As a self-proclaimed “Hinge Warrior,” I’ve had exactly 2,457 matches, been on countless dates, and met three long-term partners on the app (if you’re interested in figuring out your Hinge statistics follow these instructions to find them). After four years on and off the apps, my relationship with them is complicated. I’ve struggled with dating fatigue, with objectification (of myself and others), and with what some call the commodification of love.
We’ve all heard the stories: the good, the bad, and the slightly less attractive than we expected. Zohran Mamdani’s tale of finding his match sits at one end of the spectrum. At the other is the first date where someone looks across the table and says, “poor people deserve to be poor.” Hinge delivers all of it.
The Stigma of Dating Apps
In my previous article, I wrote about why people at Swarthmore are scared to initiate romantically and sexually. The dating pool here, at a school of roughly 1,700 students, is small, and Hinge expands it. Some people feel forced onto the apps for exactly that reason, and the stigma against them is real.
When I interviewed “E.J.” for this piece, she told me, “Hinge is for lonely people.” I answered, “Lonely? I don’t think I agree with that. I think a dating app is a place where the masses are now.” But maybe the masses are lonely. In fact, they are: 1 in 6 people globally are lonely.
The stigma sticks anyway. When I asked around whether people used Hinge or any other dating app, they hesitated. Those who admitted it qualified it: “on and off,” or “yeah, but I’m not using it right now.” Searching for a partner is inherently vulnerable. It feels like admitting you’re missing something, a critical trophy: love and connection.
But the first step toward a meaningful connection isn’t defeating loneliness. It’s knowing how to be alone, and who you are when you are. In “All About Love: New Visions,” bell hooks writes that “knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape.” So is Hinge only for lonely people? No. Do some people use it as escapism? Yes. Does everyone? No. Plenty of people on the app are looking for something genuine.
What Hinge Claims to Want
The CEO of Hinge, Jackie Jantos, put it pretty bluntly: “At Hinge, we hold ourselves to one outcome: helping people get to a great date. We believe technology should support human connection, not replace it, and that means moving people from the app toward something real, in person.” The product is “designed to be deleted.” If your experience with Hinge has left you mindlessly scrolling, it may be less about Hinge and more about how you’re using it.
The Case for Hinge
For “Ian,” the biggest pro of using apps is the way in which they create “an environment in which it’s kind of expected that you’re flirting with people, and so they’re never questioning whether or not any sort of conversation that [they] might be initiating is unwanted.”
On a small campus, an awkward attempt to spark a connection can follow you all semester long. But on an app, everyone there has already signed up for what they’re getting into. As Ian puts it, “if someone doesn’t want to talk to you, they don’t have to,” which takes away “that insecurity, and that doubt of, ‘can I really engage with this person?’”
It isn’t a blind spot. “In our ideal world,” he says, “everyone would be comfortable with whatever the primary means of dating is, and it would work.” Apps aren’t the ideal. But they’re a viable tool to get around the discomfort of approaching someone in-person.
The Case Against
E.J. counters the claim that apps make things easier: “if I was on there and I had confidence issues it would be incredibly demoralizing that people are just, you know, judging me based on appearances and some people aren’t gonna respond; what if there’s something wrong with me?”
The most important reason why she thinks that apps create problems is the same problem that Ian finds appealing: rejection. It’s much harder to not take rejection from apps personally, she argues, because it’s both anonymous and aggregate. It’s easier to accept a single missed connection at a party than a whole string of missed connections from strangers.
How Do We Fix This?
Ian and E.J. are both right, which is precisely the problem and precisely the solution. The app isn’t neutral. It amplifies whatever you bring to it.
The solution is fourfold: intentionality, vulnerability, consistency, and timing.
Intentionality
First, being intentional means having a plan. Are you looking for a committed relationship? Or something casual? Is it someone to get dinner with who isn’t in your problem set group? Whatever you’re seeking, none of those are wrong, but unexamined intentions are.
It also means understanding what you’re bringing to the app. And this brings us back to bell hooks. Knowing who you are by yourself means you aren’t going to need to escape yourself via a stranger. Including a couple of details about your profile that speak to your actual identity gives someone something concrete to react to.
Vulnerability
Being vulnerable in your communications means being honest. State upfront what you’re looking for, and when you aren’t connecting with someone. This gets back to the issue of clarity, which is the largest cause of dating fatigue: ambiguous, half-answers. Swarthmore is full of people who could write a seminar paper and cannot send the message: “I had a good time, but I’m not feeling it.” Being straightforward is kindness.
Consistency
Schedule time for your app use, in the same way you would schedule anything else you value. Fifteen minutes of consistent activity beats two hours of passive scrolling. It keeps the app from quietly hijacking your time, and it also makes sure you’re consistently engaging. If you’re answering someone every four days, it’s not a conversation anymore.
Timing
The clearest advice comes from Hinge itself: “At Hinge, we hold ourselves to one outcome: helping people get to a great date.” Don’t allow your conversations to linger on the app for weeks. Once you establish mutual interest, suggest meeting. There are plenty of low-stakes options on campus: meet at Kohlberg, go for a walk in the Crum, grab lunch at Essie Mae’s. You can leave easily, but there’s also the option to stay. Good timing also includes self-reflection. Thesis and midterm season are real, and honesty with yourself and your matches is required.
The Takeaway
There are many reasons for loneliness, awkwardness, and rejection at Swarthmore besides Hinge. But Hinge gives them a new interface. Passive use leads to frustration. Intentional use, with vulnerability, consistency, and good timing, helps Hinge do what it claims to do: get you out of the app and into a place with someone interesting.
Maybe you’re not bad at dating apps. Maybe you’re just using Hinge wrong.
