About Damona Hoffman
Damona Hoffman is a dating coach & on-air personality who starred in two A+E Networks’ TV series: #BlackLove and A Question of Love. Her first book F the Fairy Tale was published in January 2024 and became an instant Amazon #1 bestseller. She’s a regular contributor to The LA Times, The Washington Post, The Drew Barrymore Show, NPR, CNN Headline News (HLN), BET, and more. Plus, she is the OkCupid Official Dating Expert. Damona’s weekly podcast Dates & Mates consistently charts in the top 50 in the Dating and Relationships category. She is also the host and producer of Freshbooks’ I Make A Living Podcast, which features her advice for new entrepreneurs and interviews with expert entrepreneurs.
Date Lab: Lessons from Non-Binary Daters
This was the very first article I have ever written about a non-binary dater. Nat and Sydelle prove a lot of what I have been teaching about attraction and chemistry. Give it a read!
“Sydelle Barreto, 25, had no idea who was going to walk through the door at the Smith restaurant on U Street NW. As a cisgender woman who dates all genders, she was open to meeting anyone and eager to see who we matched her with.
When Nat Berelovich, 24, arrived, Sydelle immediately noticed their piercings, cool black boots and tattoo that resembled a watercolor painting. Nat noticed Sydelle’s tattoos — and thought she was really cute.”
Click here to read the rest!
Bustle: How To Have The “What Are We?” Convo
As your feelings continue to grow for someone you’ve been hanging out with, it may feel like it’s time to set sound boundaries. And even if you know that you’re looking for a capital-P Partner, you may be at a loss when it comes to telling your situationship you’re looking for a relationship.
According to Damona Hoffman, certified dating coach and host of The Dates & Mates Podcast, a “situationship” is somewhere in between friends with benefits (FWB) and a committed relationship. But unlike a strict FWB situation or an official relationship, the marking of a situationship is a lack of commitment, labels, and any sort of DTR. You may know how you feel, but you have no idea what you are — hookups? Lovers? Seeing each other?
“The issue with many daters today which causes them to feel stuck and dissatisfied is that not enough people are willing to express what they truly want due to fear of rejection,” Hoffman says. “If you’re seeing someone casually and want it to be something more, you owe it to yourself and to them to express how you’re feeling.”
Read the full article for Damona’s tips on how to have the “what are we” convo…
Dating Tricks & Traps on Access Daily
Damona and Rob Mack talk about all the current dating terms you need to know – Glamboozled, Orbited, or Cricketed, and more. But more importantly, Mario shares how you can avoid the worst ones happening to you.
The New York Post: What is ‘roaching’?
Like the nasty namesake insect, the act of “roaching” gets its strength from numbers.
The latest memeified dating discourse is here, defining a phenomenon of courtship that is so unfortunately common as to be unavoidable — much like the infamous cockroach itself.
So-called “roaching” refers to the act of hiding the fact that you’re seeing multiple people from a new romantic partner… To roach is not to cheat, per se, but to be purposefully opaque about your sex life — and there are some telltale signs of this, the latest in a long line of dirty dating trends.
“You can tell if you’re being roached if you feel like the person is not really available or present for you, and very private about certain details,” OkCupid dating coach and host of “The Dates & Mates Podcast” Damona Hoffman told The Post.
Want to know the roaching red flags to look out for? Read the full article here for Damona’s tips.
Date Lab: Does he know you want a second date?
How do you end a date and let them know you would like a second one? Hate to say it, but this may be an example of what not to do.
Alicia Dixon must have looked like a superhero zipping on a scooter en route to her date. The 26-year-old was wearing black jeans and a top with black crepe sleeves that met in the back, in her words, “like a capelet.” She was the first to arrive at the Swiss restaurant Stable in the H Street NE corridor… Her date, Louie D’Agostino, finished his beer across the street and headed to Stable. An experienced “semi-blind” dater on apps, Louie, 31, likes to calm his nerves and loosen up with a brew or two before a date. “Like a two-drink minimum at a comedy club,” he explained.
Read the rest of the article here to find out what happened!
Daily Mail: Damona Meets Garcelle Beauvais For Lunch
After having had two failed marriages behind her and being a mom to three sons, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais decided to hire Damona as her personal dating coach to help her navigate finding true love.
Damona met with Garcelle for lunch to discuss her patterns in dating. Garcelle shared: “I think the way I show up when I’m dating, I think I have to stop leading with my career… I think sometimes guys would probably want me to be more needy and I’m not. I think that’s a thing.”
NPR: Make Dating Apps Work For You
Dating apps are a dime a dozen these days. They come in all different styles and flavors, but all essentially offer users the same twinkling hope: love at first swipe.
Maybe you’re thrilled by all the opportunities at your fingertips. Maybe you’re absolutely exhausted by it all or just wary of strangers online. Wherever you fall on the spectrum, dating apps — especially in the past year and a half — have become a bigger part of our romantic lives than ever. In fact, of all the fish in the sea in 2020, some 270 million people were on at least one dating app.
That’s a lot of fish! But it’s also a lot of pressure to stand out and to find the right match.
Flipping the script starts with taking control of your narrative. And being willing to put in the work, says certified dating coach Damona Hoffman.
“You can be online and swiping within minutes. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re going to have a quality experience if you haven’t gone into it with a sense of purpose,” says Hoffman.
Listen to the full episode here…
Dating Coaching on Real Housewives of Beverly Hills
LEARNING TO LOVE AGAIN?
Garcelle Beauvais has an amazing career and she’s an amazing mother. Now she’s looking for a man to settle down with. We did a little session to unpack what qualities she should look for and what was blocking her from finding love.
Here’s a little preview:
I did a more in-depth coaching session with Garcelle on the Dates & Mates podcast. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!
Date Lab: An Instant Connection
“‘Thank goodness I wore flats,’ Colleen Basil, 49, said as she recounted the challenging decision of what to wear to her first-ever blind date. Opting for comfort proved the right choice, because the Washington Nationals were playing at home the evening of her in-person date at the Salt Line in Navy Yard.
After circling endlessly to find reasonably priced parking, Colleen ended up a few blocks away and rushed to the restaurant hoping the humidity wouldn’t overtake her natural hairstyle.
Erick Adams, a 54-year-old architectural draftsman, had arrived 15 minutes early. His experience in the military had left him with the motto: ‘If you’re on time, you’re already late.'”
Click here to read the rest!
The Top Dating Coaches of 2021-2022
Coach Foundation names their Top 39 Dating Coaches of 2021 – including Damona Hoffman! Here’s a snippet of Damona’s interview:
How is your coaching different from others?
As an early adopter (and success story) of online dating, I came to understand how to use technology more effectively to make connections and this is one of the major tenets of my dating coaching program. Any tool can be frustrating when used incorrectly but fulfilling when used with a deeper understanding. The other hallmark of my program is my philosophy that you should love as you are, without needing to change yourself to be loveable. When we learn more about our uniqueness, we are able to make more meaningful connections with people who see the real us.
What is your niche or specialization?
I work with anyone who is open-minded and open to change but about 65% of my audience is women 30-45 who are relationship-focused.
Check out all of Damona’s answers in the full article.
NPR: Dating Post-Vaccine
Damona Hoffman, a dating coach for the online dating site OkCupid, says that even though the desire to connect in person is there, the confidence might not be.
“People are open to dating again but they’re still a little bit cautious,” she says. “There’s still a little bit of hesitancy about just moving offline and throwing caution to the wind.”
And after more than a year of solitude and distance from others, that hesitation goes beyond trading apps for in-person dating. Some people are feeling stuck altogether.
“The fear of dating is real,” Hoffman says, “and I never want to dismiss that: not being practiced, not feeling like you’re in your best skin and able to put your best foot forward right now because we have been so isolated.”
Read the full article here…
Drew’s Love Bug: Live Profile Review
In this appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Damona Hoffman gives a live dating app profile review to Brooke, a flight attendant from Nashville who has not had the best of luck on dating apps.
Here’s the rundown:
Damona’s #1 dating profile rule involves the three C’s – Color, Context, and Character. Color is very important in that first photo (and in particular, the color red will always attract attention). Fill in your other photos to showcase the context of who you are, and focus on making yourself the star of your profile.
OkCupid users who complete their profiles see 200% more matches. And more matches mean more dates!
A couple of little fixes made a big difference for Brooke’s dating app profile…
Watch the full segment below to see hear Brooke’s amazing results post-polish!