Hinge Gives Us More to Go On But Are We Actually Better at Choosing

Think about what happens when you really like someone’s Hinge profile.

Maybe they have a great smile.

Then you notice they love cooking.

Excellent.

They have a photo at a little restaurant in Italy.

Even better.

Their answer to one of the prompts is genuinely funny.

Now you’re interested.

Except something subtle has happened.

You didn’t simply notice those things.

You started connecting them.

Funny.

Interesting.

Adventurous.

Probably easygoing.

Probably good at conversation.

Probably someone who would be fun to travel with.

And suddenly three pieces of information have become an entire personality.

Researchers studying online dating profiles have found something remarkably relevant here. People can communicate genuine aspects of themselves through profile language, and other people can pick up on some of those cues. But the connection between how someone intends to present themselves and the personality others actually perceive is far from perfect.

In other words, the person writing the profile and the person reading it are not necessarily having the same experience.

One person is thinking, This is who I am.

The other is thinking, I think I know who you are.

Those two things are not always the same.

Let’s give Hinge some credit.

The old dating profile could be painfully thin.

Here are my pictures.

Here is my height.

Here is where I work.

Here are some hobbies I may or may not actually do.

Good luck.

Hinge moved things in a more interesting direction.

The platform gives people multiple ways to communicate personality, including written prompts, photo prompts, video prompts and prompt polls. Members currently display three written prompt answers, and Hinge says those prompts are intended to help create a more meaningful picture of the person behind the profile.

That matters.

Because attraction isn’t just about whether somebody is physically appealing.

Sometimes one sentence tells you more than another photograph ever could.

A weird joke.

A strangely specific obsession.

A completely unexpected answer.

A glimpse of how someone thinks.

Those things can create curiosity.

The problem begins when curiosity quietly turns into certainty.

This is one of the strangest things about modern dating.

We have become extraordinarily good at getting information before meeting someone.

And yet the information is still incredibly limited.

You might know their favorite travel destination.

You might know their favorite pizza topping.

You might know that they love their dog.

You might know they once backpacked through Europe.

You might know they are looking for a serious relationship.

You might know they make an excellent margarita.

What you don’t know is how they react when somebody disagrees with them.

You don’t know how they behave when they are stressed.

You don’t know whether they are kind to people who cannot do anything for them.

You don’t know if they listen.

You don’t know if they apologize.

You don’t know whether their sense of humor is actually funny in person or just works very well in a carefully edited prompt.

And you definitely don’t know what it feels like to sit across from them on a Tuesday night when neither of you is trying to make an impression.

That sounds obvious.

But dating apps make it remarkably easy to forget.

This may be the most important distinction in the entire conversation.

When you look at a Hinge profile, you’re doing two things at once.

You’re evaluating what is actually there.

And you’re imagining everything that isn’t.

That second part happens almost automatically.

Research into online impression formation has repeatedly shown that people make judgments about strangers from very limited digital information. In dating specifically, researchers have found that photographs attract initial attention strongly, while text still contributes to the impressions people form. The two types of information can shape different parts of perceived attraction.

So the profile isn’t meaningless.

Far from it.

But neither is it a personality test.

It’s a collection of clues.

And humans are very enthusiastic clue collectors.

The dangerous part is how quickly the clues become a story

Someone has a hiking photo.

You imagine they love the outdoors.

They may.

Or they may have gone hiking twice because their friends dragged them along.

Someone says they love trying new restaurants.

You imagine spontaneous weekend adventures.

They may.

Or they may simply enjoy eating expensive pasta.

Someone writes a clever answer.

You imagine an effortlessly funny person who will keep you laughing for years.

They may be hilarious.

Or they may have spent 45 minutes rewriting that answer.

Which is perfectly fine.

That’s what a profile is for.

But it is worth remembering that presentation and personality are related without being identical.

This is where the story gets considerably more interesting.

Hinge introduced Prompt Feedback to help users improve their answers. For complete profiles, Hinge can provide feedback on up to three prompts, with suggestions such as making a small change or going a little deeper. Hinge describes the feature as a way to help people showcase their best selves and ultimately get more likes, matches and dates.

On one level, that’s perfectly reasonable.

Most people are terrible at writing about themselves.

Give someone a blank box labeled “Tell strangers why they should date you” and watch their soul leave their body.

A little help isn’t a bad thing.

But there is something fascinating happening here.

Dating apps are no longer simply giving us a place to present ourselves.

They are beginning to help us optimize how we present ourselves.

Again, that isn’t necessarily bad.

Better writing can help someone communicate what they genuinely mean.

But it does create an interesting question.

If everybody gets better at presenting themselves, do profiles become better at telling us who people are?

Or do they simply become better at making a good impression?

There is an uncomfortable truth hiding inside online dating.

Everybody is performing a little.

You are.

They are.

So is the person whose profile says they are “just as happy staying in as going out” despite clearly having been photographed at seventeen different rooftop bars.

That doesn’t make everyone dishonest.

It makes everyone human.

Dating profiles are a form of self-presentation. Research examining online dating profiles has found that people can successfully communicate some aspects of the persona they want others to see, while the match between that intended presentation and what observers actually infer can be surprisingly limited.

That’s important because we sometimes talk about dating profiles as though the goal is to reveal the “real you.”

But people don’t have one single version of themselves sitting inside a vault waiting to be uploaded.

We’re all contextual.

You are different with your best friend than you are at work.

Different with your mother.

Different on vacation.

Different when you’re nervous.

Different when you’re in love.

Different when you’re exhausted and someone has just asked you what you want for dinner for the fourth consecutive night.

So perhaps the best dating profile isn’t the one that perfectly captures your entire personality.

That’s impossible.

It’s the one that gives somebody enough of the real you to make them curious about the rest.

For all our talk about prompts and personality, there is still a very simple reality.

People notice the picture first.

Eye-tracking research on online dating profiles found that photographs attracted initial attention more strongly than text, and that more attractive profile pictures received more attention. At the same time, the researchers found that text still influenced impressions.

Which makes Hinge’s more detailed format both useful and slightly funny.

We have created increasingly elaborate ways for someone to tell us who they are.

And we still start by looking at their face.

That’s not a criticism.

Physical attraction matters.

You don’t have to pretend otherwise to sound enlightened.

The problem is when the first impression becomes the filter through which everything else gets interpreted.

A person you already find attractive may suddenly seem funnier.

The same joke may feel more charming.

The same travel photo may look more adventurous.

We’re not perfectly objective readers of profiles.

We are people trying to decide whether we want to meet another person.

Of course our feelings get involved.

This is where I think modern dating gets particularly strange.

We complain that dating apps don’t give us enough information.

Then an app gives us more information.

And instead of thinking, Great, now I know a little more about this person, we sometimes think, Great, now I know whether I should want this person.

Those are completely different conclusions.

Think about how many people you might reject on Hinge because of one sentence.

One awkward prompt.

One photo you don’t like.

One hobby you don’t understand.

One answer that feels boring.

Maybe that’s perfectly reasonable.

You don’t owe everyone a date.

But sometimes we aren’t rejecting the person.

We’re rejecting our interpretation of six tiny pieces of information.

And that interpretation may be wrong.

Of course, this cuts both ways.

A fantastic profile can make us overlook obvious incompatibilities.

Someone is gorgeous.

They’re funny.

Their prompts are clever.

They seem adventurous.

Suddenly we’re doing emotional gymnastics to explain the fact that they want completely different things from a relationship.

This is where a good profile can become dangerous in a very ordinary way.

It can make someone appealing enough that we start negotiating with information we don’t like.

Maybe they don’t really mean that.

Maybe they’ll change their mind.

Maybe the relationship will make the difference disappear.

Meanwhile, the person we might actually be compatible with has a prompt answer that says something boring about Sunday brunch and therefore gets dismissed in twelve seconds.

Dating apps didn’t invent this behavior.

They simply gave us a remarkably efficient place to do it.

Not certainty.

That may be the simplest answer.

Use a profile to answer the first question.

Am I curious enough to know more?

That’s it.

You don’t need to know whether somebody is your future partner.

You don’t need to know whether you’ll have chemistry.

You don’t need to know whether your personalities will perfectly mesh.

You don’t even need to know whether you’ll have a second date.

You just need enough information to decide whether meeting them would be interesting.

That changes the way you look at the app.

Instead of asking whether someone is perfect enough to deserve a like, ask whether there is something there that makes you want to find out more.

That’s a much lower bar.

And that’s probably a healthier one.

This is the part of dating that technology has accidentally made harder.

Mystery.

Not games.

Not pretending you don’t care.

Not intentionally withholding information to make somebody chase you.

Just the simple fact that you don’t know everything yet.

There is something healthy about meeting a person who still has surprises left.

You don’t know exactly how their laugh sounds in person.

You don’t know what stories they tell badly.

You don’t know what makes them light up.

You don’t know whether their humor works when you’re sitting three feet away.

You don’t know whether conversation will flow.

You don’t know whether you’ll want to kiss them.

You don’t know whether you’ll want to run away.

And that’s okay.

Dating isn’t supposed to eliminate uncertainty.

It’s supposed to give you a reason to explore it.

Maybe the goal has been slightly wrong all along.

We think we’re supposed to create the profile that gets the most likes.

But what if the better goal is creating the profile that attracts the right kind of curiosity?

Those aren’t necessarily the same thing.

A generic profile can appeal to almost anyone.

A more specific one might appeal to fewer people but give the right people something to connect with.

And that’s probably a better outcome.

You don’t need everyone to think you’re funny.

You need the person who likes your particular kind of funny.

You don’t need everyone to understand your weird hobby.

You need someone who thinks it’s interesting.

You don’t need to create a universally appealing version of yourself.

That distinction changes everything.

And just when you thought dating apps couldn’t get any more involved, Hinge has moved beyond helping people build profiles.

Its newer Convo Starters feature can generate personalized ideas based on photos and prompt answers on another person’s profile. Hinge says the suggestions are designed to inspire users rather than write messages for them.

Again, there is a perfectly good reason for this.

Starting a conversation with a stranger can be awkward.

Someone has written something interesting, you want to respond, and suddenly your brain becomes completely unavailable.

“Hey” feels lazy.

A long paragraph feels insane.

So a little help can make the first move easier.

But look at the larger picture.

First we had apps helping us discover people.

Then they helped us present ourselves.

Now they can help us figure out what to say to each other.

That is a remarkable amount of assistance surrounding what is, fundamentally, two strangers trying to have a conversation.

This may be the biggest lesson hiding inside all of this.

Dating apps are very good at giving us reasons to evaluate.

Swipe.

Compare.

Filter.

Read.

Analyze.

Move on.

And because there is always another profile, there is always another opportunity to evaluate.

But dating itself is not an evaluation exercise.

Eventually you have to stop looking at the profile and start looking at the person.

That is where the useful information begins.

Do you feel comfortable around them?

Do you laugh naturally?

Are they curious about you?

Do they listen?

Do you like the way you feel when you’re with them?

Are you attracted to them?

Do you enjoy their company when neither of you is trying to create a good profile?

Those answers are worth far more than whether somebody selected the correct prompt.

Hinge isn’t the problem.

In many ways, it has made online dating more interesting.

It gives people more room to show personality. It gives potential matches more than a single photograph to react to. It creates opportunities for conversation before two people ever meet. And the company is clearly continuing to experiment with ways to make those interactions easier.

But no dating app can solve the fundamental problem of dating.

You are trying to understand another human being before you actually know them.

No number of photographs fixes that.

No perfect prompt fixes it.

No AI feedback fixes it.

No algorithm fixes it.

Because the interesting parts of a person aren’t always the parts they know how to put in a profile.

Sometimes they’re the way they laugh.

The way they treat a stranger.

The story they tell when they get completely sidetracked.

The thing they say that wasn’t remotely rehearsed.

The way you feel sitting beside them when neither of you has anything particularly impressive to say.

That’s the stuff a dating profile can’t really capture.

Don’t ask it to tell you whether they are your person.

It can’t.

And maybe that’s not a flaw.

Maybe that’s the part of dating we should leave alone.

Because the whole point of meeting someone is discovering the things the profile couldn’t possibly tell you.

Hinge can help you find the door.

It can help you decide whether you want to knock.

It can even help you figure out what to say when someone answers.

But eventually, the app has to disappear from the room.

And that’s when dating actually begins.