What Are The Rules for Dating in 2025?

As a single girlie, my social media feeds are inundated with influencers trying to tell me how to date. A lot of them are trying to sell me some sort of “better” dating app or consulting service to perfect my profile. But then there’s a cohort that are discussing — in good faith — how we as women should be approaching dating in this modern age. Accounts like We Met at Acme have a literal list of rules for women to keep in mind when dating in the era of apps. And one of my favorite influencers, Tinx, just had a podcast episode on her own rules for dating in 2025 that I listened to the other day. 

I personally love these particular creators (great follows, btw), but what I’ve noticed is that lately, my feed has started to feel like it’s being poisoned by other, less open-minded accounts who are 1. Shouting from the rooftops that both men and dating are trash, and 2. Simultaneously trying to give you explicit instructions on how to navigate the supposed cesspool. I understand that I must be subconsciously engaging with enough dating related content to make IG or TT believe this might be what I want to hear. But the reality is that I don’t. And it’s starting to get on my nerves. 

I’ve talked a little about how I feel that approaching dating (or anything tbh) with such a decidedly negative attitude is a recipe for failure — if you want a separate post on that lmk in the comments. But in the midst of so many people trying to tell us how to navigate and even how to feel about our personal lives, I want to take it one step further:

No one can write the rules for your life other than you. 

I understand it might be helpful to seek out specific standards — especially in the age of dating apps — so that you can more easily navigate the ups and downs of dating in 2025. But at the end of the day the only “rules” that matter are the ones that make you feel happy and secure in your own personal life. To that end, I wrote my own list of dating GUIDELINES that I hope will help some of you who like to bitch to me over martinis (ilysm xx) think about the broken system that is modern courtship. 

Here we go: 

1. It doesn’t matter how you meet your person only that you meet them
   • This one is honestly for me more than anyone. I’d never really delved too deeply into dating apps before my breakup last year, and once I started trying to be more intentional I realized that I had a subconscious craving for a great story about how I met my partner. A cute little narrative that somehow epitomized our relationship in that one single interaction (a meet cute, if you will). 
   • For example, I met my ex at a bar when I was avoiding a class A Creeper. I noticed his group on the periphery of my friends when the Creeper once again found me in the crowd and I just beelined for him. My ex loved this story, joking that he must give off “non-threatening” vibes. But the joke’s on him because he did. He made me feel safe that night and throughout our entire relationship. And I loved how that single story represented so much about our time together. Once I started using dating apps to meet people, I realized I sort of hated that if I met my person this way it would mean we’d never have a story like that. 
   • But it doesn’t matter. Really. All those meet cutes show us is a snapshot into the early elements of our individuality that drew us to our person. And those things show up on the first date, third date, and (hopefully) for the rest of our lives. So I’m telling you — and myself — to let go of any idealized version of how you might wish to meet your person. Because at the end of the day the only thing that matters is that you find them and hold onto them. 

2. It doesn’t matter who messages first on an app
   • Following on from the above, I’m a little tired of the nit-picky rules within dating apps about how things are “supposed” to go. The man is supposed to message first. The man is supposed to ask a question every message. The man is supposed to initiate the first in-person meetup. I understand that there are norms (that are shifting) about how women still want to feel pursued and valued, but I fear that by using every single interaction on an app to represent this larger whole we’re losing the plot. And depriving ourselves of opportunities. 
   • All of the “rules” I listed are basically proxies to demonstrate that a man is interested. But if he’s showing his interest in other ways, it’s really ok to message him back even if his last missive didn’t include a direct question. Maybe his answer was meaty enough that it precipitates a new direction in the conversation anyway! Maybe he was actually furthering the conversation, just not with a run-of-the-mill interview-style question. Allow a little room for both of you to breathe and genuinely exist rather than getting caught up in the tiny details like punctuation or exactly how many volleys it takes him to ask you out (or for you to playfully suggest that his last question would be easier to answer over drinks). 

3. Allow human beings to be human
   • This brings me to my next, and I believe crucial, point — we’re all human beings here, not robots. So let us breathe and be ourselves. How are you supposed to know if a man vibes with your own unique qualities if you’re not letting him show his own? By expecting men to follow a prescriptive list of actions in the early stages of dating, what we’re doing is actually wasting our own time. We’re not all looking for the same things! So we’re not all going to be drawn in by the exact same behaviors. 
   • For example, I met a guy (in person, gasp) who asked me out and we had a great first date. We texted the day after and I was surprised that he didn’t make a move to plan our next date. I thought maybe he wasn’t interested after all. Then four days later (!!!) he sent me an adorable message playfully prodding me about when we were going to go out again. Did he not realize I was interested? Who knows, but we went out again (and again) and it became clear that this guy just communicated a little differently than I was used to, but was still being very intentional in his pursuit. If I’d written him off after that first date or scolded him for not following the proper timing protocol by immediately asking for a second date, I would have lost out on the opportunity to get to know someone great. 
   • Men need reassurance too sometimes, and that’s ok! Maybe he’s new to dating apps, like me, and hasn’t figured out all the norms yet. If you like him and he’s showing basic respect (ok I lied, there is one explicit rule I’ll keep and it’s this one), then you can give him the benefit of the doubt. 

4. Don’t “let them” — but DO meet them where they are
   • I love how Mel Robbins’ new book The Let Them Theory has taken the world by storm. I’ll admit that I haven’t read it in full yet, but the basic premise that relinquishing control over others’ actions will set you free is one that I think we all — especially women — should take to heart. 
   • That being said, when it comes to dating, I fear that this runs a major risk of being taken too far and becoming the next “if he wanted to he would” that we throw around without nuance or context. My concern with mantras like this is that they allow people to take one soundbite (guilty!) and apply it unilaterally. In the case of dating, I’m already seeing people use it to justify completely abdicating responsibility over the progress of their relationships. But relationships are made up of two people! It’s unreasonable, and frankly unfair, to expect 100% of the effort in early courtship to come from a single half of the whole. Want to feel pursued as a woman? So do I! But that’s not the same as throwing your hands up and saying, welp, if he likes me after a few hours in my company then he should be able to read my mind and behave exactly as I want him to. 
   • So instead of just passively “letting them”, I suggest we instead meet them wherever they are. If he’s not really doing much other than making a passive effort, feel free to let him fall by the wayside. But if he’s showing genuine interest and pursuit (and respect, see above), then you should be freely reciprocating that effort to see if the two of you might really have something. Not watching and analyzing his every move with a microscope to identify any tiny slip up that gives you an excuse to throw up your hands and give up (no giving up in 2025!)

5. When you sleep with someone legit doesn’t matter
   • I’m borderline obsessed with Tinx’s box theory here, even if I don’t think it represents 100% of the picture, I do think that taken with the right context it should allow you take back some of the control in your dating life.
     • The theory basically states that most straight men know almost immediately after they meet a woman whether they would be interested in pursuing a relationship with them or not. And if not, they’re likely still down to hookup with the woman, but no amount of physical intimacy or time together is going to change their basic calculus of whether they view the woman as a potential partner or not. 
     • This theory is freeing because it basically shows that if you sleep with a guy on the first date, it doesn’t matter because if he likes you in “that” way he will still be interested. And if he doesn’t then it won’t change anything. So you can have sex with anyone you want at any point and feel free to focus instead on who YOU want to be in a relationship with. 
     • I understand why it’s a little controversial too — it appears at first glance to put too much of the control in the man’s hands. But I disagree. Here I actually will invoke Mel Robbins and say just “let them”…they are responsible for their own feelings and you are responsible for your own. And by freeing yourself from the pressure of “making” a man like you, you give all that mindshare back to yourself to decide if you genuinely like him yourself. 
   • All of this being said, I also think it’s ok to acknowledge that in general, men and women do fall for someone differently. For women, having sex with someone literally releases oxytocin, meaning our body is chemically telling us to fall for the person we just had sex with. Men’s bodies don’t do this, so it’s fair to say that when deciding when you’re ready to sleep with someone you might want to consider what feelings they’re reciprocating back to you outside of the bedroom. If you don’t care, that’s cool too! But don’t set yourself up for heartbreak by assuming that sex means the exact same thing you as it does to the person you’re sharing a bed with. 

6. Ghosting is out, fizzling is in
   • In the notorious Sex and the City episode where Berger breaks up with Carrie via a post-it note, she says “I remember when breaking up over the phone was considered bad form.” Oh how far we’ve fallen…

• Nowadays, breaking up over the phone is likely something we’d consider pretty respectful, especially in the early dating stages where ending things via text is seen as totally acceptable. That being said, I do think we can all agree that ghosting is shitty. And even if it somehow feels “kinder” than directly rejecting someone, the truth is the uncertainty that plants in someone’s brain is a million times worse. 
• That being said, I’ve gotten into arguments with friends on what’s actually considered ghosting, which has led me to my new word, fizzling. In my opinion, ghosting can only occur when one party has shown interest in continuing your relationship or communication, and the other party simply disappears. I don’t think it counts as ghosting if neither party ever texts after an early date. Or if communication gradually drifts apart over time and neither party makes any sort of effort to plan something or pull back in (or get clarity! If you feel the fizzle but it’s not mutual, it’s totally fair to just ask someone outright what they’re feeling). 
• We’re so eager to feel “wronged” in dating these days that I think we’re labeling too much as ghosting and not enough as just welp ::shrug:: we didn’t really vibe, oh well. This is where I think the work we do to remove our egos from the equation will pay dividends. Because of course it’d be nice if everyone liked us, but the truth is it only matters if the people we actually like like us back. 

7. Two great people don’t always make a great relationship, and that’s ok
   • Continuing to try to take our egos out of the equation, it’s important to remind ourselves that just because someone’s great doesn’t mean that they’re great for us. Which translates more importantly to the fact that YOU ARE GREAT doesn’t mean that everyone is going to like you. And that’s ok. 
   • If someone doesn’t like you in all your greatness, or doesn’t appreciate your uniqueness, then they are not your person. Period. I’m begging you to accept that and find the person that’s going to worship the ground you walk on. Let’s stop doing contortions to try to cram one moderately decent human into a shape that might be acceptable enough that we could maybe fit together (we call this settling, please don’t do it). 
   • Let go of “do they like me” and focus on if they make you feel like your favorite version of yourself. Do they draw out the parts of you that you like most — or even perhaps hide from the world because you feel a little self-protective? Or do they squash those quirks down and try to subtly mold you into someone else? What do they do to your nervous system…do you feel anticipatory butterflies when you see their messages, or anxious pulses in your gut because you worry you won’t hear from them again for hours or days after you reply? These are the questions you should be asking yourself, not agonizing over response time or text syntax. 

8. No more scarcity mindset
   • The internet is full of articles and even books claiming that there are simply not enough eligible men for all of the single women looking to claim them. Honestly, I hesitated to even link anything above because I don’t know if reading any of that stuff is going to help anyone, but hey it’s out there and every woman I know is talking about it anyway. But really, truly, I think that these types of conversations are the things that are actually making dating feel like such a cesspool. Not the candidates themselves. 
   • In fact, I’ll go a step further and say that this kind of rhetoric is designed — consciously or not — to pit women against each other and make us feel like we’re in competition with one another. Sound familiar? Yeah, because it’s the basis of undermining almost every pillar of feminism in history. So even if this is statistically true, dwelling on it is not going to serve you or change the game. 
   • You are not in competition with other women for the same man, because the same man is not going to vibe with all other women in the same way. And approaching every interaction as a date-to-the-death match is probably not going to draw men to you like a moth to a flame. As humans we all respond to energies, and the negative vibes of criticizing or putting down other women is not a turn on for men or women alike. 

9. Your mindset is everything
   • On that note, your own energy and mindset are the most critical element of dating that you have total control over. I can’t describe to you how much I abhor comments like “you’ll find him when you’re least expecting it” etc etc, because there’s nothing wrong with actively looking. And it diminishes how much luck and timing need to align for you to find your person. BUT if you go into every life experience desperate to find your partner, or alternately jaded and convinced you never will, it’s much less likely that you’ll be poised to grab on when the moment finally arrives. 
   • When I started my company, everyone told me that being a founder was a unique combination of luck and skill. After a few years at the helm, I decided that everyone was dead wrong. Foundational skill was important, but there was so much you learned on the job. And luck was fleeting. To me, the most important skill was resilience — i.e. did you have the mindset to keep going after each inevitable failure or setback so that when that elusive lady luck did arrive, you were ready to jump on the opportunity? 
   • Building a startup and finding a life partner certainly aren’t the same thing, but I think the general thesis I’m presenting here is. Let yourself be bummed when a guy you were excited about doesn’t work out (or even ghosts, ugh I’m sorry if he does), but then wake up and let yourself feel excited about whoever is around the corner. You have the power to walk into every date excited about what it could be — a second date or a story for your girlfriends. You can’t make yourself like a guy (or if you can, please don’t!), but you can make sure that you remove any chips on your shoulder before you get started. 

10. What you need from a man you’re dating is whatever it takes to make you feel comfortable and excited
    • This is my most critical point, and the reason why I generally shy away from any talk of rules or lists when it comes to dating. Only you can say what’s a dealbreaker for yourself. And while it can be tempting to reach for guidance — or guidelines, or rules — that list is going to be slightly different for every person out there. 

So take context — and humanity — into account as you keep all of the above in mind. And lmk if you liked this kind of post 🙂 And honestly? If you have a specific question or situation you want to unpack…comment or reply and maybe I’ll break it down so we can dig into the nuance to find what’s really important.