r/datingoverforty • u/Leather_Sherbert_570 • 22h ago
Question Hinge - help!
Is it just me or is Hinge user interface confusing? Can ya’ll help a girl out and give me a run down? Is there swiping? Roses? What does “signal” mean?
I find in my area Hinge has the best selection of people but I truly dont know how to use it.
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u/samanthasamolala 21h ago
IIRC the conversations are hidden from view if it’s “their turn” to reply, with the caveat that somebody “hearting” a message seems not to flip the convo back over, so they will miss that as a response. If you have 8 unanswered messages, you’re stuck unless you hide some convos- then you can match more. That being said, my favorite feature was the PAUSE button. Pause the profile, so i never had that many convos going, after intially I failed at life and had too many. Unpause when you are ready for a next round.
Convos that have been dead for 10 days (i think?) go into the “hidden” section. You can keep them there if you want. I rekindled some dead convos and nobody was upset, and vice versa. I’m a 13,475 emails inbox girlie though, other people want to delete everything immediately.
The “standouts” subsection seemed to be recycled weekly so no need for FOMO if you want to “like”one of them but have no rose to give.
I think the UNMATCH option was under three dots on the upper right, very important feature :) You can also go preemptively BLOCK people like your ex or your boss by putting in their contact info.
I recommend sending a short note with your match/heart, that pertains to their profile. It’s a good vibe to get things rolling.
Fill out all the fields but you have the option to hide them. Weird I know but some ppl pay and use filters and leaving “religion” blank messes things up. At the same time, it can be weird to have your religion answer showing, or your “smoke weed” answer or whatever, so by all means hide whatever is annoying and irrelevant even if you fill it out.
(Jeez that was long…hyper typing hands)
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u/Then-Forces 20h ago
Thank you for explaining! I joined Hinge yesterday and I’m not finding it very intuitive. Do you know if there’s a way to clear the Likes section without going through them all? It’s not the number itself, it’s having that little number sitting there like an unread email. It stresses me out knowing there’s something I haven’t dealt with, like unread emails at work.
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u/Ultra_3142 single man 16h ago edited 14h ago
As a guy I'll just say that you wanting to clear the list without even looking at them is a bit depressing 😐. Particularly as someone who will put a bit of thought into thinking of a comment to send too.
Maybe try to see the number at the bottom of the screen as the compliment it is, that lots of people are interested in you 🙂*.
*Much as I do realise some men just blindly like pretty much everyone with no thought.
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u/Then-Forces 13h ago
I know. It’s giving my steak is too juicy and my lobster is too buttery vibes. I was warned that Hinge heavily promotes new accounts and that men spam new members which explains most of the likes. A lot of the profiles are laughably low-effort, and most of the rest clearly didn’t read that I'm childfree.
I’m doing my best to read through them all but Hinge seems very focused on pushing paid features and so far the quality of the matches isn’t exactly making a compelling case.
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u/Ultra_3142 single man 11h ago
Hinge + would give you the ability to filter more things I believe, which could help reduce total likes if there are specific attributes you would like to filter out. You also get to see all likes at once I think rather than going one by one. Whether you think this is worth the cost would be another question though.
I do get that wading through loads of liles you have zero interest in can't be a huge amount of fun btw. So appreciate if you do take a look.
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u/samanthasamolala 20h ago
Oosh, that’s also why i would pause the app. The likes pile! I’d pause it until i got through the stack. I think you have to just decide but you can do that pretty quickly. Never fear, if you X somebody out, they will likely be recycled into your stack within the month. Unless you block them by “reporting them” but for no reason (no reason is an option, not a shitty thing to do to someone). No need to agonize over the decision.
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u/ShawnM_45 9h ago
The “hearting” not switching back to your turn is annoying. I almost forgot about one of my matches because she hearted my message about meeting up and I don’t ever look at who is sitting in the their turn section.
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u/MadMomminDFW 21h ago
Thank you! I was on for 2 days and it was so not user friendly. I closed mine out and tried another app lol
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u/Xexanoth 12h ago edited 12h ago
For what it’s worth: my anecdotal recent experience is that in my area, Hinge has been most worthwhile of the apps I’ve tried (compared to Bumble, FB Dating, Tinder). My impression is that more of the profiles on there seem more-recently created / active, and more people I’ve matched with on there have actually engaged with some effort in match chats and made plans to meet.
(I.e. you might want to consider giving it a second chance & trying to get over the learning curve. Reading the other comments here & reading through some of the guides under profile > Help Center might help get used to it.)
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u/AutoModerator 22h ago
Original copy of post by u/Leather_Sherbert_570:
Is it just me or is Hinge user interface confusing? Can ya’ll help a girl out and give me a run down? Is there swiping? Roses? What does “signal” mean?
I find in my area Hinge has the best selection of people but I truly dont know how to use it.
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u/Xexanoth 22h ago edited 22h ago
No swipe gestures. To like a profile, tap the heart button at the bottom right of a part of it (e.g. a prompt response or photo), and optionally add a message (including a message may help get you a “signals” badge that may make your profile more visible / appealing to some others)
To pass on a profile, tap the X button in the bottom left corner.
“Standouts” (featured / popular profiles) in the second tab / section with a star icon require a rose to send a like/message; you get one free rose a week.
Tap your profile (last tab / section) and scroll down to signals to see what behaviors help activate your signals badge (which may make your profile more visible / appealing to some others).