Ask These Questions To Have Better Conversations On Dating Apps
If you’ve been on dating apps for a decent amount of time, you’ll be all too familiar with the fatigue they can bring on. After all, there’s only so many times you can tell somebody your favourite song, colour or pizza topping before you get disillusioned with the whole idea of dating entirely.
This fatigue can lead to disinterest, which can often manifest as ghosting people. It’s not ideal, really.
The relationship and dating experts at Hinge reckon there is a solution for this. In their newest update, Your Turn Limits, Hinge will prompt daters who have too many people waiting on their response to either reply or end open conversations before they can make new connections.
HuffPost UK spoke exclusively with Hinge’s Director of Relationship Science, Logan Ury, about how to build more meaningful connections and how to prevent the conversation from getting stale.
What are daters getting wrong when it comes to keeping the conversation going?
It seems obvious, but far too many daters are guilty of what I call “ZQ” (Zero Questions).
Too many conversations consist of people asking, “How was your weekend?” back and forth until one of them gives up. Instead of sticking to generic questions, ask more specific and engaging questions.
For example, ‘What’s something you’re really passionate about lately?’ or ‘If you could plan your ideal weekend, what would it look like?’. If you’re stuck, take another look at their profile and ask follow-up questions to learn more about them.
Are there any standard questions like favourite movie etc that should be avoided on first contact to keep it fresh and different from other chats?
A great conversation is all about taking turns sharing your own experiences and thoughts. You don’t want to have “ZQ”, but you also don’t want to make someone feel like they’re interviewing for a job.
Why not offer hot takes? Surprising commentary or opinions. Hot takes naturally break the ice. They can help the conversation move past small talk and create a more fun and dynamic interaction. Examples of hot takes:
The Lego Movie is the best superhero movie of all time. (Share this with a Marvel fan at your own peril.)
People should have to pay a small fee to send you an email.
Video games are the purest form of art.
All coffee should be iced, regardless of the weather.
Is meeting someone sooner rather than later a good idea to keep the momentum going?
It’s hard to keep the small talk going without things fizzling out. That’s why we recommend you get to the date — whether it’s a video call, phone call, or in person hang — ASAP. After three days of chatting is the sweet spot.
Through our research at Hinge, we’ve seen that success is less about increasing the quantity of matches, and more about building strong connections with a few people at a time.
At Hinge, we know that one of the biggest contributors to dater burnout is not hearing back from matches. We’re launching Your Turn Limits because we found that it increased responsiveness on the app, helped daters shift their mindset from quantity to quality, and be more thoughtful about who they matched with in the first place.
I was thrilled to see that a third of users who experienced Your Turn Limits said they responded faster to messages, and over a quarter said YTL helped reduce dating burnout. This is a huge step in the right direction toward driving positive dating habits.
