Twice now I’ve been ghosted when things were going really well & it’s discouraging

Hi 25F here. I’m feeling pretty down and not optimistic, especially when the response I get from people I talk to is “yeah dating sucks nowadays”

I can be a little shy over text at first, because I get nervous talking to new people in general, so it can take me a bit to open up. However, I had a couple of matches on Hinge where it was really easy to talk to the guy I was talking to.

First one, I matched with him (25M) a couple of weeks before Christmas. I really didn’t know what to think of him at first when we were talking, and then he just asked for some more pics of me, so I sent them to him, and he made a joke about my red flag being the soccer team I like based on my pics, and I always find that as an easy way to get me to talk. We started talking about that, then we talked on the phone, and it felt so easy to talk about anything and just joke around. We had multiple phone conversations, and I felt like there was a great connection there. We decided to meet up one night, so I drove out to where he lives and we just drove my car around then parked it somewhere where we hung out for a bit. He said he was nervous because he did like really me, and we said we would make plans when we both got back into town after visiting our families for the holidays. Well after that, he barely even texted me for the next few days, and even when he did message me, his tone was very cold and weird. Then on Christmas Day, I realized that he had deleted me off social media and didn’t say anything. Yeah, that hurt. I was really annoyed by that, especially after he had gone on about how much he liked me.

So onto the next guy (28M), matched with him at the beginning of the month and hit it off instantly because he noticed my one soccer jersey in my profile and commented on it, so we were able to talk easily from the beginning. It was even easier to connect with this guy, because we coincidentally grew up in the same state and same area as each other and relocated to the same current city. Both of us had also had each gotten out of an unhealthy relationship within the past year and were able to be open about those and the boundaries we each have now because of our pasts, which I felt like there could have been some potential there based on that. One green flag I saw from the beginning was that he did admit he was trying to hang out & sleep together right away, but I didn’t get the hint at first, so he got to know me better which he said he liked and appreciated more. Both of us mentioned wanting stability which was also really reassuring to me. It was just really hard to hang out at first, because he is in med school and had been really busy the past few weeks. Last week he had mentioned how he wanted to hangout over the weekend and asked me about my plans, so I told him I was free. He never fully suggested anything and we just kept talking about the one thing I knew I was doing because he wanted to check that out at some point. Saturday comes and I asked him subtly about hanging out that night, but he had a family call that came up and suggested maybe on Sunday. I told him yes and just to let me know, and I never heard from him about it. I also haven’t heard from him at all since and usually at this point I would have heard that he’s been busy with school, so I’ll consider myself ghosted…. Again.

These situation that have happened just have made dating, especially on the app discouraging, because those are the two matches I felt most connected with, and both guys had said they did really enjoy talking to me. I’ve had plenty of other matches, but they haven’t gone anywhere. I also just haven’t been too impressed with what I’ve seen on Hinge, so I’m not sure what else to do. I don’t feel optimistic about dating if I’m just gonna keep getting ghosted by guys I’ve connected really well with.