So, you’ve just sent a message on Hinge telling a joke you’re not sure is going to land. Or, worse, you’ve just said ‘shall we get a drink next week?’ and you’re wondering at what point to start freaking out.
Well, firstly, you should be more specific than that when proposing a date. But more on topic – you want to know if Hinge sends read receipts. Of course, this also causes problems the other way around.
Maybe you looked at the ‘fancy a drink’ message hours ago and then got distracted by playing Animal Crossing. It happens to the best of us, no shame. But will your match be mortally offended? Can someone on Hinge see if and when you read their message?
You will be relieved to find out that Hinge users can’t see when you have read their messages. Hinge doesn’t send read receipts. The app does send confirmation of delivery though, so you may have been caught out by a message delivered notification.
This just means the message had got through, but not necessarily that it has been opened.
So, you’re in the dark. It’s like the olden days when you’d just send a message tied to a bird’s leg and hope it got there. Seems kind of primitive… but you have to trust Hinge!
In fact, with UX design as advanced as Hinge’s you soon start to believe there’s a reason for every little thing.
I mean, Hinge forces us to engage on a deeper level than Tinder and apparently gets us feeling good by showing an interest (yes, the app makes us feel good by letting us talk about ourselves.
Related: Is Hinge Free?
I know how sad this is but, apparently, it’s the basis of some of Hinge’s success!) and makes dating a little more natural by stimulating the sorts of conversations we might have in real life.
Anyway, maybe not getting read receipts is a good thing. Hinge tells you your message has arrived so you know it’s not a tech problem, and then you can just wait like a damn normal person rather than seeing a read receipt and freaking out.
Oh my god, she hates me. She’s gone back to her ex. She’s been eaten by a shark. She’s showing all her friends my message. She’s showing her ex my message… Nah, calm down!
But if you are worried about her taking a screenshot and showing her ex, I answer the ‘does Hinge notify users of screenshots’ question in depth here. And for a general Hinge rundown, you can go here.
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What Happens When You Hide A Conversation On Hinge?
Introduced in 2017 as part of Hinge’s ‘Your Turn’ feature, the Hide a Conversation option in your Hinge inbox is designed to keep two places tidy. Your Hinge conversations tab, and your brain.
Hiding a conversation removes it from your inbox until your match says something again – so if a conversation is stalled but you’re damned if you’re going to revive it again then you can set it aside until the other user thinks of something to say.
We all know that seeing conversations like that languishing in our inboxes can be irritating, and sometimes leads us to make bad decisions re sending another message to someone who does not deserve our attention. And unmatching is so final. Plus, they’ll notice you’ve unmatched them, it’ll be a whole thing.
Just hide them instead, and if they earn a place with good chat they can renew their position in your good graces later! Your match won’t know they have been hidden, so there’s really no risk for you.
What’s ‘Your Turn’ On Hinge?
I thought you might ask after the explanation I just gave for hiding a conversation! Your Turn is a feature that was added to Hinge in 2017 to reduce the burden on the chattier partner to keep conversations going, or to open them when not feeling inspired.
Hinge figured out that ghosting often happens when there’s too much pressure on someone to keep a chat going, or when temporary boredom turns into unmatching.
In initial trials, Your Turn managed to reduce ghosting behavior by a whopping 25%, so that’s pretty promising!
Whatever part of the chat burden irks you, you can flip the scenario on its head by inviting a user to start a chat after they have liked or commented on one of your prompt answers or pics, or during a lull in an already active conversation.
Maybe you’ve been making all the effort recently, or maybe you simply do not have anything this evening but you still want to show interest. Either way, Your Turn is here to support you.
Does Hinge Show Inactive Users?
This isn’t as simple to answer as it would be for some other apps. Hinge doesn’t show when users are active, like say Instagram or Tinder, but most of the users you see in your feed (at least unless you are really plumbing the depths, hitting X on everyone) have been active within the last three days. Seventy-five percent of them in fact.
That does leave a quarter of the profiles you’re seeing potentially inactive. It’s really hard to find data on just how old they might be, but there’s also very little harm in messaging someone and not getting a reply right?
Hinge’s policy here is a little mysterious, presumably because they want their app to seem as populated as possible, but a seventy-five percent chance of getting an active user when you like someone from your feed is pretty good.
With all that being said, Hinge is trialing a new feature called Last Active, which will show you when a user was last active whilst swiping.
