Dear Men, It’s Time To Stop Using Hinge Voice Prompts!
We need to talk about Hinge voice prompts.
Specifically, we need to talk about how it’s time to STOP using Hinge voice notes in the question prompts.
My friends can vouch for the fact I love a voice memo. I am the type of person when someone sends me a message with a general “update me on your life, who you’re dating, latest work drama” etc. I will reply in about 5-7 memos varying in length between 20-second short bursts or five-minute “voice novels” as I like to call them.
I’ve used memos on dating apps before to converse with matches (normally only if they start it, because I’m not that concerned about giving some random guy called Jack a rundown of my life via Bumble voice memo).
But the Hinge voice prompts are truly one quick way to take things from “this person seems reasonable” to “this person has given me an ick I will never, ever get over.”
every man’s Hinge voice memo is a jump scare
— Sabina Meschke (@sabinameschke) January 3, 2022
As a woman who dates men, I have found the following Hinge voice prompts all too common:
- Making some sort of crass fart noise, breathing heavily into the recording, or making other strange noises (Chewbacca being quite common).
- Playing something from a speaker that is clearly not them.
- Playing some sort of weird joke from a TV show — normally a show straight men love like Seinfeld or The Simpsons.
- Singing ‘Wonderwall’ in an off-key delivery.
- Playing acoustic guitar to waste 15 seconds of my life.
- Actually singing something to prove they have “musical talent” that sounds anywhere between terrifying and maybe borderline passable on a karaoke night after numerous tequila shots.
Regardless of which option above is picked, none of them lead to good things!
How do we solve this problem of Hinge voice notes giving us all the ick? Thanks for asking. We simply must, agree, as people, to stop doing them. It’s that simple. Just stop!
Now, I’m not saying to never use the voice memo function on apps. It can be a great way to start a connection or conversation with someone after the initial “how’s it going?” vibes. Send your match an actual memo if you want, after you’ve matched (but no, this does not include you wailing “But maaaaaybaaaaay, you’re gonna be the one that saves maaaaaeeee”).
Once again, I can only speak from the experience of a woman dating men about how bizarre it is to see them throw all sorts of weird voice notes out there in the hopes of getting a match and/or laid.
But gentlemen, I have news for you.
If men stop with the bad voice prompts, they may see an increase in matches. If men stop with the bad voice prompts, my jaw will stop clenching tightly every time I listen to them make a bad joke then laugh heartily at themselves in a way that doesn’t quite mask their obvious embarrassment.
Is it really working millennial women halting the process of having children? No, it’s the fact we simply stop ovulating every time we hear a straight man’s voice prompt on Hinge.
If men stop with the bad voice prompts, they’ll probably up their chances of landing a match on Hinge from 0% to at least 50%*. That’s a risk worth taking!
*This is not a factual statistic, but I assume it’s pretty on point.
So men, people of the world, I beg of you — next time you’re filling in your Hinge prompts and think your voice prompt idea is a really funny, unique one, have a long hard think. And when you do, you’ll come to the conclusion that your profile is better off without it and you’ll appear 100 times hotter.
if i had to choose between having my arm cut off and listening to some man’s voice memo on Hinge you’d better get to chopping
— ✰ samantha ✰ (@milkygoddess) May 27, 2022
And yes, sorry, but that includes, faking a scenario where you’re crashing a car, someone’s walking in on you doing god knows what , or you pretending to fall off a cliff or whatever the fuck else you came up with that day.
In 2023, let’s join together to stop doing ridiculous voice notes on Hinge. I have faith in you all.
Now go live your best hot boy and girl summers, without scaring all of your matches.
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Editor’s note: part of this article was originally posted on dating newsletter Shit Straight Men Say.