Why married people should be forced to make a Hinge profile once a year
This past weekend I flew home for an annual tradition where my three closest friends from high school and I get together. We stay at one friend’s apartment and basically have an extended three-day sleepover. Over the years, the vibes of this sleepover have evolved as we’ve “matured.” (Once upon a time, we’d have a stacked itinerary with daytime activities right up until dinner time, followed by not one but two post-dinner activities. Nowadays we have a fluffy schedule that roughly consists of one or two structured activities per day with a loose commitment to “maybe do some other activities if we feel like them.”)
However, what hasn’t changed is the high density of catching up that happens. We cover a variety of topics, and this weekend, one of the biggest topics was the plight that is modern day dating.
For context, I am the token married friend in this friend group. I met E in college and I have never been on the dating apps. As such, naturally, I have lots of helpful advice when it comes to dating in 2025 at the tender age of thirtyish. I am always quick to spew suggestions and to critique dating profiles (whether my friends’ or those of potential suitors) and I have no shortage of commentary on how first dates should be approached. (I mean, surely you’ve seen the title of my newsletter?)
As part of our pontifications on what makes online dating so challenging, we talked extensively about how the messages/likes received and profiles can pile up quite quickly. As an avid user of Slack at work, I felt fairly certain that I could triage these efficiently and nominated myself to help out. One of my friends bravely logged into her Hinge account on my phone and thus, on my flight back home, I sat and reviewed profiles of those who’d liked her photos or sent a note.
I had some guidance on how to respond – an inbound message should be answered with a message of a similar degree of thoughtfulness, and mere likes could be returned with a level of engagement of my choosing. With these guidelines in mind, I put myself in my friend’s shoes and began to review the potential suitors.
It was pretty fascinating at first to go through each profile and think about a hypothetical future for my friend and each candidate together. Silently, I’d poke holes at the things they wrote in their profiles (i.e. read between the lines) or let myself feel a little flutter of excitement for traits that seemed promising for a good match. I figured out quickly how to find the hooks that they’d left in their profiles for others to use as conversation starters and I got into a groove. However, shortly after I got into the groove, I got bored of the exercise.
Side note – for those of you who are currently feeling horrified at the impersonation happening, I will caveat that my job here was merely top of funnel management. After sending an initial conversation prompt or brief reply to an inbound note, I handed the conversations back to my friend. I also provided some “high recommends” and a few “medium recommends,” but left it up to her to triage.
A few days later, having reflected on my brief foray into online dating, I’ve come to a few conclusions, such as…
Married people should be forced to make a Hinge profile at least once a year.
Like, not literally on Hinge. But at least a mockup of one, with proposed photos and captions and conversation starters and whatnot. I think this would serve a few purposes:
Build empathy for your single friends – it is so hard to market yourself succinctly.
Build empathy for your partner – they put up with all of the things you’re not going to market, i.e. all of your embarrassing and weird quirks.
Generate self-awareness and clarity on what defines who you are, or at least what you want others to know about you.
Remind you of how easy it is to critique a profile when you see it, when really it’s such a tiny sliver into understanding someone.
And as an added bonus, once you see your partner’s profile, make you appreciate what you’re lucky to have.
Obviously, I am not just here to promote this specific exercise in empathy so that your single friends stop rolling their eyes at your useless advice…
The broader life lesson here is that it is incredibly useful to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. It could be taking a step back to a role you used to have at work, before you got promoted. It could also be trying something very orthogonal to your usual life or line of work. In either case, doing this provokes a whole slew of reflections, reactions, and most likely leads you to be better at the current role you hold.
In my case, I came home and appreciated E a little more than usual. I thought a lot about what I’d put on a hypothetical dating profile, which led me to more seriously take the time to consider new hobbies I’d like to pursue. I feel more equipped to offer useful feedback to my friends the next time they show me their dating profiles. And finally, I understand a bit more about why swiping on profiles and starting conversations isn’t all butterflies and rainbows, as I’d always imagined it.
Okay, I do think it would be truly unjust of me to end this post without sharing some more advice on what I think people should do Hinge. So here goes:
Write at least 15 words for each prompt – if you’re writing anything less, it’s probably really generic unless you have deeply unique interests or are just super talented in using your words.
Really think about the one thing that will be memorable and whether you want that to be what you are remembered for. The memorable people become “the ____ girl” or “the guy with the _____” after a quick profile review. Are you okay with becoming that person? Is that the right criteria you want others to filter you on?
Be honest about yourself and who you are. Don’t be someone you think others want to see. I saw a handful of profiles that felt predictable, but not genuine. I didn’t know what to make of them but it made me nervous to trust that person.
When you do reach out to someone, pay attention to what they share about themselves and craft your outreach around what made them stand out. If you only put in a like’s worth of effort, do you really expect to get back more thoughtfulness?
If you’re tired of triaging, trust your friends to take over for you. For every single, fed up person out there, I’m pretty sure there’s at least one married couple willing to take on some of the work.