My dating experience on Hinge

Disclaimer: This is from my own personal experience and may or may not reflect the experiences of others. I started using Hinge from August 30^th until around mid Oct of 2019.

PROFILE

You can sign up an account using only your phone number. Hinge allows you to choose/upload 6 photos of yourself. It took me a while to choose 6 haha. My friends next to me were so impatient.

• I picked a selfie with my friend (but I covered her face in case it was confusing).
• I had another full body image of myself so people would have an idea of my physical size (This was the most popular photo. I got the most hearts from this one).
• There was a photo of me sitting with a bubble tea in my hand
• I had another picture of myself as Baby Grace from the snapchat filter
• There was also another photo of me and my brother in the museum of illusions. I was posing in awesome manner (upside down) while he was just standing straight and being boring
• I also included another group photo of me and my friends failing in an escape room T_T (I WANNA ESCAPE YOOOOO)

I had to choose 3 prompts for Hinge. Prompts are used as conversation starters. The guy/girl may comment on your prompt. However, they cannot have a conversation with you unless you accept/allow them to.

Here were my prompts:

I’m the type of texter who
loves puns. I love English puns, Chinese puns. As long as they are punny, go for it. XD

Together we can…
compose a song together! I loveeee music!!!

The secret to getting to know me is
read my blog. liveandlearn88.com

I like my prompts because I think it makes me more unique and it reflects me well. I didn’t want to be the typical “I like to eat, travel, and sleep” LOL (no offense if that’s what you like).

If you are confused and needs some help using Hinge, visit https://hingeapp.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/360001659533-Getting-Started for more information

 

MY EXPERIENCE

I’m told that guys on Hinge get to swipe approximately 5 people a day if they are a regular user. (I’m not sure if it’s the same for females).

Personally, I didn’t actually click like on anyone’s profiles. I only commented on one profile because I wanted to know what a dank meme was.

I didn’t actually have to initiate anything with anyone because I was getting likes every few minutes on the first day I created my profile. At first, I was open to all. But I had to make it super difficult because there were too many people and some guys were so old, they could be my dad. For instance, one guy was 64… uh…

As a result, I made it much harder for people to discover me since I put a deal breaker on age, no one with kids already, no drugs, and etc.

Hinge made me a preferred member for a month because they wanted to encourage me to use the app more. When you’re a preferred member, you can see everyone that has liked/commented on your profile. Otherwise, you would have to accept or reject one at a time before you can view the next person’s profile.

As a preferred member, you also get preferred preferences and you can customize it even more to fit what you are looking for.

 

LUCK

The reason why I have to filter so hard is because there are just too many people. I cannot talk to everyone. Basically, I accepted those who read my blog LOL (I can tell based on their comments) and if they are into music.

There are definitely a lot of guys with potential, but I have limited time and energy. I can only focus on so many before I lose track of the names and get them all mixed up. I cannot talk to a hundred people. I know that a hundred likes doesn’t necessarily mean a hundred options. However, if I accepted and they messaged me, I didn’t want to ignore them. Hence, I just let them pile up.

So as you can tell, online dating has a lot to do with luck too.

1. Both you and your match have to be using it during the same time span.
2. The age range is also a huge factor. I had just turned 31 around two weeks after I created my profile. One of my matches told me his cut off was 30. So technically, if I had started using the app in the middle of Sept, I wouldn’t even have popped up in his feed and we wouldn’t have spoken.
3. Aside from one other person, I only spoke with those who have messaged me within the first 2-3 days that I was using the app. So it’s almost like first come first serve (Sorry if that sounds bad).

 

STATS

I noticed a lot of Caucasian guys messaged me. I don’t know if it’s because Hinge has more Caucasian users or whether they’re just into Asian girls or if they tend to be bolder. I would say 50% of them would actually send me a personalized message instead of just liking my picture.

Out of the 15 people that I have accepted during the entire month of September (by the way, the majority of those were accepted on the first 3 days), 4 of them didn’t say anything (even though they may have commented on one of my prompts) and 1 of them initiated a conversation a month later (…uh..ok. I just ignored it).

From the 10 that I had a conversation with, 2 of them showed a lack of interest so the conversation quickly died. I stopped talking to another 2 because I didn’t know how to answer one of the guys and the other one took too long (for example, a few days to respond). I didn’t want to ignore him but there were too many people and I needed to cut down.

So I ended up talking to 6 guys in September. After speaking for roughly 2-3 weeks, I met up with all 6 and my dates were pretty interesting and fun. However, since it’s online dating, the guy or girl may disappear any time. So please do not expect too much. He/she may be talking to A, B, C, D, E, F, G (and so on).  

I do invest my time and energy to get to know my matches better. I genuinely care about them as a real human being. But I’m not going to go in too much details since some of them are probably going to read this post. LOL

Anyhow, all the other guys on Hinge basically have no chance since I chose not to match with anyone else. I apologize to all those who have liked my profile and wanted to get to know me. It’s not you. It’s me. -_- (I’ve already deleted the app lol)

I would go in more details but this post is already around 1300 words so that’s it. If you want to read more, do comment and let me know. I may make a Part 2 😉

OH! I just want to add a few reminders for online daters.

• There will always be competition. It’s like shopping. Some people want to try a lot of outfits before settling on one. Or some may never want to settle.
• Just because a guy finds you attractive doesn’t mean he wants to date you. It may not be difficult getting his attention, but keeping it is another story. Committing is a whole new level.
• Try not to get too attached or you’ll probably end up super emo. It’s much easier if you have low expectations.
• Usually guys are super hardcore at the beginning. Some just really enjoy the chase. Wait and see whether he can/will keep it up. Don’t try to force an outcome.

Good luck!

Hope you enjoyed this post! Have you tried Hinge before? If so, what are your thoughts and experiences?