Four Things for Cishet Men to Stop Doing on Hinge in 2021. Please.
By Alanna Duffield
Strangely, for someone that has gone on a grand total of zero dates during the era of Covid-19, the dating app Hinge has been a shining beacon of light in an otherwise very dark nine months.
But, if you didn’t go on any dates, why would Hinge have made any difference? Ah, my dear reader, you misunderstand the main the purpose of Hinge. Before it is a dating app, it is first and foremost a window into the bizarre labyrinth of cishet men. The most unintentionally funny creatures of all time.
A gallery of fish-holding men
This in itself is no groundbreaking mid-pandemic discovery. We knew this already through the medium of Tinder, Hinge’s predecessor, where somewhere along the way these men decided the best way to attract a mate was to showcase themselves holding a freshly caught fish with their bare hands, or smiling next to an ex whose face they have diligently pixelated.
But Hinge in 2020 brought about a new degree of hysteria within me. And I was not alone. Our all-girls group chat has been alight with a near-constant stream of screenshots. Everything from poorly disguised ‘negging’ to full-blown sonnets. It has been a circus of delights and disasters.
While I’m sure there are cases for women evoking the occasional full-body-cringe on Hinge, as a person that swipes through both men and women, I can assure you—no one makes a vagina seal itself shut in protest quite like a straight man.
Oh but they mean well (i think)
What I think is important to discuss here is that, more often than not, I truly believe these men are trying to come off well, even if they are somehow managing to do the exact opposite.
In the case of some, they are simply ten years behind the times. Where fifteen-year-old Alanna might have thought a guy was down to earth by saying he prefers a natural, no-makeup look, twenty-eight-year-old Alanna (who is incidentally wearing four different shades of eye shadow right now) wants them to fuck off with haste. The same can be said for saying something to the effect of “Pretty AND intelligent? Wow!” Thank you for the compliment, Man From a Woody Allen Film.
Perhaps I have simply had more time on my hands to scrutinise of late. Or perhaps the tolerance has drained slowly out of me as the lockdown ass-print in my sofa grows ever deeper. All I know is—these guys need some guidance.
So, whether they like it or not (and with the help of my trusty group chat) I have collated the crème de la crème of problematic things cishet men do on Hinge, in the hopes that 2021 might result in swooning rather than collective booing.
Negging.
Even if you don’t know what negging is, if you’re a woman, the chances are you have been a victim of it at some stage. Negging is essentially giving someone a backhanded compliment, intended to throw off their confidence, making them vulnerable and more receptive to attention and affection. Lovely. In a Hinge context, for instance, someone might deliberately say “Oh, I thought you were the girl on the right. You’re still very pretty though!” Whether or not you think it works, don’t do it. It reflects your own insecurities back on you with the clarity of a mirror.
Job Interviewing.
Possibly one of my favourites from last year was from a man who liked my Hinge profile with the opener: “Yes, you are attractive. But what else are you bringing to the table?” Well fuck me, mate, I don’t know? I didn’t realise I needed a reference from an old employer, a list of all the Microsoft Office tools I am proficient in.
Women already have to navigate this planet constantly proving themselves as worthy of the space they take up. Get your fusty HR energy out of my sexy dating space.
Hating Women.
Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But women don’t tend to want to go on dates with people who hate them.
“All women have a degree of bipolar”, said one profile which managed to make me baulk, me, a seasoned veteran of Hinge toxicity. All I’m saying is: through Hinge, you have three brief chances to sell yourself as a person that might be fun to meet. If in that small window of opportunity you manage to come across as explicitly hostile towards women (and that’s not even getting into the stigmatisation made of people living with bipolar disorder) perhaps you are in the wrong place altogether?
Similarly, “Something I’d never do again: My ex” just makes me want to meet your ex for a wine. They sound like they need it.
The ‘No Small Talk’ Policy.
It still surprises me that cishet men continue to include this in their dating profiles: “Not into small talk. Let’s just go for a drink.”
Now, don’t get me wrong, every time I enter a new ‘talking stage’ a part of my youthful exuberance goes to die under the porch like an old dog. No one likes small talk. But you know what’s even worse than small talk? Arriving to meet a date you haven’t properly vetted and realising that they vote UKIP and think Covid is a hoax.
Seriously though, I’m not exaggerating when I say every time a woman goes on a date with a male stranger, to some degree she feels her safety is jeopardised. We go through the motions of updating friends with our whereabouts, wearing ‘demure’ clothing, taking note of the ‘Ask for Angela’ policy stuck to the pub toilet door, the least you can do is let us get an idea of you in advance.
I will close by reiterating that app dating is not all terrible. Whether they intended to or not, some blokes have brought me genuine joy and laughter during these troubling times. I’ve had poems written for me. I’ve seen some truly excellent dogs. If Hinge were a terrible place, I simply wouldn’t be there.
But it would be nice, as we enter a new year, to have fewer clangers to screenshot.
Alanna Duffield is a London-based writer and poet with a MA and BA Hons in English and American literature.
Alanna's writing, which frequently explores themes of nature, womanhood, grief and sex, has been published by the BBC, Dear Damsels, Candiid Magazine, t’ART Press and features on Spotify.
Website: alannaduffield.com / Instagram: @alannaduffieldpoetry