On Using Dating Apps to Network [UnHinged]

Four weeks into my deep dive into the unknowns of online dating, the funny profiles have seemed to diminish and the messages have become bland.

As I sat on the couch one evening, I told Maeve how my online dating content is seemingly coming to an end. I cannot deliver boring content, I am not one to half-ass shenanigans. She didn’t understand though, she told me she was still receiving the kind of messages I had told her about just weeks ago. I gave her my phone, and she began scrolling through my home page of profiles.

“Why do all of these look like LinkedIn profile pictures?” She asked half-heartedly while scrolling faster and faster through profiles.

I let the words sink in before sitting straight up on the couch, “Oh my god, Maeve.”

“What? What?” She drops the phone down and looks at me concerned.

“I think it may be possible that I have been accidentally subconsciously using Hinge as a weird way to network,” I cautiously tell her. Maeve and I just met a month ago and although she’s seen me study for a test until 2am, I still don’t believe she fully understands the intensity I oftentimes operate at when it comes to my career and education.

“Girl, you need to delete your entire profile and just start again. I don’t even know how to fix this kind of algorithm.”

Maeve was right. I had downloaded the app for ‘work’, to write about it, but it slowly transitioned into Work, in relation to economics. Over the summer I would get notifications from LinkedIn that there was suspicious activity on my account because I would connect with so many people at the same time. It only seems natural that when I see that someone works at a top investment bank, studies economics, or works in consulting I try and connect, or match, with them.

I think back to a boy named Brennan I had been talking to. Its easy to realize now that the major reason I decided to match with him was that I saw he interned at a consulting firm and had his US school in his bio. When we matched, I looked him up on LinkedIn using his first name, school, and company. I found him, and to no surprise, his main photo on Hinge was also his LinkedIn profile picture.

I cannot diss an entire population, especially when I too have worked in finance and currently study economics, but oftentimes people work in finance for one major reason (other than the money). It’s repetitive and takes absolutely no creativity. It’s one of the most technical jobs you can have, so it’s no wonder that my interesting messages began to clear out synonymously with Hinge’s algorithm decidig I only liked finance bros.

So what am I supposed to do? As someone who likes to keep their screen time below an hour every day, I don’t want to sit on Hinge for hours trying to correct the algorithm. I looked through settings, there was nowhere I could submit a request to, “stop showing me finance boys.” I was, as Mother Hen says, “shit out of luck.”

So I did what had to be done. I deactivated my account and deleted my app. I had no other options, I needed to be stopped. It’s one thing to say you used LinkedIn to connect with workers and get the upper hand at a job, but what was my plan with networking on Hinge? If you’re one of the guys I ghosted, take this as a formal apology. Please don’t hold it against me if you ever see me interviewing with your company in the future.

Does this signify the means to an end for the UnHinged column? Not the end per se, but the end of this specific type of content based entirely on the escapades of my online dating life. Of course, there will be another time in my life when I feel the ever so slight proclivity to redownload the app and try my luck again, but until then UnHinged will just have to groan and expand into something bigger. If there’s one thing that is different about European men and American men, it’s boldness. They will walk right up to you, sit down, and just begin talking. All of this to say, UnHinged is changing, but there will be no lack of entertainment.

Yours truly,

Calihan