Host or Travel is hitting the road again, and this time we're going harder, hotter, and a whole lot further. After Madrid served coño, Rio shook its bunda, Malta made magic, we asked ourselves: where to next?

The answer? A whole new season and seven new cities for your viewing and travel-planning pleasure...

The Gayborhood is going global

Before we get into the lineup, a little behind-the-curtain moment. We pulled our own in-app data to see how the community is moving around the world in 2026, and a few things jumped out:

• Paris, Rio, New York, Bangkok, São Paulo, and Berlin are the most-traveled cities among Grindr users worldwide.
• Right Now — our feature for users looking to meet up instantly — is most popular in Taiwan, the Philippines, Lima, Buenos Aires, and Medellín.
• Manila, Taipei, and Buenos Aires lead the world for late-night chats, while San Salvador, Colombo, and Kathmandu light up at sunrise.

For Season 3, we’re crossing borders across seven iconic cities with episodes airing. Here's where we're touching down: 

Sydney

We’re heading down under for harbor views, Bondi bodies, and a nightlife that refuses to call it quits. Think cheeky trims at the Naked Barber, boat parties that blur into sunrise, and Gayborhoods stretching from Darlinghurst to Newtown. Sydney doesn’t just show up - it shows off.

Austin

Keep Austin weird. Keep Austin horny. Texas’s bluest dot is serving honky-tonk drag, comedy, and BBQ so good it might ruin your dignity. Cowboys, dive bars, and a whole lot of “yeehaw.” Giddy up.

Puerto Vallarta

PV isn’t just a destination - it’s a rite of passage. Drag brunch? Mandatory. Rooftop dancers? Obviously. Pool parties at the Tryst Hotel? Pack accordingly. Zona Romántica goes all night (and then some). It’s paradise… with zero interest in behaving.

Paris

Oui, oui. We're going to gay Paris, but not just to visit the Eiffel Tower! The Marais is calling, the wine is flowing, and the flirting is dangerously effective. Museums by day, mischief by night, and just enough romance to make you text someone you shouldn’t.

Manila

Underrated? Not for long. Manila’s gay nightlife scene is loud, proud, and impossible to keep up with - in the best way. Karaoke marathons, food that changes your standards forever, and energy that doesn’t dip until well past sunrise. Consider this your wake-up call.

Lisbon

Sun-soaked, slow-burning, and effortlessly sexy. Start with pastéis de nata, drift into Príncipe Real, and end with a golden-hour Tagus view that feels a little too romantic. Don’t be surprised if you “accidentally” extend your stay.

Miami

Saving the sweatiest for last. South Beach rooftops, Wynwood's queer art scene, and pool parties that turn into after-parties that turn into "where am I" parties. Miami doesn't do subtle, and neither do we.

So… Host or Travel?

New episodes drop Tuesdays at 10 AM PST in the Grindr App and our YouTube channel.

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We gays are nothing without our Mothers.

Whether in the traditional sense (as in my own mother, who is fabulously supportive and definitely reading this — hi mom!), the found family sense, or the parasocial sense offered by a fabulous, older woman/icon, our mothers shape us. It is through our mothers that we come to understand glamour and thereby life itself. They offer formative examples of what care and love look like in action, and for that we must be eternally grateful.

In honor of Mother’s Day, and to commemorate mothers everywhere, I’ve compiled a list of famous mothers I would come out to, were I in such a position to do so again. These mothers radiate warmth, safety, a loving embrace or otherwise some predisposition toward the community. Please note that this is markedly different from a typical mother list; Toni Collette in Hereditary will not be on this list despite being on my personal Mount Rushmore of onscreen mothers. And I am avoiding the obvious here because of course we would all come out to Love, Simon’s mom. 

Madonna (Confessions era)

There is of course never a bad time to come out to Madonna, the Material Girl has always stood with us. But as we’re experiencing anew with her oh so hotly anticipated Confessions II (did somebody say Exxxclusive Grindr Picture Disc Vinyl?!), M has never loved her gays more! Some might say she makes us Feel So Free… 

Joyce Summers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Given how cool she is with her daughter being the savior of the universe, all things considered, a gay kid feels like light work. Plus, any connection to Sarah Michelle Gellar automatically justifies inclusion here.

Sarah Michelle Gellar

Speaking of which. 

Meredith Marks, The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City

Most of RHOSLC season 2 is predicated on Jen Shah’s routine defrauding of the elderly. Let us not forget, though, that Meredith spent the beginning of that season taking Jen to task for liking homophobic tweets (remember when likes were public?) about her gay son Brooks. Later that season, Meredith is accused of calling the Feds on Jen, which she may or may not have done, but regardless karma is a funny little thing.

Sue Ann “Ma” Ellington, Ma

Hear me out. Yes, the way Ma treats her daughter is abominable. She is manic and does not exist in reality. But this is not a list of upstanding mothers! This is a list of mothers I would come out to, and those same traits that make her such a wretched actual mother also apply to most gay people worth knowing. Just imagine, for a moment, queening out with her… I rest my case.

Janet, The Lady Starfish That Pretended to Be Patrick’s Mom On That One SpongeBob Episode

Janet does not seem to be an actual mother, but she clearly wants to be and would be really honored that I took the time and energy to open up to her. Additionally, that fuck ass purple wig on her head is DRAG.

Cirie Fields, Survivor

Not that I would need to, given her preternatural ability to know everyone’s secrets before they inevitably tell her. But she would be really nice about it, right before turning around and telling RizGod and Ozzy.

Stacy’s Mom, “Stacy’s Mom”

She’d just be relieved I wasn’t trying to f*ck her. Ideally she would let me play around in her closet.

Lisa Todd Wexley, And Just Like That…

This diva!!!! I miss her every day.

Norma Desmond, in any form but especially as portrayed by Glenn Close, Sunset Boulevard

Grandiose divas, especially those with tenuous grips on reality, are innately safe spaces. 

Beverly Sutphin, Serial Mom

Not only would she be accepting, she would also find out the names, addresses, and social security numbers of every person who has ever called me a f-slur, and whatever happens next is none of my business.

The Theoretical Version of Charli xcx That Has Children, “I think about it all the time”

She’s a radiant mother.

Alicia Carmody, The Real Housewives of Rhode Island

Honestly, any of the mothers of the bunch, but mainly I just want to know what insane sequence of words never before conceived in the English language  would follow from Alicia. 

Gwyneth Paltrow

Goop Kitchen is a pillar of the community, and her daughter is literally named Apple.

Joan Crawford but specifically the Mommie Dearest version

Same diva logic as Norma, and I would be right next to her, bullying Christina for putting that dress on a wire hanger. As well as for being a shit actress.

Ms. Tina Knowles

I mean, come on now.

Jamie Lee Curtis when Lindsay Lohan is in her body,aky Friday

This came out in 2003 so it’s hard to say whether Tess (JLC’s character, apparently) would be pro-queer, but LiLo has always been for us.

“Your mom,” proverbially

This poor woman takes it from everyone, for every possible reason, and would therefore have no energy to be homophobic.

Laura Dern, in or out of any of her roles

Must I say more?

Mental health is not only about what's hard. It is also about what sustains you: the relationships that make you feel known, the moments of genuine pleasure, the sense of being at home in your own life. Mental Health Awareness Month is as much a celebration of that as it is a reckoning with its absence.

For LGBTQ+ people, the relationship with mental health has a particular depth to it. The process of understanding your own identity — often before anyone around you does — builds a kind of self-knowledge that runs deep. Queer communities have long cultivated their own forms of care, connection, and wisdom about what it takes to live fully. That is not incidental to mental health. It is mental health.

Knowing Yourself Is a Form of Well-being

There is something that happens when you come into your own identity — when you find the language for who you are, or walk into a space and finally feel you truly belong there. That experience of self-recognition is profoundly healthy. It is the foundation on which everything else is built: honest relationships, informed choices about your body, the capacity to ask for what you need.

Sexual health is part of that foundation. How we feel about our bodies, our desires, and our relationships shapes how we move through the world and how we take care of ourselves. When sexual health is approached with openness rather than shame, it becomes an expression of self-respect. Getting tested, knowing your status, understanding your options — these are acts of self-knowledge as much as they are clinical behaviors.

Community as a Mental Health Resource

One of the most distinctive aspects of LGBTQ+ life is the community that people build — often intentionally and chosen, rather than inherited. Found family, friendships forged around shared experience, spaces where you don't have to explain yourself: these are genuine mental health resources. Social connection is one of the strongest predictors of psychological well-being, and queer communities have been building it creatively for a long time.

The HIV epidemic is part of this story. Out of an enormous collective loss, queer communities built something remarkable: a grassroots culture of mutual care, frank conversation about bodies and health, and hard-won knowledge about what it takes to sustain each other. That inheritance lives on in peer health networks, community-led testing programs, and the conversations that happen in spaces — including digital spaces like Grindr — where people feel safe enough to be honest.

When Things Are Hard

None of this means that LGBTQ+ lives are without difficulty. Mental health challenges our communities face range from anxiety, depression, the particular exhaustion of navigating a world that doesn't always affirm you. These are very real issues, and deserve to be taken seriously rather than minimized. The same is true of the more specific challenges that can arise at the intersection of sexual health and mental health: the anxiety that surrounds HIV testing, the psychological weight of a diagnosis, and for some in the community, the complex emotional terrain of substance use.

Chemsex — the use of substances to facilitate or enhance sexual experiences — is something Grindr takes seriously as a mental health issue, not a moral one. It is often bound up with loneliness, the search for connection, and the barriers that can make sober intimacy feel difficult. That is why G4E launched Out in the Open, in partnership with You Are Loved, a UK peer-support organization working at the intersection of LGBTQ+ suicide prevention and drug misuse. The campaign brings together people with lived experience and frontline expertise — including Gareth Thomas and Paris Lees — to speak honestly about what drives chemsex and what real support looks like. The full series is available on Grindr Presents.

“U=U," or Undetectable = Untransmittable, is another example of health information that does psychological work alongside the clinical. When someone living with HIV learns that effective treatment means they cannot transmit the virus to a partner, something shifts beyond the medical fact. Stigma loses its grip a little. That shift matters — and it is one Grindr has worked to extend to millions of users in contexts where U=U awareness remains low.

Care That Fits Your Life

Good mental health support, like good sexual health support, works best when it meets people where they are, in the spaces they already trust. Grindr's in-app health tools are built on that principle: PrEP and DoxyPEP information, HIV self-testing prompts, U=U education, STI testing locators — present in a space where users already feel at ease, in a tone that informs rather than alarms.

G4E partners across more than 400 organizations to extend this further, running programs that treat sexual health and psychological well-being as inseparable. The goal is care that feels like care — not surveillance, not judgment, but genuine support for people living full and complex lives.

Still Here

Mental health belongs to everyone. The desire to feel well, to be known, to live with some degree of ease — these are universal. This Mental Health Awareness Month, Grindr celebrates the richness and resilience of LGBTQ+ lives, and the communities that have always known how to look after each other. We're proud to be part of that.

If you're looking for support — whether that's sexual health resources, mental health information, or just a place to start — explore our in-app health resources or connect with one of our global partners. You deserve care that sees all of you.

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It’s no secret that fashion is super gay. What’s worn casually by queers in West Hollywood or Fire Island, though, also ends up on straight folks as they take to runways and red carpets. How does that happen, and how long has it been happening? According to scholar Angelos Bollas, author of Fashioning Queerness: Straight Appropriation of Queer Fashion, trends often come from the margins and the freedom of queer culture makes the community more creative. But what recent trends actually have queer influence? Here’s a timeline that charts just how queer they are, and how far back that goes. 

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Brooches

Having some sparkle on the lapel is a queer classic, but was recently dubbed the “bro-brooch.” Everyone from Michael B. Jordan to Patrick Schwarzenegger has been pinning one on for the red carpet. But wearing a brooch used to be a way for gay men to find each other–in the 19th century, for example, you might wear a brooch with the face of Emperor Hadrian and his lover Antinous on it to secretly share your interest in other men. Men have worn brooches to note power and status throughout history, and gay men also wore brooches with flair. As jewelry historian Levi Higgs wrote in Out, “a bygone era's caricature of a gay person would absolutely be dripping in gaudy jewels, effeminate pinkie rings, campy brooches, and gold chains a la Liberace.” And as Bollas says, “We expect now to see businessmen having an eccentric accessory to be cool.” 

Ballet Flats‍

Though Jacob Elordi and Bad Bunny have been boosting the ballet flat, there have been gay men in ballet forever. Especially Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, which has featured male ballet dancers in drag since it began in 1974. Men have also been wearing opera pumps–slippers with bows–since Bridgerton-era England’s dandy years. And 2026 isn’t the first year of the ballet flat, either–check the 2017 Telfar runway, among others, not to mention Balenciaga’s S/S 2023 Leopold flat or Spanish brand Hereu’s version from the same year. The brand’s founders told GQ at the time that their style choices “are not so strict in terms of gender.” A ballet flat is, and has been, a powerful choice for showing old-school machismo the door. 

Oversized Suit‍

Worn by the likes of Justin Bieber and Kendrick Lamar, the oversized suit has queer roots, too. In the 1930s and 1940s, many men of color chose the “zoot suit” look in Harlem and LA. In the time of World War II rations, their white counterparts considered them “unpatriotic” for the amount of fabric they used, and there are many stories of men in zoot suits getting beaten up. When the suit was worn by women, known as pachucas, they queered the zoot suit, especially since women often weren’t allowed to wear pants in public. In the 1980s ballroom world, the oversized suit was “Executive Realness” personified, as Armani corporate chic became the order of the day in mainstream culture. 

‍Skinny Jeans‍

By the 1950s, skinny jeans swaggered onto the screen with Marlon Brando in The Wild One. Bursting with bikers in tight jeans and leather, the film inspired artists like Tom of Finland and Etienne. In the 1970s, the “clone” look of mustaches and tight jeans took over while glam rockstars like David Bowie served a hot androgynous vibe. When high school bullies said Hedi Slimane’s lean physique was “gay,” he was inspired by Bowie and musicians like him. “They looked the same and I wanted to do everything to be like them, and not hide myself in baggy clothes to avoid negative comments,” he said in 2015, according to i-D. That look stuck: he created a skinny jean for the Dior Homme runway in 2005.  Slimane’s runway led to an explosion of skinny jeans anywhere you’d look, a queer culture staple that became totally mainstream decades later.

‍Short Shorts‍

Prada, Dsquared, and Zegna all sent short shorts down recent spring/summer runways, not long after Paul Mescal and Harry Styles were snapped flashing serious thigh. But before that, queer culture knew what was up. After Stonewall, showing off your body became chic, and short shorts became a gay staple, according to the Museum at FIT. Straight men like tennis stars Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe adopted the look as well. Short shorts have actually been in and out of style for decades–there was even another wave of popularity in 2014. “As queer men and male-bodied folks, I think we're used to sort of being sexy for each other, right?,” poet Danez Smith told NPR in 2022. “The straight men are finally giving my sisters a little bit of eye candy, you know? It's just something a little sexy to whet their appetite.”

‍Halter Tops

That moment Timothée Chalamet showed up at the 2022 Venice Film Festival in a red Haider Ackermann halter top filled everyone’s Instagram feeds for like a week (or more). He was followed recently by Alexander Skarsgård, who wore a white halter top with a leather tie to the London premier of Pillion. But the backless wonders were also a staple of the 1970s gay scene, when showing off your body was key. Queer designers like JW Anderson and Ludovic de Saint Sernin have brought the look back many times over the last 15 years, moving away from gender stereotypes. For de Saint Sernin, including halters in his 2021 collection was about 2000s style icons like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton, as he told i-D: “I always felt like only they could wear halters, and as a man I couldn’t have access to it…When I started my own brand, I wanted to make sure to create a safe space where I could express that and have guys wear these looks influenced by the 2000s and feel confident.”

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And this is just a taste of some mainstream trends that have queer roots. Next time you take a look at a runway, you might even think twice about how it came together.

Honey Davenport was 22 and sipping on $5 frozen margaritas at a bar named Rawhide, in Chelsea, when they witnessed queer leather culture for the first time. David Alcocer was in his "baby gay" era, clutching a PSP, when he saw a Tom of Finland drawing. (Admiring art through a PlayStation Portable device, as all artists dream of.) Lady Camden, raised in London's Camden Town among goths, punks, and outsiders, understood what leather really meant to queer people after moving to San Francisco. For Yves Mathieu East, seeing Lenny Kravitz on MTV was enough for him to start coloring his Wranglers black, with Sharpies, attempting to recreate a leather look that he couldn't afford.

Do all paths lead to leather? Not necessarily, but queer people and leather have a long history that started during a period of censorship, propaganda, and war. I'm talking about the 1940s, to be clear!

Over time, leather culture evolved into fantasy, fetish, and fashion, and also into a community bonded by friendship, fun, and freedom. Today, we celebrate World Leather Day by highlighting personal stories and understandings of a community often flattened into stereotypes.

Alcocer, a model and content creator best known as @dombeeef, recalls seeing a specific Tom of Finland drawing on his PSP while searching the web for "sexy men." Thinking back, he says: "I didn't know how deep it went…I just thought, That's hot."

East — an artist, model, and activist — recalls pop music moments as his earliest memories of recognizing leather as a striking aesthetic. Beyond clothes, he was struck by the transformation. So, within his means, East improvised.

"I grew up pretty poor. But, to me, I didn't think I was poor," he says. "If I had a pair of Starter jeans or Wrangler shorts, I would either attempt to paint them black, or color it with Sharpie to make it black, give it a more grungy kind of look and feel."

"It never came close," East admits. "But to me, in my head, as a kid, it was so close to it that I was like, You can't tell me that I'm not Lenny Kravitz. You can't tell me that I'm not Madonna." And that's on period, honestly.

Lady Camden's introduction to leather wasn't an image, but a whole environment. Before moving to San Francisco and competing on RuPaul's Drag Race season 14, she grew up surrounded by counterculture. "People would come to Camden to find community with other people that also felt this way," she says of her North London hometown, "and needed to sort of express themselves in a way that might seem kind of threatening and scary from afar…but they were always the nicest people to me."

That reputation — gentle people in intimidating gear — comes up in all my conversations about leather culture. Alcocer recalls attending International Mr. Leather for the first time and stepping outside into a smoking area. "You get into conversations with these people. They're the sweetest. There's no ego." He laughs at the cliché but stands by it: "Nine times out of ten: teddy bear."

That softness isn't incidental, Davenport muses. The musician, entrepreneur, Drag Race season 11 alum, and current Mr. Palm Springs Leather describes themself as a "leather drag queen DJ" and credits their leather father, Wil Wever, for introducing them to this community. "In a world that often feels so dangerous to be a drag performer…he made it comfortable for us to exist," Davenport recalls. "Wherever he was, we knew we were safe."

Davenport also rejects the idea that drag and leather are separate worlds. "Leather has always been drag, and drag has always been a kink. They are one and the same. Everything about gender is a performance."

Camden sees it similarly. Leather can be "a new skin that you wear," she says, having seen gentle friends completely changing after putting on a harness. "I see this new freedom in their face unlock. They feel really comfortable, really badass, and really safe."

Queer leather culture originated after World War II. Gay men, including veterans, built motorcycle clubs, bars, and venues that defied respectability politics. Those spaces weren't perfect or universally welcoming, but allowed enough queer people to gather, create their own rules, and find safety.

Camden points to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, when "the leather community and the lesbian community really…stepped in." These initiatives offered "food delivery to people that couldn't go out and get their own," as well as "medication delivery, massage therapy. So many things that…make someone feel like a human being while healing and trying to get better." Meanwhile, politicians didn't consider "queer people who were sick as something that they prioritize in helping or supporting."

Alcocer likes that the community keeps reclaiming symbols of authority. "There's this homage to gay history. Leather in police uniforms, army uniforms. It's taking these hypermasculine things, seen as only for straight people, and making them ours."

The work required to make leather feel like home isn't finished. East notes that "people are afraid to admit how white-centered and white-oriented a lot of these spaces are…It's always geared towards whiteness as the center of what makes it attractive."

Davenport had similar experiences early on. "I didn't even see myself in the leather community, coming up, because it looked so white to me." Things changed when Davenport found Onyx and met titleholders who expanded their sense of what leather can look like.

"My first leather hat was a beret because of the Black Panther," Davenport says. "That was a visual reference — of it being Black — that I could bring to my leather, and it still fit into protocol."

Camden owns harnesses in pastel blue and white. Davenport pairs their favorite Chippewa boots, gifted by a mentor, with everything: from gowns to jockstraps. Alcocer's favorite leather look is "leather chaps with boots, and a thong." East now wears chaps "even when I'm not riding horses," adding: "If someone's like, 'Hey, we're having this birthday dinner for this person's 60th.' I'm like, 'I'm wearing chaps.'"

Davenport, East, Camden, and Alcocer share a clear perspective that leather isn't just toughness and fetish. It can be a costume, a code, a story, a flirtation, a protest, and even a family tree.

So cheers to that, fam. Happy World Leather Day to those who celebrate.

Nobody knows the dancefloor better than Madonna. 

For decades, Madonna has defined the sound and spirit of the gay dancefloor - her music has brought us together. And her allyship has never been a moment, it’s been a constant. 

The Material Girl has always stood with us. Our Unapologetic Bitch, Ray of Light, and ultimate Bad Girl - she’s still leading from the front, setting the tone and shaping the culture.

Her new era is here. And she’s going to take us there…

Bringing her latest album, Confessions II to the very heart of the community. Serving fearless dance anthems, unfiltered exclusive content, and immaculate moments built just for us. On her terms. 

Are you ready?

Grindr is one of the few brand partners hand-selected by the OG Mother to officially partner on the release of Confessions II. Starting today, Madonna will be taking over the app and bringing our community into her world - just in time for Pride season.

Two Icons. One Moment.

Opening with “Thanks for coming,” THE ALBUM signals a return to the dancefloor as ritual - a space for release, control, and reinvention. Music meant to be felt together, in real time. 

Madonna knows exactly who moves culture forward - the gays. We don’t just lay back and listen, we decide what matters. We break artists, build scenes, breathe life into music, and turn songs into anthems. We always have.

And the Grindr Gayborhood is where that audience lives, connects, and shows up every day, globally.

That’s why she’s here.

The Grid Is Hosting… You Coming?

Confessions II isn’t just launching on Grindr. It’s happening inside it.

We’re talking:

• A limited-edition vinyl picture disc Madonna made just for us - and nowhere else. You’re welcome. 
• Exclusive in-app content you won’t see anywhere else
• Behind-the-scenes access into her world

Open the app. Check the grid. Come inside.

The dancefloor is open. Officially. 

Don’t go anywhere - we’re just getting started. Stay close - in the app and on Grindr’s socials. And to experience the artist takeover of the Grindr app, make sure to update to iOS version 26.6.1 and Android version 26.6.

There are few experiences more spiritually degrading than being ghosted by someone on an app.

Part of what makes it humiliating is how little raw material there is. This isn't your ex of five years moving out with the espresso machine. It's a person you exchanged seventeen messages with on a Tuesday somehow managing to ruin your Wednesday. You reread the "haha yeah." You scroll back looking for the moment things changed. Was the selfie too much? Was the joke weird? Did "lol" seem desperate? Did "haha" seem cold? Did the third question make you seem needy, or did not asking it make you seem emotionally unavailable?

He disappeared, and now your brain has to turn three lines of chat into a theory of what's wrong with you.

That's why ghosting feels so bad: it makes people confuse someone else's poor communication with information about their own value.

The silence usually isn't about you

The first mistake people make after being ghosted is treating silence like a meaningful statement. It usually isn't. It's just silence.

But silence is hard on the ego because it leaves the interpretation to you, and most people aren't generous interpreters when their feelings are hurt. So the mind gets to work. Maybe you were too eager. Maybe you were too aloof. Maybe he found someone hotter, funnier, less weird, more his type. Maybe there was one message that tipped the whole thing over and, if you study the thread closely enough, you can identify the exact sentence that made you suddenly unlovable.

Usually, no.

Most ghosting isn't a carefully considered judgment. It's a behavioral failure. Someone got distracted. Someone got anxious. Someone liked flirting and didn't like following through. Someone wanted the spark of attention without the minor adult task of managing another person's expectations. The silence lands on you, but that doesn't mean it started with you.

Early desire moves with mood

Part of what makes ghosting so common is that people give early interest more solidity than it deserves.

We like to think attraction is stable. Either he liked you or he didn't. Either he meant it or he didn't. But early desire is often flimsy, situational, and highly vulnerable to context. A guy can be interested at 11:43 p.m. and emotionally unavailable by 8:15 a.m. He can flirt because he's horny, bored, lonely, tipsy, procrastinating, or briefly in the mood to fuck you senseless for a good 35 minutes.

That doesn't always make the interaction fake. It just means it was happening inside a mood, which everybody knows can change very quickly. A lot of ghosting is really just what happens when a fleeting state collides with reality. Truly, that’s just it. 

Possibility isn't promise

And on Grindr, this makes the dynamic more intense because it's very good at creating possibility.

That’s the whole point. Grindr lets you find attention, chemistry, attraction, sex, friendship, and actual relationships with a speed and reach that would've been unimaginable not that long ago. For queer people especially, that access is pretty huge. It's changed how gay men meet, how we desire, how we find one another.

But possibility has a downside (and this is with every app, not just Grindr): people tend to emotionally promote it before it's earned the rank. A private exchange can feel intimate very quickly. Someone's in your phone, speaking directly to you, maybe saying things he'd never say in public. The energy is real but availability isn't always. A spark isn't consistency. A good exchange isn't a promise.

That's why ghosting can sting so much even when the interaction was brief. You're not just reacting to what happened. You're reacting to what briefly seemed available.

The upside is also the point

Still, it's worth saying plainly that this doesn't make Grindr fake or cheap.

The same conditions that make ghosting possible also make all kinds of good things possible. A lot of people have met boyfriends, hookups, friends, chosen family, and some of the best sex of their lives because the app made desire legible at the right time. Sometimes a conversation is just a conversation. Sometimes it becomes a date, a hookup, a relationship, or a person who matters.

That's why ghosting feels bad in the first place. The medium creates real openings. People aren't foolish for responding to them. They're just sometimes too quick to turn an opening into an answer.

Rude isn't the same as revealing

None of this means ghosting is fine. It's rude. It's lazy. It's often cowardly. A clean "not feeling it" is almost always kinder than leaving someone to perform forensic analysis on a three-line chat.

But rude isn't the same as revealing. Someone can handle an interaction badly without exposing some devastating truth about you. The thread ended. That's information. It's not an identity.

So yes, be annoyed. Complain to your friends. Roll your eyes when his profile reappears, offensively alive in public, as if he didn't just ignore you forty-eight hours ago. Feel the sting. What you don't need to do is turn his silence into a character assessment of yourself.

Ghosting does tell you something. Usually not that you're deficient. Usually just that someone lacked the maturity, clarity, or follow-through to say what he meant and mean what he said.

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There’s a type of Mobile development work that doesn’t feel like engineering. A new feature ships. QA wants E2E coverage. You open the maestro/ folder, stare at an existing test for reference, copy the structure, swap out element IDs, run it, watch it fail because a timeout is too short, bump the timeout, run it again. Repeat until it passes. Submit the PR.

It’s not hard. It’s just slow and mechanical — exactly the kind of work AI should be handling.

The problem was: every time I tried to get Claude to generate a Maestro test, it would produce something that looked right but was wrong in subtle ways. Wrong selectors. Wrong timeout values. Missing post-login interruption handling.

So I stopped asking Claude to write Maestro tests directly. I built a skill that teaches it how to do it right — and before you ask: yes, Maestro MCP exists, and no, it wasn’t enough. More on that later.

The Setup

The skill — /create-maestro-test — works in two modes. You can describe what you want in plain English:

/create-maestro-test "Test navigating to inbox and opening the first conversation"

Or you can invoke it with no arguments and it walks you through a questionnaire: feature, action, test type (main flow vs. reusable subflow), user type, clean state, recording, build flavor.

Once it has what it needs, it doesn’t just write YAML from scratch. It reads your existing tests first — 2 or 3 similar ones — learns your element IDs, your timeout patterns, your label conventions, and builds from those. The output ends up looking like it belongs in your codebase because it actually learned from your codebase.

Building a Test From Scratch, No Prior Knowledge Needed

One of the most powerful aspects of the skill is that you don’t need to know anything about the existing test infrastructure to get started. The questionnaire handles all of it.

You answer: what feature, what action, which user type, clean state or not. The skill then does the heavy lifting — it loads the shared user credentials, reads the timeout constants, searches the codebase for similar existing tests, extracts the relevant element IDs from them, and assembles a complete test that already follows your project’s conventions.

For a brand new screen with no prior tests to reference, it still works. It falls back to the Compose and XML naming conventions documented in its guides, marks any uncertain IDs with # TODO: Verify element ID, and gives you a scaffold that's already 80% right. The remaining 20% is confirming that the IDs actually exist in the app — something that takes minutes with Layout Inspector.

The questionnaire isn’t just a UX improvement. It’s what makes the skill usable by anyone on the team, regardless of how much they know about Maestro or the existing test suite.

The Thing That Surprised Me Most

Before building this skill, I assumed the hard part would be getting Claude to write valid YAML. It wasn’t.

The hard part was teaching it how to find the right UI components to test. Specifically, how to distinguish between XML elements and Compose components, and how to know which selector to use for each.

Maestro uses id: as the universal selector for both XML resource IDs and Compose test tags — but there's a critical distinction in how you tag Compose components. If a developer uses Modifier.testTag("ProfileCard"), Maestro will not find it. The element simply doesn't appear. We kept getting "Element not found" errors and couldn't figure out why — the Layout Inspector clearly showed the component.

The fix: developers need to use Modifier.testTagAsId("ProfileCard") instead. Once tagged with testTagAsId, it's reachable in Maestro via id: 'ProfileCard' — the same selector you'd use for an XML view. The naming convention is the only visual cue that tells you which you're dealing with:

• XML → snake_case (e.g., inbox_conversation_container)
• Compose → PascalCase (e.g., ProfileCard, SendMessageButton)

Once that distinction was clear and documented in the skill’s guides, the component-finding problem was effectively solved. The skill now searches the codebase for testTagAsId usages when targeting Compose screens, and falls back to the Layout Inspector instructions when nothing is found. That's the kind of thing that takes an hour to debug the first time and two seconds to fix once you know — and now nobody on the team has to rediscover it.

The Auto-Fix Loop

When a generated test fails, the skill doesn’t just report the error — it categorizes it and applies a targeted fix before retrying. There are three failure types it handles automatically:

Timeout / Element Not Found — The element exists but Maestro can’t find it in time or with the current selector. The skill increases the timeout to 50s, tries an alternative selector (checking whether an XML id should be a Compose testTagAsId or vice versa), and adds an extra wait before the failing step.

Element Not Tappable — The element is visible but can’t be interacted with, usually due to an overlay or an animation still in progress. The skill adds an extendedWaitUntil before the tap, tries tapping by visible text as a fallback, and checks for anything blocking the element.

Selector Ambiguity — Multiple elements match the selector. The skill adds index: 0 to target the first match and narrows the selector where possible.

It retries up to three times, each attempt applying a different fix strategy. After each retry it tells you what changed and why. If all three attempts fail, it hands you the full Maestro output with a clear explanation of the failure category — so you know exactly where to look, not just that something broke.

Most first-run failures fall into one of those three buckets. The auto-fix resolves the majority without any manual intervention.

In Practice

Here’s what the inbox test from this post’s intro looks like now:

/create-maestro-test "Navigate to inbox and open a conversation"

Total time from prompt to passing test: under 5 minutes, most of which is the emulator booting.

Why Not Maestro MCP?

The skill was built before Maestro MCP was available. When MCP did arrive, the reason to keep the skill became clear immediately.

MCP gives Claude knowledge of Maestro. It doesn’t give Claude knowledge of your app. It doesn’t know which element IDs your project uses, how your timeout constants are defined, or what your post-login interruption flow expects. Without that codebase-specific context, the output looks plausible but fails at runtime in exactly the ways described above — wrong selectors, mismatched timeouts, missing interruption handling.

The skill bridges that gap. It reads your codebase before generating anything, and that’s the difference between output that looks right and output that actually runs.

The Takeaway

Building this skill forced us to understand Maestro more deeply than we ever would have by just writing tests manually. The testTagAsId vs testTag distinction, the auto-fix categories, the selector priority rules — none of these would have ended up documented if we hadn't had to teach them to an AI precisely enough to generate correct output.

That’s the underrated benefit of this kind of work. You don’t just get automation. You get clarity about what you actually know — and a permanent, shareable record of it.

The questionnaire-driven approach also changed how we think about test authorship. It’s no longer a task that requires deep knowledge of the test infrastructure. Anyone who knows what they want to test can produce a valid, passing Maestro test in minutes. That’s the real unlock — not the YAML generation, but the democratization of E2E test coverage across the team.

O Grindr é um dos patrocinadores oficiais do Hopi Pride Festival 2026 — um dos eventos culturais LGBTQIA+ mais celebrados do Brasil, realizado no parque Hopi Hari. E desta vez, a gente não chega só com o app: a Grindr Village transforma a experiência digital em algo que você pode viver de verdade.

Da tela para a vida real

Logo após nossa ativação no Carnaval da Bahia e o lançamento da primeira edição brasileira do Unwrapped — que elegeu São Paulo como um dos principais destinos gays do mundo — o Grindr chega a São Paulo com uma novidade especial: a estreia ao vivo do Right Now na América Latina.

A Grindr Village é um espaço dedicado à socialização, entretenimento e conexão, localizado no coração das apresentações de artistas como Pedro Sampaio, Pabllo Vittar, Duda Beat e Linn da Quebrada. No centro dessa experiência, o Right Now Lounge — uma instalação interativa e digna de foto — convida todo mundo a explorar, interagir e estar no momento presente.

O que é o Right Now?

O Right Now é uma funcionalidade do Grindr que torna a intenção visível — ajudando as pessoas a se conectarem de forma mais rápida e com mais clareza. Sem jogo, sem adivinhação: você sabe quem quer se conectar agora.

"Right Now aborda um dos maiores pontos de fricção nos apps de relacionamento: a divergência de intenções. Ele elimina a incerteza e cria uma maneira mais direta e transparente de se conectar no momento. A tecnologia possibilita a descoberta, a descoberta possibilita a conexão e a conexão molda a cultura."

— Tristan Pineiro, Chief Marketing Officer do Grindr

No Hopi Pride, essa experiência vai além do app: haverá um mapa exclusivo do festival, interação ao vivo e visibilidade presencial — refletindo como as pessoas já se movimentam, se encontram e se conectam naturalmente durante o evento. A localização é sempre aproximada e a participação é completamente opcional, mantendo a privacidade e a autonomia de cada usuário.

Cuidado e prevenção também fazem parte

A presença do Grindr no Hopi Pride vai além da conexão. Em parceria com o Fundo Positivo — organização brasileira focada na prevenção do HIV e na saúde comunitária — o Grindr for Equality garante que informações sobre prevenção, incluindo a PrEP, estejam acessíveis durante o festival de forma simples, aberta e integrada à experiência.

"Para nós, é muito natural estar presente nos espaços onde a comunidade vive, celebra e se conecta. Quando você traz informações sobre prevenção — sobre PrEP, sobre cuidado — para esses momentos de forma simples e aberta, isso passa a fazer parte da experiência."

— Alexandre Putti, Embaixador Global de Prevenção a AIDS e integrante do Fundo Positivo

Essa colaboração se reflete em orientações dentro do aplicativo e conexões com recursos locais confiáveis — integrados de um jeito que combina com o tom e a energia da comunidade queer: acessível e natural.

INFORMAÇÕES DO EVENTO

O quê:  Grindr Village · Right Now Lounge

Quando:  Sábado, 25 de abril de 2026 · 18h

Onde:  Parque Hopi Hari · km 72, Rodovia dos Bandeirantes · Vinhedo, SP

Em um festival definido pelo movimento, pela música e pela conexão, o Grindr não está criando um novo comportamento — está tornando o que já existe mais visível. Te vemos lá.

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Calling all hedonists! Aries season brought the horny energy, but shift to Taurus season (dates: April 19 to May 20) means a change of pace. Ruled by Venus, the planet of love, connection, and pleasure, this slow-and-steady earth sign has stamina to spare.

As this season unfolds, expect your sex and dating life to feel like a slow burn — think f*cking languidly, exploring kinks that tap the five senses, or allowing a casual connection to gradually deepen into something more. For the first time in seven years, the disruptive outer planet Uranus will exit Taurus, which bodes well for stability this season. Mercury, the planet of thinking and communication, will join the fun in Taurus on May 3, empowering you to voice your sensual or romantic desires. In fact, three zodiac signs may have steamy new developments in their romantic life this season: Scorpio, Capricorn, and naturally, Taurus.

The catch? Taurus can get a little too comfy in its comfort zone. Over the next month, you might feel tempted to cancel hookups at the last minute, arbitrarily limit your options on Grindr, or avoid calling things off with a connection that’s clearly run its course. Sex- and dating-wise, you’ll get the most out of this season by keeping an open mind and taking charge of the situation when needed. Here’s what else you can expect, based on your sign.

Aries

Tempted to treat yourself, Aries? You’re right on time for Taurus season, which inevitably brings out your bougie side. That could mean splashing out on some fancy underwear or massage oil for the bedroom, or venturing outside with your Grindr hookup for a post-sex nosh (of the bottom-friendly variety, of course. You can never rule out a second round.) As the month progresses, aim to find a middle ground between indulging and overdoing it.

Taurus

Happy birthday, Taurus! It’s your turn in the cosmic spotlight, which is the perfect excuse to focus on what turns you on. Ask your partner for a massage to set the mood. Embrace your inner bull as you scroll and chat with people on Grindr. Better yet, switch up the Tags on your profile to reflect what you’re looking for. Are you into Edging? Musk? Pits? Making your desires and preferences known will attract the right people to you.

Gemini

You often live in your head, Gemini, but Taurus season is a much-needed reminder to get back into your body. Feeling anxious? Go for a walk with your headphones on, Addison Rae style. Struggling to fully relax during sex? Take the pressure off with solo play or something non-sexual, like Cuddling. Communication is one of your biggest strengths, so let your sexual partner(s) know what’s on your mind. The right connections won’t care if you need to take things slow.

Cancer

For you, Taurus season tends to be a time of year when friendship takes precedence over romance. With the temperatures warming up, you can easily move the fun outdoors. So round up your crew, and post up on the back patio of your go-to gay bar. Can’t be bothered to leave your house? A classic Taurus season dilemma. Invite everybody over for gay guy music video night — or make it clear from your Grindr Tags that you’re looking for Friends and would prefer to Host.

Leo

Top or not, you’re feeling one with your inner lion right now. Tap in by taking control of your sex and dating life. Hit up that hot bear from Grindr (or twink, or otter, or whatever tribe you’re into). Tell your FWB that you’re beginning to catch feelings. And if your responsibilities at the office demand more of your time and energy than you expected this month? It happens. Communicate that so you’re on the same page with your connections.

Virgo

You’re in for a pleasure cruise this season, Virgo, figuratively and maybe even literally. Opportunities to travel could definitely pop up this month. If so, put Grindr’s Roam feature to good use. And if not, you’ll broaden your horizons in other ways. Think connecting with new partners, or indulging in kinky sex that’s a departure from the norm for you. Don’t fall into the trap of overanalyzing what you want. Let your body’s response tell you whether something is a yes or no.

Libra

Forget instant gratification: Taurus season will have you craving intimacy, the kind that builds with time, trust, and yes, getting to know each other’s bodies. So if one-night stands sound utterly unappealing right now? Update your Grindr Tags to indicate that you’re looking for an LTR (or FWB at minimum). You don’t have to bare your heart and soul right away, but you should be honest about what you’re looking for as you forge new connections.

Scorpio

Your love life is in full bloom, Scorpio. Are you partnered? Expect to feel extra obsessed with your S.O. right down to their scent. Your physical connection could get a boost, too — Taurus’ slow, sensual vibe is on par with the passion and emotional depth you crave in relationships. And if you’re single or nonmonogamous? Take your dating life seriously. This could be a standout month for romance, but you won’t be able to sink into the pleasure fully unless you let your defenses down.

Sagittarius

The daily grind got you down, Sag? Add R&R to your to-do list. Yes, your work obligations or health needs might be top of mind, but that’s all the more reason to make time for yourself. Scheduling dates or hookups could be a pleasant counterbalance to any not-so-fun stuff on your agenda this month. A word to the wise: Don’t be shy about asking for a massage or popping an edible before sex. If it helps you relax and unwind, it’s fair game.

Capricorn

Great news, Capricorn: Your libido is thawing with the weather. Whether you’re seeking casual connections, FWB, or an LTR, you can expect more traction on the apps over the next month. The even-better news? Romance could blossom when you least expect it. So stay open, and don’t be shy about leading with your hedonistic side. Even if a passionate connection fizzles out, investing in your happiness and erotic fulfillment is never time wasted.

Aquarius

The comforts of home are more appealing for everyone during Taurus season, but that’s especially true for you, Aquarius. You’ve got two options: Fight it, or commit to being the self-proclaimed Host with the most. It can’t hurt to invest in your space, whether that looks like upgrading your bedding or splurging on a deluxe-sized container of lube. And if hookups have to take a backseat so you can take care of yourself or deal with family stuff? Totally valid. The apps will be there when you’re ready.

Pisces

It’s time to make your desires crystal clear, Pisces. Dirty talk, Edging, Frot… if it gets you going, it’s worth mentioning and potentially adding to your Tags on Grindr. More than that, prioritize checking in with any sexual partner(s) in your life this month. How are you feeling? Where do you see this connection going? Find a block of time when the two of you can catch up without interruption. Show up to the conversation with respect and openness, not stubbornness or judgment, and you’ll receive the same treatment in turn.

You're scrolling through Grindr on a Tuesday night when a pop-up appears — not an ad for underwear or a circuit party, but a photo with a button that links to free mental health support in your city.

This is one of more than 600 in-app campaigns that our social impact initiative, Grindr for Equality (G4E) ran this year thus far, in collaboration with 77 organizations, community nonprofits, and governmental agencies across 37 countries, in 25 languages, generating 20 million impressions.

G4E exists to bridge the gap between LGBTQ+ people and the services they need — a gap Grindr is uniquely positioned to help close. Millions of people open our app every day, many in places where walking into a clinic or asking about PrEP means navigating stigma, cost, or outright criminalization. If you can reach someone in a private, trusted moment with the right information, they'll act on it. 

This quarterly series is our way of sharing what the data from our 600 in-app campaigns taught us about the Global Gayborhood in 2026 so far.

The demand was already there

In the last three months, over 31,000 HIV self-testing kits were ordered through Grindr for Equality campaigns across more than ten countries — each one a private decision made on someone's phone. In Romania, our partners told us many people who clicked through hadn't known PrEP existed in their region, or had been searching for months to access it nearby.

The bottleneck for LGBTQ+ health has never been willingness. It's access and awareness, among other structural barriers.

Take DoxyPEP — a post-exposure antibiotic that reduces the risk of some sexually transmitted infections. From our own work, including a provider guide launched with Building Healthy Online Communities, we know many people don't know how to raise DoxyPEP with their doctors, and many doctors aren't yet ready to discuss it. When our partner Anova Health Institute in South Africa ran a targeted G4E campaign about DoxyPEP in March, confirmed care linkages jumped to 13 times previous months. The information didn't create new demand. It unlocked demand that was already there.

Health messaging works best when it stops sounding like health messaging

G4E's image-based pop-ups averaged 25–40% click-through rates this quarter, against an industry benchmark of 0.35–1%. But the range was wide: top campaigns hit 50% CTR, the bottom sat around 11%. The difference wasn't the service being offered. It was the creative.

Inspira Cambio in Mexico City framed a sexual health event around salud, placer y comunidad — health, pleasure, and community. 50% CTR, the highest of any Q1 campaign. Red Somos ran a mental health campaign at 47%. The Burnett Foundation Aotearoa in New Zealand: "Nailed Them? Cum get tested with us." 32–40% across multiple runs. Meanwhile, more text-heavy, information-dense formats—like test kit visuals, price-led messaging, or detailed posters—tended to see lower engagement, even when the underlying service was the same.

On Grindr, a campaign earns trust by speaking the community's language, literally and figuratively — acknowledging where it appears and treating LGBTQ+ people like adults who can handle humor, directness, and irreverence alongside important health information. The organizations that understood this built a sustained creative presence that compounds as the community recognizes the source.

The digital gayborhood is bigger than you think

When we broke down click-through rates by topic, non-HIV campaigns outperformed. Mental health: 30% CTR. A mental wellness check from Sustained Health Initiatives of the Philippines — who are developing a nationwide online mental health counseling service for LGBTQ+ people — performed comparably to HIV testing campaigns in the same market. Safety: 32%. Community advocacy: 28%.

The topics most people wouldn't associate with a dating app generated the strongest engagement on our platform. That's because Grindr has always been more than a hookup app — it's the digital gayborhood, where people find community, trade information, and discover what's happening in their city and their world. People show up for their whole lives here: their health, their rights, their mental wellbeing, their safety. G4E meets them where they already are.

Come build this with us

This quarter raised as many questions as it answered. Why do some organizations sustain 30%+ CTR across dozens of campaigns while others plateau? What does it take to reach LGBTQ+ communities in countries where our partner network is still thin? How do we measure impact beyond the click — and how do we share that learning with the organizations who need it most? We're taking those questions into the rest of the year, and we'll be back with what we find.

G4E recently redesigned our website at grindr.com/g4e — with an interactive map of our global partner network and a closer look at how in-app campaigning works. If your organization does health outreach, advocacy, or community work with GBTQ+ people — or if you know one that does — submit a proposal to become a campaign partner.

One in five LGBTQ+ people in the UK have lost someone to a drug-related death. Let that sit for a second.

Chemsex, or using drugs to facilitate or enhance sex, is part of our community's reality. Nearly a third of LGBTQ+ people have had sex while using drugs in the past year, and almost two-thirds say the issue is still heavily stigmatized. Meanwhile, most people outside the community have never even heard the term. There's a gap between what we're living and what we're willing to say out loud, and that gap is where shame grows.

That’s why we’re honored to announce Out in the Open, a new initiative from Grindr for Equality that gets into the conversations our community is already having—just not publicly enough. The first installment is made in partnership with You Are Loved, a UK-based peer-support non-profit doing critical work in LGBTQ+ suicide and drug misuse prevention.

What Out in the Open with You Are Loved is about

Out in the Open with You Are Loved isn't a PSA or a scare campaign. It brings together people with real experience and real expertise to speak honestly about the forces driving chemsex: loneliness, pressure to perform, cultural norms around sex and openness, and the need for connection that gets tangled up with substances when safe spaces are scarce.

The voices include Gareth Thomas, former Wales rugby captain and LGBTQ+ campaigner, who's blunt about the cost of silence, that when people feel ashamed to speak up, the cycle of harm continues. 

Paris Lees, author, broadcaster, and BAFTA nominee, reflects on shame, addiction, and recovery, challenging us to look at the psychology underneath risk-taking. 

Kaiden Ford, poet and performance artist, speaks from London's queer underground about how substance use maps onto identity, especially for trans and non-binary people seeking belonging.

They're joined by frontline voices from Switchboard, the LGBTQIA+ helpline with over 50 years of experience, Voda, a wellbeing app serving 50,000+ LGBTQ+ users, and Marc Svensson, founder of You Are Loved, who draws on his own lived experience in suicide prevention.

Why now?

Research conducted with Censuswide and through an in-app survey of 2,400 UK Grindr users makes the need clear. The biggest drivers of chemsex aren't hedonism or recklessness; they are cultural norms around sex and openness (29%), loneliness and lack of safe spaces (27%), and pressure within the gay community (27%). This is as much an isolation problem as it is a drug problem, one where loneliness and the search for connection often drive the substance use.

And 40% of LGBTQ+ respondents want better access to addiction treatment, recovery services, and more inclusive mental health care. People aren't asking to be saved. They're asking for support that actually understands them.

What Grindr is doing about it

We've updated resources in the Grindr app to connect UK users directly to You Are Loved and Switchboard, available through the Safety & Privacy Centre. The full series is available on Grindr Presents, plus YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Music, for the community and wider audience to engage with and help break the silence around chemsex, one conversation at a time. https://www.grindr.com/grindr-presents

This isn't about telling anyone how to live. It's about making sure that when someone's ready to talk, the conversation is already there.

If you're in the UK and want support, reach out to You Are Loved or contact Switchboard at 0800 0119 100.

This content is provided by Grindr for general educational and informational purposes only. It is not intended as, and should not be understood as, medical, legal, or professional advice. Grindr is not a healthcare provider and does not provide medical recommendations. Treatment and healthcare decisions should be made in consultation with qualified healthcare providers based on individual circumstances. Medical guidelines and research findings referenced in this content are subject to change as new evidence emerges.