The Hinge dating app for hot hookups and long-term romance

Those who opt for Hinge with hot hookups in mind are opting for a dating app that is really quite unconventional. Many competitors to Hinge are superficial, as are many of the dating apps out there. Most involve users just looking at the pictures of potential partners and choosing to engage in conversation or make contact with someone based upon their attractiveness in the pictures alone.

This is where Hinge actually differs as its entire design is based upon helping people using the app to make contact with others who share their interests and their personality type, and with whom they have something in common. That is to say, Hinge is an app that is dedicated to assisting people in forging long term relationships.

As a matter of fact, did you know that a user is actually encouraged to delete their profile the moment they find someone with whom they can have a long term relationship. The app was acquired by the company that owns Match.com about a year ago, and since then has undergone a considerable redesign, but even this only goes to emphasize its focus upon relationships and serious conversations and encounters.

This is, in fact, one of the things that makes Hinge such an attractive option – it gives one an alternative to all the other sites and apps out there that seem to be focused upon the most superficial of dates and encounters.

The fact that Hinge goes to so much trouble to ensure that people have a match based upon their personalities and interests also means that a good many dates are actually successful when a couple meets in person. Unlike on some other apps and sites, where you might casually contact someone based upon a picture – on chemistry – and then meet the person to find that they are completely unlike you, and that neither you nor they have any real interest in each other, when you meet someone in person that you found on Hinge, the chances are that you will have a lot in common and a lot to talk about.

Why are Hinge profiles intended to be deleted?

Hinge is completely focused upon delivering results, and the fact that it actually encourages users to delete their profiles once they find a partner shows how result oriented the site is. Hinge has chosen this approach because it wants to be a viable alternative to all the dating apps all there that do not deliver results in the long term.

The team at Hinge believe that people are tired of using conventional dating apps to meet people whom they find they have no interest in knowing better, and so Hinge focuses on helping people find a person just right for them. Someone they can have hot hookups with right away, and go on to form a long term relationship with. And then they will never have to use the app again. However, if you use the app for some hot hookups, there is no need to delete the app.

Signing up on the Hinge hookup app

When you sign up on Hinge, you should be ready for a multi-page process that will try to analyze and correctly present your personality, interests and so on. This is actually a very positive point, because it shows that the app is making a genuine commitment towards matching people accurately. As I just mentioned, it’s a multi-page system. To start out, you will sign up, and here you have to access either your Facebook profile, or your mobile number. You will also have to give the app your email address.

Verification process

Interestingly enough, in today’s world, where email verification is pretty standard, this app does not send you a verification email. However, if you choose to insert your mobile number, the site will send you a verification code. Once this basic signing up process is complete, you go one to supplying the site with various statistics about yourself, starting with your location.

This does not mean that the site will merely ask you what country you are from, or what state, but instead, will require you to use a map to show your precise location. There’s also an option to use a smart-phone’s GPS to ascertain your precise coordinates. If you do not wish to use that option, you can also enter your location manually.

Basic info and introduction

Once you show the site where you’re from, you will then have to fill out a fairly standard form that includes entering information about your gender and dating preferences in terms of gender. For those who have bisexual preferences, the site offers to show both male and female profiles for hot hookups. The sign up pages will also ask for your height and place of work, as well as for your level of education, your ethnicity, and your religion.

There are also sections that deal with whether you have children, and ask where your hometown was. You need only reveal what you want to, as many of these statistics can be hidden from your public profile, even if you do enter the information.

Uploading photographs

Now you will be asked to upload photographs. Note that this site requires that you put up a mandatory six photographs, and will not accept any less. There is an option that allows you to take picture from Facebook. If you choose to do this, the site will simply choose the last six profile pictures that you put up on Facebook.

If you find any of these unsatisfactory, you can, of course, delete it, but if you do, you will have to replace it with another picture. Remember that the six pictures are absolutely mandatory, and the site will not allow you to complete your profile unless you actually upload six pictures. High quality photos increase your chances of having some hot hookup thanks to the Hinge app.

Writing prompts

After you finish uploading your pictures, the site will then take you to a page full of something called writing prompts. These are various questions that you can choose to answer. They also consist of incomplete sentences that you can choose to complete. There are quite a few of these, and you can answer, or choose to complete as many as you wish, but you will need to do at least one to proceed.

Answers that you put in here will be displayed on your profile. Hinge asks for a lot of information, as you can see, and it may take some time to fill out the various entry fields that I’ve been describing here, but you are strongly advised to go with it, as these are the things that help Hinge to stand out, and which will help your profile to stand out as well.

Filling in the required information makes your profile unique, and allows you to not only better catch the attention of other Hinge users, but also allows Hinge’s software to better match you with other potential partners who share your personality and interests. The more information you put in, the more likes you are likely to receive on Hinge, and the greater chance you have of finding a good partner.

Browsing though profiles

One really good thing about Hinge is that the majority of its features are genuinely free. Unlike many other dating sites and apps, Hinge allows you to like profiles for free, comment on people’s profiles, also for free, and best of all, send messages entirely free of charge. There is a premium subscription feature, that is to say, a paid subscription, and those members who opt for it are called preferred members.

There’s actually very little difference between a free user and a preferred member, other than the fact that a free user can only like ten profiles in a day, while a preferred member can use an infinite amount of likes. However, this matters a lot less than you might think, as finding a partner for hot hookups on Hinge depends more upon examining a profile in-depth, and trying to get a sense of what a person is like, rather than blindly looking at one profile picture after another.

As this sort of browsing takes more time, it would be quite comfortable to send around ten likes in a day. When you see how likes are sent on Hinge, you’ll get a better sense of how Hinge is a far more sophisticated platform than most other dating apps like Tinder or Match.

The system of “likes”

Choosing to like someone on Hinge is a lot different from pressing the like button on Facebook. It requires a little genuine consideration. For example, rather than just push a like button, you actually have to choose a section of the person’s profile that you like.

While this can be a picture, it can also be any of the answers that a person has provided in his or her profile. Hinge also allows you to add a comment in with your like, and it is strongly recommended that you do this, because this can help to jump-start a conversation with the person concerned.

The way things work on Hinge is that when you like someone’s profile, they get to see what portion of the profile you liked, as well as reading your comment, and then they can choose to like you back. If they do, you can then start messaging them. This also works the other way around. For example, if someone sends you a like, they cannot message you until you send them a like back, so make sure that you do this.

Once the two of you have sent a like to each other, you can start mutual messaging. Besides your manual browsing, Hinge also offers an excellent match-making system, where matches for relationships and hot hookups that the software calculates are suited to your profile show up in a list.

If you don’t like a profile that the software brings up, simply press the ‘x’ button, and that profile will disappear, to be replaced by the next one recommended by the software. If you like a profile that the software brings up, simply like some aspect of it, and then, if the member concerned sends you a like back, you can get a conversation going.

What is it like to message other members on Hinge?

As you already have a good idea of, you can send messages on Hinge only to profiles with whom you have a mutual like. That is to say, you can only send messages to a member you have liked, and who has liked you back, and vice versa. Once these mutual likes are in place, the messaging tab on the profile becomes active, and you can text each other. Do bear in mind that the messaging system supports only text, and will not allow you to attach any additional photographs other than the six that you already have in your profile.

As you can see, the entire system on Hinge is focused upon people giving thought to profiles, and not simply looking through hundreds of profiles, searching for ‘pictures they like’, and then sending out hundreds of mass messages that are not at all unique, and thus not at all likely to appeal to any one particular recipient as a person.

On Hinge, when you see a profile, you have to give it some consideration, and the fact that you cannot message a person until they like you back ensures that people on Hinge do not send hundreds of cloned messages to each other. This leads instantly to more meaningful conversations, and thus to more meaningful relationships or memorable hot hookups.

So, what are the demographics of Hinge?

Well, around half of the members reside in the United States of America, with the rest being scattered through other countries around the globe. Hinge also offers a roughly equal percentage of males and females, which makes it relatively easy for a person to find a partner there. This is quite different from some dating apps, which might have a preponderance of men over women, which can make things difficult for both the men and the women on the app.

Hinge’s equal ratio of men and women ensures that a woman, for example, does not receive messages from too many men for her to respond to. Most of the people on the site tend to be working professionals between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. Virtually all of them are searching for a serious relationship. Most of these are probably people who have already used a great deal of the more casual dating apps, such as Mamba, and who are therefore deliberately choosing to use an app like Hinge, that promotes meaningful relationships.

Most of the members on Hinge are very active, and so getting a mutual like, and starting a good conversation is not very hard. In contrast to many other dating apps, Hinge also doesn’t seem to have too many fake or fraudulent profiles, which is a big relief, since such profiles are not only a security risk, but they also tend to be a waste of time.

After all, one joins a dating platform to meet a real person for hot hookups, not to engage in conversations with someone who is hiding behind a fake picture. This doesn’t mean that you absolutely won’t encounter a fake profile on Hinge, it just means that such profiles are a small percentage of those you would find on other dating apps.

Even those fake profiles that might exist on Hinge seem to be more the result of people being concerned about their privacy, and not wishing to put their pictures on a public platform, rather than having been put up with any intention to defraud.

What does your Hinge profile show visitors?

As you know, the options on Hinge allows you to choose exactly what visitors will see. Your visitors will be able to view the statistics of your choice, and your pictures, of course, as well as any questions that you may have answered, or ‘incomplete sentences’ that you have completed. The individual sections of the profile each have a small heart button, that can be clicked on to tell that member that you liked that portion of their profile.

The signing up process itself ensures that profiles are full of relevant and useful information that you can use to get a sense of what a person is actually like, rather than having to guess, or to decide whether you want to contact a person or not depending on how attractive you find a profile picture.

The fact that Hinge is so successful in promoting serious relationships is partly due to the signing up process, but it is even more due to the fact that Hinge is known to be dedicated towards fostering serious relationships, that this is precisely what everyone comes to Hinge for. This fact also means that the people who come to Hinge are happy to put information into their profiles if it means that they can better find a partner for a long term relationship or even for some hot hookups . So it’s a win-win situation all round, and any way you look at it.

Unlocking some paid features

There’s a special tab in the app for you to see all those who liked your profile. In the case of free members, you’ll find that the pictures in this list are blurred, and that you will actually have to click on each of them to see the profiles of people who liked you. In the paid version, of course, you can see all the pictures and profiles of those who liked you on the likes page itself.

Those who opt for the paid subscription also have an additional option, and that is of your being able to see who liked your profile in the form of a grid made up solely of profile pictures. This allows you to browse the pictures of all those who liked your profiles quickly and easily, allowing you to choose to explore the profiles of those members you find most attractive first.

The Hinge app also has a ‘We Met’ button. This button allows you to tell the Hinge team how your interaction with a particular person went, and whether you actually met them in person. It also allows you to tell the Hinge team how a particular date actually went, as well. If your date went well, and is likely to lead to a long term relationship, the Hinge team usually encourages you to quit the app. If, on the other hand, a date does not go very well, the team simply works harder to offer you better options.

Usability of the Hinge dating and hookup app

As we mentioned in the beginning, this app was bought out by the Match Group, and they promptly put a lot of effort into the redesign of the app, increasing usability, and trying to optimize its effectiveness.

The user interface also underwent a renovation, and is now far more attractive, and the app itself was directed towards the age group of twenty to forty year olds, that is to say, the younger set of business professionals. The colors are bright and radiate a very positive effect when you use the app. The features that you’ll use to contact people are well highlighted, and allow you to easily focus upon and use them.

In their advertising, Hinge deliberately does not use live people or models, so as to underplay any suggestion of superficiality. Instead, illustrations and cartoons are used, both in advertising, as well as for the app’s on-site tutorials.

The app is very easy to use, and very straightforward. Most of the features are effortless to access, and can be reached directly from the app’s primary user interface. The tabs at the bottom easily allow you to know about and reach out to new people who like you.

All in all, the bottom-line is that if you want an app that allow you to have a deep and meaningful relationship, or even some wonderful hot hookups, then Hinge is certainly the way to go, having been designed entirely around the concept. That, coupled with the very genuine and dedicated clientele, and its equal male to female ratio make it one of the most powerful and effective dating apps available today.

The fact that fake profiles are kept off the app, and that the team that runs it are so focused upon getting results and helping each person find a partner just right for them make this really one of the go-to dating apps on the web. Don’t hesitate to try it out whether you’re interested in short term romance, quick hookups or lifelong commitments.