Hacking Your Hinge: Optimizing Your Dating App Profile

I recently had the unfortunate experience of swiping through a dating app with one of my guy friends, and it was the first time I got to see what guys see on an app and I was honestly embarrassed on behalf of my own gender.

I see girls, myself included, complaining all the time about how guys portray themselves on apps but girls are doing the exact same thing!

So, since apparently everyone is useless on the apps, and as someone who has found a decent amount of success with them, please use this article as your guide. 

The most important thing to remember in profile creation is that you are trying to attract the highest amount of people that you also would be interested in. I feel like people get very caught up in how many matches they get when really the goal should be quality, not quantity. With that in mind, let’s get started.

First things first: pictures. Everyone uses these as the initial gauge of interest, I found out men tend to be especially discerning on appearances, even more so than women. As such, the first picture matters maybe more than anything else on your profile. It should be clean, simple, and attractive. Which means DO NOT do any of the following - 

No pics of you from far away

No group pics

No pics of you with sunglasses on

No pics of a drink or anything else obscuring your face

No pics with your pet

No pics with your family

No summit/landmark/activity pics

No snapchat filters (I found out this is one that younger women tend to do a lot)

Absolutely no gym selfies

No fish pics (you holding a fish)

All of these, on some level, scream insecurity right from the get go. You’re either telling me you didn’t even bother to find a good picture of your face, or you’re telling me that you’re not confident enough to just post a picture of you with no extras. For me personally, every single one of these has been an automatic swipe left.

This picture should basically be as good quality as a LinkedIn photo but with a little more fun. It should be the most attractive pic of yourself with no extra fluff. Let someone notice you. The other things can actually make you end up seeming more generic. I’ve seen hundreds of photos of people on top of mountains or at Machu Picchu, but I would only ever see one of you. Let yourself be what stands out. For reference, the cover photo on my home page of this blog is what I typically use.

Keep in mind what I said above as well. For example, it would be really easy for me to use a thirst trap to get a lot of matches but I am not trying to attract the kind of person that is easily swayed by those so I just don’t post them. Remember, you’re optimizing for what you might also want.

The rest of the photos should mostly follow the rules outlined above as well. Your profile should reflect you and what you are like in different settings as much as possible. I recommend having at minimum two photos of just yourself (one can be the first one). One should be a full body shot. You should have at least four pictures, and the other two can be more open. If you have less than this, it just doesn’t show a lot of effort and profiles with barely any content also tend to look more suspicious. You can have group pics but only if it’s clear which one you are, and then post a travel pic or something activity based to show off one of your interests. 

Ok next is content. This is harder and also less important than the photos since apps lend themselves to being superficial more than anything else. However, I will say that I think the more you write on your profile, the better luck you’ll have in general. The more you write, the more personality you’ll show off and the less generic you’ll seem. I know I have definitely considered guys I wouldn’t have swiped right on on based solely on appearances because their content piqued my interest. You want to provide more context around yourself, and also provide fuel for a conversation. For example, on my profile I have that an interesting fact about me is that I speak four languages. This makes it easy for someone to ask simply “which languages?” to get the conversation started if they want.

I do not recommend spending your summary listing what you’re looking for in someone else. This usually doesn’t work for two reasons - 1. You come off demanding when no one even has any reason to like you yet; and 2. As much as you’re looking for someone else, you’re still selling yourself to others as well. Spend that space and time figuring out what makes you attractive and what you like and highlight that instead.

 This next part will mostly focus on the way Hinge is structured since that’s my preferred app, but much of this can apply to other apps as well. For those who don’t know, Hinge forces you to pick at least three prompts to answer from a predetermined list to add to your profile. Here are the most common errors and ways to fix them that I’ve now seen from ALL GENDERS - 

Prompt: I’m overly competitive about…

Everyone’s Answer: Everything ;)

My Take: First of all, you’re a liar. No one is competitive about everything. You’re competitive about sleeping? Lighting candles? Eating marshmallows? You sound ridiculous. This is too generic, it doesn’t leave any room for a conversation. Be specific. This can be leveraged into a great opportunity to share something you love! Even something as simple as being competitive about a sport or trivia is so much better. 

Prompt: I want someone who is…

Everyone’s answer: Some variation of “Kind, smart, funny, loyal, etc”

My Take: LOW BAR. Everyone wants that stuff, it’s literally the bare minimum. This prompt is an opportunity to do one of two things - be funny, or literally share a unique requirement. Humor is great here if you feel comfortable. You could say you want someone who can beat you in star wars trivia. Or you could say something like I want someone who will let me have the last fry. Think beyond the basic qualities of a good human and share something you truly want. 

Prompt: The best way to ask me out is…

Everyone’s answer: Just asking me out

My Take: Just shoot me in the face. Yeah obviously, but HOW? Even saying by text or by phone is better than this. You might even, oh I don’t know, show some fucking personality? 

If you’re trying to write a freeform description on Tinder or Bumble, I highly recommend keeping it sweet and simple and showing off your main interests. Just list them out or even use the greater than/less than format (i.e. tacos>burritos). You want to give people as much information as possible that they can form a conversation out of. Even asking potential matches to guess something about you (what car you drive, where you’re from, etc.) can be more interesting than just putting your insta handle and an emoji and calling it a day. C’mon.

Online dating is brutal. We usually decide in a split second if we even want to consider someone’s profile and even if we do, the rest of the judgement is over in a few seconds max. As I said at the beginning, the key is to craft your profile to attract the highest number of people that you would also be attracted to. So many people seem to fall into the trap of trying to appeal to everyone by making their profile as generically positive  as possible.

But the point of this isn’t to appeal to everyone because you’re not attracted to everyone. It is only in your best interest to show off your best features and your unique personality as much as possible to have the highest chance of attracting someone you might actually be able to form some kind of relationship with. And the best part is, once you spend some time in actually crafting a good profile, you can basically just sit back and let it do the work for you.

Me about to take off my glasses and yell at you for being so horribly bland on your profiles…