I (31m) matched with a woman (also 31) on hinge in mid-October. She recognized me from a summer camp we both used to work at in undergrad. Seemed like we hit it off, first impression was awesome, she seemed to be having fun messaging on the app, making jokes, messaging multiple times daily, etc
I asked her out relatively quickly (within a week) but she was going away for work for the next two weeks. wasn’t a problem for me, we talked about doing something when she was back and continued to chat while she was away. when she came back is when I started to feel like something was off, stopped hearing from her as much (as in texting every couple of days) and she postponed plans a few times. again, no biggie for me, I was happy to be patient. I told her there was no rush or pressure, asked her if she was having fun, made her a playlist to try and show my interest. she gave clear affirmative responses to all of that (yes she was having fun, yes she still wanted to go on a date, etc).
fast forward it’s been about 6 weeks since we first matched, the slow messaging has continued but she’s also continued affirming she wants to keep going when I check. aside from a walk we went on for ~1 hour we haven’t spent time together in person though. she breaks the news that she’s super busy with work and can’t hangout at all for at least the next month (going into jan 2026). she also says she’s worried about this dragging on and turning into a bad experience for me. I try to assure her that while I’d like spend time with her, and am sad that can’t happen for another month, that I’m still game as long as she thinks she might like me and might want to date me if we get to know each other better. that doesn’t really work though and she ended it, on the basis that she’s just too busy with work (she never said one way or another what she thinks or feels about me specifically).
so my question is, should I just drop this and move on or should I try approaching this some other way? ultimately she was clear she’s not in a position to date but I can’t shake the feeling there was something there, and if I’d done something differently perhaps it would’ve worked out. if I’m honest her framing that her work was just crazy busy came out of nowhere and it felt like an avoidant emotional defence tactic to get out of it
TL:DR – matched with a woman on a dating app, seemed to be going great but she started to fade away and then ended it on what seemed like an avoidant defensive pretext. wondering if I should just drop it and move on or try something else