hinge profile is a picture of him, he looks cute,” she says. “And then there’s a picture of him as a child, and then there’s like five pictures of fish.”

When she asked for his Instagram, he told her he didn’t really post. The account he shared had zero photos. “I even go on the tagged pictures, there’s nothing there,” she says.

Molly then escalated her search.“I looked him up on LinkedIn,” she says. “I searched his name on Google. Can’t find any pictures of him.”

Eventually, she decided to ask directly.

“I just straight up tell him, ‘I have no idea what you look like. Can you send me a picture of yourself?’” she says.

He Did Send a Photo but It Only Raised More Questions

“He looks exactly like Bryce Harper,” she says. “Like, to the point that I put their pictures side by side.”

She says her roommate agreed, even without knowing who Bryce Harper is. The man, she adds, was thrilled by the comparison. That reaction made her skeptical.

“If you’ve never gotten that before, then this is not what you look like,” she says.

That’s when another detail clicked. “I realize every picture that I do have of him, he’s wearing a hat,” she says.

Molly admits her mind immediately went to one possibility. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God, he’s balding,’” she says.

When she asked him directly, he responded, “No, not yet.” Despite her doubts, he still wanted to meet.

“I don’t want to show up and then be like, ‘Absolutely not,’” she says. “I have no idea what this guy looks like.”

In the comments, viewers were divided on whether Molly should take the risk.

“If MTV didn’t cancel Catfish you would be on it,” one person joked.

“There’s this brand new thing—it’s called FaceTime,” another said.

Others questioned what initially drew her in. “I can’t get past the part where that’s what got your attention,” one commenter wrote.

Some encouraged her to give it a chance. “Go on a date. If he ain’t your type, then you thank him and move on,” one person wrote. “If you get along talking/texting you should have a fun date regardless of how he looks.”

She Ends Up Going On The Hinge Date

In follow-up videos, including clips filmed during the date itself, Molly revealed that things didn’t go as hoped.

She says that when she got into his car, it smelled like marijuana, which immediately put her off. Later, during the date, she noticed him spending an unusually long time in the bathroom, long enough for her to fully review the restaurant’s strawberry cider and nachos.

Based on her updates, the chemistry never clicked, and the date fizzled out quickly.

How To Stay Safe While Online Dating

Online dating can be fun, but experts say it’s important to balance curiosity with caution. According to The Guardian, specialists recommend taking time to build trust before meeting in person and paying attention to how someone communicates early on. If something feels off, that feeling matters.

They also warn against rushing conversations on dating apps too quickly. Scammers often try to move chats to private platforms to avoid detection, so staying within app messaging can offer an extra layer of security.

Before meeting someone, it helps to talk the situation through with a friend. An outside perspective can catch red flags that are easy to miss when you’re emotionally invested.

@molly.dicarlo ?? #hinge #dilemma #phillies #dating ♬ original sound – Molly DiCarlo

As for first dates, experts suggest meeting in public places, sharing your plans with someone you trust, and having your own way home. If a date feels uncomfortable or unsafe, leaving is always an option.

The Mary Sue has reached out to Molly for additional comment.

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Someone ghosting you when you genuinely think things are going well feels like a bit of a gut punch.

Most of the time, people sit with the hurt, replay the date in their head a few times, and eventually let it fade. The unanswered questions sting, but most of the time that’s where they remain.

But every once in a while, people want to know. That’s what one woman on TikTok did; she decided to check back in with a Hinge date months after he quietly disappeared.

TikTok creator Rachel (@rachel.r.irl) shared the storytime video that’s since racked up over 176,200 views, explaining why she reached out to her former Hinge match, and how his response ended up hitting much deeper than she expected.

What Was the Ghoster’s Response?

Rachel explains that the two matched on Hinge and talked for a while before meeting up. He lived about two hours away, which already added some friction, but when they finally saw each other in person, she felt like the date itself went well.

“We had a good day. We had a good date,” she says, adding that things seemed fine at the time.

Afterward, though, something shifted and communication slowed until it stopped altogether.

Rachel says she let it fizzle out, even though she admits she was genuinely interested. “This is some guy I was like, ‘Oh, he’s hot, he’s established,’” she says. “I liked this guy.”

Still, she didn’t push at the time. Months passed, and then one night, she decided to get some answers.

“I never got clarity,” she says. “So tonight… I just sent him a voice message.”

In that message, Rachel says she kept things respectful. She checked in, mentioned that she thought they’d had a fun time, and asked what the disconnect was. She made it clear there were no hard feelings and framed it as wanting feedback for her own growth.

What she got back wasn’t cruel, or even harsh. He told her the truth, as he saw it: The distance felt like too much. On paper, it was a reasonable explanation, but in practice, it still hurt.

“I think it triggered my inner child in a way that was like, somebody didn’t choose me,” Rachel says, tearing up on camera. “Like I wasn’t worthy enough for a long distance.”

She admits she appreciated the honesty. At the same time, hearing that she wasn’t worth the effort reopened wounds she didn’t realize were still there.

“It was very vulnerable,” she says. “The vulnerability of asking somebody like, ‘Hey, what happened?’ And then them answering, and it’s just like, it just wasn’t worth it.”

Why Ghosting Hits So Hard

Ghosting has become common enough that most people have either experienced it or done it themselves. Still, that doesn’t make it easier to deal with when it happens.

Part of what makes ghosting so painful isn’t just rejection, it’s the lack of context. When someone disappears without explanation, your brain fills in the gaps. And those guesses are rarely generous.

Rachel’s experience shows the double-edged sword of seeking clarity. Sometimes silence lets you preserve your dignity. Other times, an answer, no matter how polite, lands like confirmation of a fear you already had.

In her case, the explanation wasn’t cruel. But it still translated emotionally as, “You weren’t chosen.”

That reaction, she says, surprised her. “I feel better talking it out,” she admits. “But it triggered me.”

The comments on Rachel’s video quickly turned into a debate about whether asking for closure is ever worth it.

“Never ask a man why he didn’t want you… the fact he doesn’t want you is all you need to know,” one person wrote.

Another warned against reopening the wound: “As much as it would be nice to get date feedback, you shouldn’t ask. You’ll throw yourself into a neediness spiral for someone who didn’t respect you enough to say after the date, ‘I had a great time but I don’t think the distance will work.’ You dodged a bullet girl, be happy.”

@rachel.r.irl Oops crying on camera… this guy (kinda) ghosted me after our first date and I thought things went well but his response was so kind but also so hurtful to my inner child… she felt like so not enough in that moment but thanks for chatting it out with me tikytoky #dating #ghosted #onlinedating #innerchild #INFJ ♬ original sound – rachelirl

Others took a more romantic stance. “He just wasn’t interested. A man who’s truly interested will make distance work,” one commenter said. “My ex saved up money to travel 9 time zones to take me on a first date. We were together for almost 10 years.”

Some felt the explanation was softened. “He lied to you. The chemistry wasn’t there. He was trying to be nice,” another person wrote. “When it’s right you will know. It will feel seamless.”

The Mary Sue has reached out to Rachel via TikTok direct messages for comment.

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