How did Elon Musk go from being an Obama supporter to a self-described "dark MAGA" Trump ally? Here's a look at the relationship between two billionaires ahead of the second Trump presidency.

• Like regular body language, digital body language refers to what's unspoken in texts.
• It includes how often a person texts as well as how even a conversation feels.
• A dating expert shared the digital body language signs someone is interested in you.

Conversations on dating apps can be tricky to navigate.

Is it a red flag if a new connection takes three days to respond? Is a text paragraph vulnerable, or self-centered? Does replying with a lone "k" really mean someone hates you?

Logan Ury, the director of relationship science at Hinge, told Business Insider that this is what's known as digital body language (DBL), and it isn't much different from in-person body language, conveying what is unsaid.

Ury said DBL includes "how long somebody waits to respond, whether or not they double-text, what punctuation they use, and if they use emojis."

From her internal research at Hinge, she's learned that users — particularly Gen Zers — rely heavily on DBL to quickly gauge a match's interest in them. Among those daters, there are some widely agreed-upon indicators that a person isn't actually into you, even if they technically always respond to your texts.

To prevent wasting your time on a confusing situationship, "you want to be good at deciphering somebody's DBL," Ury said. She added that it's important to be aware of how you come off when you do like someone, so that they're "not misinterpreting how you feel about them."

She shared some digital body language signs that someone's not really interested in you.

They always respond, but never consistently

Healthy relationships are built on trust and communication. Naturally, daters look for signs of it from the very first message.

According to a 2024 Hinge report surveying 15,000 Gen Z users, Ury said users have a 44% higher chance of getting responses when they answer messages within 24 hours. Their matches sense more seriousness.

This goes beyond the first few messages. She said 76% of users also look for message consistency. Someone who texts for hours one day but then is MIA for three is widely considered as disinterested.

Because of that, she discourages matches from "playing it cool" or delaying responses when they really like someone. "It's much better to just not play games and respond quickly because those people are more likely to get onto dates and into relationships," she said.

Your text bubbles are imbalanced

Deep relationships require reciprocity and a sense of evenness. Beyond timing, Ury said the flow of conversation is a big sign of how interested someone is in you.

But it's about more than just taking turns hitting each other up, Ury said. "For iPhone users, there needs to be that mix between blue and gray" text bubbles, she said. That includes the match "leading with a question and then offering answers that build conversation," she said.

If they write you walls of text without asking anything back, it doesn't indicate that they're interested in knowing who you are. Ury has a term for these people: "ZQ," or "zero questions." ZQs indicate a lack of genuine curiosity to learn more about you, she said.

They're 'bad' at texting, but don't connect in other ways

Not everyone loves texting a lot — plenty of people prefer calls or simply can't be on their phones during the work day.

Ury said that if they're interested, they should be communicating with you about how they want to stay in touch. If they're offline during the workday, they should be transparent about that — and find other ways to share that they're thinking of you, such sending voice notes, memes, or photos of their day.

But if they don't make an effort to be clear about liking you, it comes off like they're not that interested in you.

It's why Ury emphasizes meeting in real life quickly if you hit it off with someone: digital body language isn't a science, and sometimes it's worth having conversations around communication differences.

Plus, the better way to confirm if someone likes you is to meet them in person.

"You need to get to the date as soon as possible," she said. "You don't know if somebody's in-person vibes will match their digital body language."

• Rom-coms like "When Harry Met Sally" exemplify how the urban built environment can spark romance.
• Two New York City-based urban planners are using that lesson to promote "romantic urbanism."
• Their tongue-in-cheek event in Brooklyn asked: What if we had a City Department of Tenderness?

Netflix's latest holiday rom-com, "Hot Frosty," begins like this: A lonely young widow named Kathy hangs a magical scarf on a snowman in the public square of her idyllic fictional New York town. The snowman comes to life and happens to have a flowing head of hair and a chiseled physique, and is named, you guessed it, Jack. He and Kathy promptly engage in heart-warming hijinks and fall in love.

While the film gets originality points for romanticizing a snowman, it follows the classic holiday rom-com movie formula, which includes, as Bloomberg's Linda Poon has written, an adorable, walkable small town. The town center is the picture of a "5-minute city," with daily amenities clustered together, and plays a key role in facilitating Kathy and Jack's romance. Without it, Kathy never would have stumbled upon Jack in snow form.

The crucial role that well-designed urban environments play in rom-coms struck Daphne Lundi and Louise Yeung — New York City urban planners and neighbors — when they spent the early days of the pandemic lockdown watching movies in each other's apartments.

In the wake of the pandemic — that trapped many in their homes and ushered in widespread remote work and skyrocketing housing costs — urbanists like Lundi and Yeung are increasingly urging policymakers to counteract isolation through design.

Sparks flew in "third places" like art galleries and parks in "Rye Lane" and at urban landmarks like the Empire State Building in "Sleepless in Seattle." Paris is a character of its own in "Amelie," and the titular small town is a star of "Fire Island," they noticed.

Harry wouldn't have met Sally without a Manhattan bookstore. In "Notting Hill," the London neighborhood is a central character in the romance between a famous Hollywood actor and a bookshop owner. In some cases — think "Sex and the City" and "Emily in Paris" — the characters are in love with the city itself.

Lundi and Yeung realized that in those romantic fantasies, a walkable urban landscape brings people together who might not otherwise cross paths — and lets them linger. They took that as motivation for how to make real-life cities and towns better for lovers or anyone looking to make new connections.

Lundi and Yeung first wrote about their theory in a 2023 essay called "Romantic Urbanism." But the essay has since transformed into something bigger — a call for submissions including design proposals and public events. As policymakers, they're tasked with building affordable housing, creating safe public spaces and accessible transit, and creating jobs. But despite their centrality to quality of life, love, intimacy, and connection aren't policy goals, Yeung told Business Insider.

So they're asking: "How can cities actually be designed to express care, to foster care? What does that care infrastructure actually look like in practice?" she said.

"We need to make spaces for people to be incentivized and for people to want to go out and hang out with each other," said Clio Andris, a professor of city and regional planning and interactive computing at Georgia Tech who's studied how urban design impacts romantic relationships.

A City 'Department of Tenderness'

On a warm, perfectly sunny day in late October, Lundi and Yeung hosted their first public event showcasing their ideas for a more romance-friendly city — the inaugural meeting of what they're cheekily calling the New York City Department of Tenderness — on a small car-free plaza in Brooklyn.

The event featured several proposals from Schuyler deVos, a creative technologist and web developer, including a presentation on a Brooklyn-Queens train line called the "V line" (Valentine's line) designed to help those in "long-distance" inter-borough relationships.

Henry McKenzie, who stopped by the presentation, said a cross-borough train line spoke to him.

"Every time you're on the train for more than an hour to see someone, that is an expression of love," he said. He'd also like more free or affordable third spaces where he could gather with his Dungeons & Dragons group, whose members are scattered across the city.

Trey Shaffer, a 25-year-old computer programmer from Long Island City who volunteered at the event, said he finds the pedestrian walkways on New York's bridges to be especially romantic places. "We need more Brooklyn Bridges," he said. "We can just make a copy, like, right next to it."

A city built for romance benefits all kinds of other relationships, too. Lively street corners, safe and accessible third spaces, and affordable housing help familial bonds, friendships, and even loose ties between neighbors and coworkers.

McKenzie's friend Sarah Dolan said that she tends to socialize exclusively with people she already knows in part because of a dearth of communal spaces. "There's not that many opportunities to meet new people, unless you really seek it out," she said.

Lundi and Yeung say they were overwhelmed with the response they've gotten to the project, which has received about 80 submissions, including essays and event proposals. One person wrote about their experience developing relationships while riding New York's paratransit service for people with disabilities. Another is exploring corner bodegas as "care infrastructure."

They hope the project will inspire more urban planners and policymakers to consider fostering human connection and relationships as a core part of their work and make real-world cities more like those in the movies.

"There's this trope of city people as being hardened and hard," Lundi said. "As a New Yorker, part of what this has shown me is that we're actually really tender."

• Jennifer L. Armentrout is releasing the sixth "Blood and Ash" book in June 2025.
• Armentrout's "Blood and Ash" and "Flesh and Fire" series are interconnected, which can confuse readers.
• Here's the best reading order for a spoiler-free experience.

As a devoted reader of fantasy and romance books, it's no surprise I binged Jennifer L. Armentrout's New York Times bestselling "Blood and Ash" series. 

I stumbled upon the first book in the series, which is published by Blue Box Press, on Goodreads after finishing Sarah J. Maas' "A Court of Thorns and Roses."

I was delighted to find it scratched the itch for a tension-filled, magical story "ACOTAR" had left in my life.

I've since become a huge fan of "Blood and Ash" and its companion series, "Flesh and Fire," which Armentrout has been publishing since 2021. 

Armentrout released the fourth "Flesh and Fire" novel, "Born of Blood and Ash" in August, and she is set to publish the sixth book in the "Blood and Ash" series, "The Primal of Blood and Bone," in June 2025.

'Blood and Ash' is an ongoing fantasy series about a Maiden questioning her fate

In the first book of the series, "From Blood and Ash," readers meet Poppy, an 18-year-old who is more than just a girl. The gods have chosen her as the Maiden, and when she turns 19, she will be given to them to help turn humans into the Ascended, immortal beings that rule her kingdom, Solis.

Poppy has always known her fate, but living as the Maiden hasn't been easy. She must always wear a veil in public, no one is allowed to touch her, and she spends most of her time alone. So when she meets Hawke, a new guard who treats her like a person instead of a symbol, she finds herself questioning her commitment to the gods.

But the Ascended and Hawke are both keeping secrets, and when Poppy finds out the truth about them — and herself — everything in her life will change.

Armentrout's world becomes a sweeping tale of magic and warring kingdoms as Poppy comes into her power throughout the "Blood and Ash" series, which has five published installments: 

• "From Blood and Ash"
• "A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire"
• "The Crown of Gilded Bones"
• "The War of Two Queens"
• "A Soul of Ash and Blood"

"A Soul of Ash and Blood" technically takes place after "The War of Two Queens," but the majority of the book is told through flashbacks that bring readers back to the timeline in "From Blood and Ash." 

Armentrout is set to release the next installment in the series, "The Primal of Blood and Bone," on June 10, 2025.

Armentrout also created a prequel series to 'Blood and Ash'

Armentrout has published a prequel series to "Blood and Ash" called "Flesh and Fire."

The series exists in the same world as the "Blood and Ash" books, but it takes place thousands of years before Poppy is even born.

Like Poppy, Seraphena Mierel is a Maiden, promised to the Primal of Death in a bargain designed to save her people from a rot spreading across their lands in the first installment in the series, "A Shadow in the Ember."

But Sera is a double agent, and she has trained her whole life in secret as an assassin so she can break down the Primal's defenses and kill him when he's vulnerable. But when she finally meets the Primal, he's nothing like Sera expected, awakening urges in her she didn't know she had. 

Four installments of the series are available to read, as the fourth book was published in August 2024:

• "A Shadow in the Ember"
• "A Light in the Flame"
• "A Fire in the Flesh"
• "Born of Blood and Ash"

Armentrout also published a companion book to both series, "Visions of Flesh and Blood," in February 2024. It's essentially a guide to the "Blood and Ash" universe, providing character breakdowns and histories for both series.

The plots of the two series are interconnected, so you shouldn't read them separately

The events and characters of "Flesh and Fire" overlap with those in "Blood and Ash." In fact, "The War of Two Queens" is difficult to understand if you haven't read "A Shadow in the Ember."

But the "Flesh and Fire" series also contains spoilers about Poppy's adventures, so it doesn't make sense to read them before you start the "Blood and Ash" series. 

Armentrout also said on her website that the series' "two timelines will also merge in the future, bringing the characters together in the 'Blood and Ash' books," so you can't read either series alone. 

Because you'll need to read all of the books from both series to fully grasp either story, I recommend reading the books that are currently published as one interconnected series in the following order: 

• "From Blood and Ash"
• "A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire"
• "The Crown of Gilded Bones
• "A Shadow in the Ember"
• "The War of Two Queens"
• "A Light in the Flame"
• "A Soul of Ash and Blood"
• "A Fire in the Flesh"
• "Born of Blood and Ash"

Basically, you'll read three books about Poppy, and then you'll take a quick break to introduce yourself to Sera in "A Shadow in the Ember." After that, you'll basically be alternating between Poppy and Sera's stories.

This order allows you to enjoy "Blood and Ash" without spoilers and ensures you will fully digest "The War of Two Queens" without feeling confused. 

Plus, "Blood and Ash" can get a little overwhelming as the world becomes larger. The tension between Sera and the Primal in "Flesh and Fire" was a welcome tone shift that made me want to continue reading both series as new installments are released. 

And despite the flashbacks, I wouldn't give into the temptation to read "A Soul of Ash and Blood" in tandem with "From Blood and Ash." It contains too many spoilers about the series to be read right after or in tandem with "From Blood and Ash" despite the fact that it mostly tells the same story as the first installment in the series. It actually works best as a refresher on "Blood and Ash," recentering you in Poppy's world before her story continues. 

You don't have to read "Visions of Flesh and Blood" at all if you don't want to, but don't read it until after you finish "A Fire in the Flesh" if you do decide to add it to your collection. It features several spoilers for both series, as Armentrout notes on her website. 

And if you want advice on how to read Sarah J. Maas' books, you can find out more here.