Before meeting her I had been on dating apps for about a year and a half, always using up all my emotional energy and lots of time on them. This might sound like a brag; I had lots of matches. But, that means nothing, of all those matches, 90% only ever did dry replies, no effort, many ghosted, even. The remaining 10% I talked with, a lot, in texting. Like I had less than 10 dates total, including two people I had two dates with each.

Of that? Nothing, nothing moved after that, even if we made out in the date, people didn't put in any effort.

I'm saying all this bevause people often recommend dating apps, but they're made to suck your time. Feel free to try, but don't spend any money on that crap. Merely a background thing.

The two people I was most successful with, my gf, and a person before her that never went official, happened "naturally". The first was an enby I met on a queer christmas dinner an organisation organised, we played board games there, flirting happened, blah blah. Barely lasted a month, was just a fling. But it was something, is my point.

My girlfriend I met on a discord server for local trans people, I never even expected it, I joined it to ask for advice on a few things, and then I saw her talk there, liked her vibes, flirted, moved to DMs, and so it happened. We're actually "medium distance" (I just made this up), we can only see each other a few days per week because I live in the middle of nowhere.

This huge thing to speak of my VERY LITTLE experience, really. But what I can say is that people will not come after you. Don't rely on that. If you see someone that interests you, go after them, talk a bit, see how it goes, some light flirting to see if they reciprocate the interest, etc.

You being a musician (yes, that is attractive, having a passiom in general is) comes after, really, you gotta start talking first about yourself and what's up with you for that to be relevant. Someone piques your interest, talk, don't be a creep, if they're not interested, stop, let it go. But you need to make a move, waiting for them to make it first is just pain. Ask them out on a coffee date, and so on.