Just before my first date with Man #7, I decided to change my hair into braids

I tried not to think about the sudden upswing of male attention I would get when my hair was long and straight. I hated myself for questioning whether I should have kept my hair long for the MOY to make myself more “easily digestible” so that men, black or otherwise, would see me as a viable option.

“All the terrible stuff that happens outside the platform also happens within the platform,” she says, referencing the racial discrimination that often plays out on dating apps. “People come with expectations of what women of colour are ‘supposed’ to act like. We don’t get the same blank slate.” Antwi also helped me realize that a lot of the anxiety I feel is characteristic of what she calls “mission-based dating,” thinking of dating as a job or chore.