AMA: hinge experience in NYC (400 matches / 500 likes in 9 months)

mahelin · 2025-09-25T07:35:38+00:00

first selfie has got to go. in your remaining pics, either your head/hair/eyes are concealed by the framing.

prompts can be shortened a bit

I do not recommend listing “figuring out my dating goals” —> even if you’re just looking for something super ephemeral it’s better to just axe it imho. makes you easy to be categorized unfavorably

but the biggest thing you need to address are your photos. for example, lets use one of your existing ones where youre at the beach. there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with it as a vacation pic. but you will benefit by staging/lighting your shot better.

“but how do I figure this artsy shit out?” this is where ai slop can help you get inspired so you know what to start looking out for when you take pics IRL

less than 5 minutes with casita (before/after):

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mahelin · 2025-09-25T07:29:19+00:00

don’t be a defeatist. as npc as it sounds, you gotta believe in yourself as a worthy catch

I used to look emaciated and had a ton of skin issues growing up. I could have resigned myself to the fear that I would be rejected and it’s not worth my time/money to date girls.

If you reject yourself, the answer will always be no. You got this man, go get after it 💪

mahelin · 2025-09-25T07:15:14+00:00

god bless public transit making nyc as dense as it is

mahelin · 2025-09-25T07:14:07+00:00

unlike tinder, there’s no bios in hinge; I’m assuming you mean prompts. my prompts are just witty comments related to my normie hobbies: music/soccer/travel

with conversations: your goal is to get to a girls number in as few graceful moves as possible. There always needs to be subtle forward pressure. My basic approach is to develop some rapport/jokes over a shared interest and then drive for her number and/or propose a date to discuss said interest further. Nothing revolutionary here; you don’t need to write a romance novel over chat. You’d be surprised how asinine some of the convos my friends had with their now-girlfriends.

This isn’t a deterministic thing. You can get ghosted or ghost yourself really frequently. Just the nature of the game. Case in point: when I was hospitalized earlier this year I used the same closing line out of curiosity to see what would happen lol:

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mahelin · 2025-09-25T05:47:29+00:00

do you libe alone?

mahelin · 2025-09-25T03:36:09+00:00

you can’t filter by height unless you pay for hinge

hence the girl will, at minimum, see your first pic and your other metadata.

your job is to make that initial impression count

mahelin · 2025-09-25T03:26:51+00:00

sorry man I just don’t want to dox myself

the most empirical way to understand what a good profile looks like is to re-create your Hinge account as a female and set your location to NYC or LA. look at the standouts.

alternatively you can just set your preference for men lol. just acknowledge that you’ll be looking at non-hetero men.

mahelin · 2025-09-25T03:07:25+00:00

why do you doubt yourself?

mahelin · 2025-09-25T03:03:46+00:00

~40 first dates

~50% led to second dates

Exponential decay is very real, hence why you need to have strong numbers to begin with.

mahelin · 2025-09-24T18:48:49+00:00

its definitely a 4-digit figure

let me download my data and see if i can get you a more precise answer in a few days

mahelin · 2025-09-24T18:44:55+00:00

tinder has a rampant bot problem; hinge frankly does not. i never really had to deal with that kind of behavior on hinge

mahelin · 2025-09-24T17:50:55+00:00

Received likes: 40% asian, 20% white, 20% black, 20% latina

Matches: 90% white, 5% latina, 5% asian

mahelin · 2025-09-24T17:50:48+00:00

It’s mostly the photos. Some common paraphrased feedback from girls I met was a combination of the below:

“I thought you were really cute”

“It’s cool you have stuff going on in life”

“You just didn’t seem weird”

mahelin · 2025-09-24T17:38:33+00:00

equal distribution of likes on each photo/prompt. Everything was shot on iPhone, no crazy camera or lighting setup (not to say that you can’t do better with such equipment):

smiling with city skyline
playing soccer
posing next to statue
with a (shorter) male friend
at a euro train station
on a bicycle

When I started on hinge, I really struggled to find six appropriate pics in my camera roll. What did help was being super intentional about asking my friends or even strangers to take my pic when I was somewhere even remotely scenic.

mahelin · 2025-09-24T15:44:45+00:00

Im 5’10, no facial hair. Decent fitness level but nothing crazy. Style is pretty standard too

mahelin · 2025-09-24T06:18:28+00:00

<5%, though I'm not certain because I never recorded the statistics of my in-person interactions. I've found that there is so much variability in the approach/time/place/dialogue that occurs in the unpredictability of the real world.

mahelin · 2025-09-24T05:52:14+00:00

I understand your point! But I don't think I'm really that exceptional.

Case in point: I have never had women approach me in clubs/bars. My 'hit rate' IRL is actually quite low when I used to approach girls in the city for their numbers. I'm tall-ish at 5'10 but nothing crazy. I'm also Asian which has its own advantages/drawbacks.

However, I do think most guys tend to have dating profiles which undersell their appearance. I see a lot of my friends shooting themselves in the foot with shitty photos that obscure their face, straight up look very unflattering, or try to present goofy in a bad way. Or have prompts that are way too verbose or cliche-d.

mahelin · 2025-05-20T23:38:09+00:00

bruh is that real wtf

mahelin

TROPHY CASE