The Guy
hinge's new ai openers are even worse than you think
tldr: Hinge's AI openers all reference her bio and ask an on-brand question, which makes every guy identical in her inbox. They audition for a sale she already closed by matching you. The openers that work ignore the profile entirely and give her something to be curious about instead.
Hinge just shipped AI openers. I went through the three examples they put in their own press release. The ones they're proud of. The ones marketing signed off on.
They're worse than you think. And I want to walk through exactly why, because 35% of Hinge users adopted this feature in the first month. That's at least a third of the men on the app, all being handed the same wallpaper, all thinking they're standing out.
what does hinge's ai actually recommend you send?
First example. Attractive woman, photo of her playing soccer. Hinge's AI suggests:
"Are you on a rec team or do you play for fun? I'm always down to be a cheerleader" plus a star emoji.
The AI looked at a photo of a girl with a ball and said, ask her about the ball. Groundbreaking. Every guy who sees that photo asks about soccer. You just became guy number 47 today who mentioned the thing in her hands.
Then "I'm always down to be a cheerleader." You volunteered to stand on the sideline and clap for her. She hasn't said one word to you and you're already auditioning to be her fan. The emoji is the cherry on a sundae nobody ordered.
Here's what it is, structurally. It's a job application. You asked about her qualifications, then offered to be her unpaid intern. You do this at work and it's smart. You do it here and you're wallpaper. She's already swiping to the next guy. She's thinking nothing. There's nothing to think.
This is the same mistake I break down in referencing her bio is a trap. The bio detail feels like the safe move. It's the most dangerous one.
why does referencing her bio make you invisible?
The chess example is where it gets funny. Girl has a chess photo. Hinge's AI says:
"YES to chess, but serious question... ever played backgammon?"
The all-caps YES is you applauding her hobby like a substitute teacher handing out a gold star. Then the dramatic ellipsis, building suspense, making her lean in. She waited through the pause. She leaned in. And she got backgammon.
You did a bit. You didn't know it wasn't funny. You acted like you were about to reveal classified information and then asked about the most beige board game ever invented. She played the suspense game with you and lost. She's never thinking about you again.
The thrifting one is the purest version of the trap. Her prompt says she loves thrifting on weekends. The AI's genius move:
"Reunited with my long lost sweater at a thrift shop once. What's been your best find?"
The AI read her bio and decided the most original thing to do was ask her the exact question her bio was designed to make every guy ask. You invented a whimsical sweater love story nobody requested, stapled a heart emoji to it, then closed with a talk-show-host question. Barbara Walters energy. You're conducting a segment. She's seen this 40 times today.
Every one of these does the same three things. References her profile. Turns you into her fan. And gives her nothing to be curious about. You unveiled all your cards on the first move. She knows exactly who you are. She doesn't need to investigate. So she doesn't respond. Sometimes she unmatches.
what should you send instead?
Watch what happens when you stop auditioning. Here's the swap for the soccer girl.
BEFORE (hinge ai): are you on a rec team or do you play for fun? i'm always down to be a cheerleader ⭐
AFTER: i got a voicemail from a number i don't recognize and i think it was you
OTHER OPTIONS:
- i need your help with something and i can't explain what yet
- my doctor told me to stop talking to people like you but he didn't say why
Sit with those.
Notice what they don't do. No compliment. No question about her. No acknowledgment that soccer exists. They're open loops. She has to ask you a question to find out what you mean. You flipped it. Now she's investing, she's curious, she's the one leaning in.
I can already hear the panic. "But you didn't ask a question, how does she respond? But you didn't compliment her, I was told you have to compliment her." That advice is why you blend in. It's not what the words say. It's what they signal. And these signal that you're not taking the app seriously, which reads as fun and chill, and that you actually know how to flirt.
Same fix for the thrifting girl. Ignore the bookstores and thrift shops. Every girl on Hinge likes those. Send "I'm going to be honest with you about something and it might change how you see me." Or "something happened to me last week and I haven't told anyone yet." She matched with you. She swiped right too. The sale is closed. Stop auditioning for a job you already got.
why do smart, successful men send the worst openers?
This is the part nobody explains. The traits that made you successful everywhere else are the exact traits sabotaging you here.
You're conscientious. You do your homework. You reviewed her profile, found a shared interest, crafted a thoughtful question. That's how you got the promotion. That's how you got fit. That's how you built the hobbies. In every other arena, doing the homework is high value.
On the apps, the signal inverts. This is Signal Inversion Theory: the effort that reads as high value in your career reads as tryhard and low-options on a dating app. The thoughtful bio question doesn't say "I'm thorough." It says "I think I deserve a response because I did my homework." That's the tell of a guy with no other matches.
Hinge's AI cranks this inversion to maximum because of what it's trained on. I read the press release. It's running on cheap, generic AI trained on the entire internet's dating advice, which is the worst possible dataset. Half of it is red pill, half is blue pill, the rest is the same recycled "reference her bio" tip every beginner reads on day one. Crawl all of it, mash it together, and you get the average of every bad idea at once. I wrote about why red pill and blue pill both fail because they're two sides of the same broken coin, and generic AI swallowed both.
why is the men-have-fewer-matches complaint your own fault?
Guys love this stat. For every woman on the apps there are eight men. An average-looking woman gets 50 matches a day. The best-looking men get eight. Not fair.
Then those same men take the one match they got and instantly put her on a pedestal with an opener that volunteers to be her cheerleader. You complain she has abundance and options, then you treat her like she's the last woman on earth. The math isn't the problem. Your opener is. This is the same trap I cover in trying to impress her after she matched. The impressing is the sabotage.
why does texting like an idiot toddler beat the perfect opener?
Here's the good news, and it's better than you think.
The Idiot Toddler Framework works best on the guy who has everything else going for him. When you're well-dressed, employed, charismatic in person, with real hobbies, and then you text something dumb and unbothered, the disconnect creates the intrigue. She can't figure you out. She's got every other guy solved on the first message. You're the one exception.
That's the whole game. Mystery beats qualification. A dumb open loop beats a polished cover letter every time.
And Hinge's rollout is a gift. A third of the men on the app are now sending the same AI wallpaper. While they blend in, you can send the one message that makes her curious. The competition just volunteered to be identical. You don't have to.
try The Guy at asktheguy.app. paste your conversation, get the version that actually works.
video transcript
All right, guys. So Hinge just released AI openers, and somehow, some way, they're even more cringe than you would've possibly imagined. So in this video, I'm gonna go over the three openers they promoted with the press release they used to announce this new feature, and I'm gonna use The Guy app, link in the description, to roast these openers and explain why they don't work.
Okay? So number one... All these openers, by the way, reference the bio, okay? So there's a attractive woman and she's playing, and there's a photo of her playing soccer. The Hinge AI recommends you open with, quote, "Are you on a rec team or do you play for fun? Question mark. I'm always down to be a cheerleader," star emoji.
Can you imagine sending that? I hope you're not sending that if you're watching this video. Now, let me just plug this into The Guy app and it's gonna give you an analysis of why this won't work, along with three handpicked options, all of which are infinitely better. Number one, the AI suggestions. Debate...
Let's go into it. So the AI looked at a photo of a girl playing soccer and said, "Hey, you should interview her about soccer." Groundbreaking. Every guy who sees that photo is asking about soccer. The AI just made him guy number 47 today who said something about the ball in her hands. And then it, it says about the specific line, "This is a job application.
He asked about her qualifications and then offered to be her unpaid intern." "I'm always down to be a cheerleader," is him literally volunteering to stand on the sidelines and clap for her. She hasn't said a single word to him, and he's already auditioning to be her fan. The emoji is the cherry on top of a sundae nobody ordered.
And then what is she thinking on the other end? 'Cause guys, you should always put yourself in her shoes, right? She's thinking literally nothing. She's already swiping to the next guy. This guy is just wallpaper. What he should send instead is, number one, ignore soccer entirely, 'cause every other guy is gonna be commenting on soccer.
And number two... What you should send is, number one, three, three options right here of what to send instead. "I got a voicemail from a number I don't recognize, and I think it was you." Number two, "I need your help with something and I s- can't explain what yet." Or number three, "My doctor told me to stop talking to people like you, but he didn't say why."
You see how those are all open-ended, forces her to invest in the conversation and ask you questions? That's how you flip the dynamic on the app. So you stop interviewing and chasing her, and actually get her to take an interest in you, okay? And at the end of this video, I'll explain three key reasons why none of these openers work, but hopefully you're getting the idea based on this analysis.
Number three, this girl has a photo of her playing chess. The, the Hinge AI recommends saying, "YES," all caps, "to chess, but serious question... Ever played backgammon?" First of all, I don't even know what backgammon is. Number two, this is the guy's analysis, okay? So it says, "The all caps yes is him applauding her hobby like a substitute teacher.
Gold star. Then serious question with the dramatic ellipsis building suspense for backgammon. He acted like he was about to reveal classified information and then asked about the most beige board game ever invented. He's doing a bit but doesn't know it's not funny. What she's thinking: She played the suspense game with him.
She waited through the ellipsis. She leaned in, and she got backgammon. She's never thinking about this man again." Yeah, if you wanna be the most forgettable guy on the apps, use the Hinge AI feature. That's fantastic. And I can't believe guys are actually paying for this, 'cause Hinge, look at the subscription cost, guys.
It costs a lot of money. And their AI, I've re- I read through the press releases, literally chained, trained on ChatGPT, probably the free version if I had to ask y'all myself. Um, guys, you just have absolutely no chance if you're using this. No chance whatsoever What he should send instead. The chest photo is a trap.
Guys, sirens in the background 'cause they don't want you to know this information. The chest photo is a trap. Every guy is asking about chests. Don't even acknowledge it exists. Yeah, guys, if you're new to the channel, go back and watch the video. I'll link it up here somewhere. You never reference the bio.
That's the number one way to blend in with every guy in the app because that's the best practice, right? That's what you learn if you watch one video on how to text on the apps, is reference the bio so you can establish shared mutual interest or something. Guys, everyone's doing that, and if you're watching this video still to this point, you know it doesn't work.
What does work is these three options, all right? Number one: I need to tell you something, and you're not gonna like it. Number two: My landlord just asked me if I'm okay, and I don't know how to answer. Or number three: Someone has been opening my mail, and I think I know who. Okay? So do you see how those are way more interesting?
And guys, what it signals is... 'Cause I can already hear the complaints. "Oh, but you're not asking a question. How's she gonna respond? Oh, but you're not complimenting her. I was told you need to compliment." Guys, you're flipping the dynamic. All of those right there make you interesting, and it also signals.
It's not what the words say, it's what they signal. And what it signals is you're a guy who's not taking this super seriously, and therefore, you're probably fun and chill to hang out with. And number two, you actually know how to flirt, okay? And you're confident, okay? What you have to understand is all the traits that made you successful in real life, the conscientiousness, the responsibility, the doing your homework, all that just reads...
You think it's high value in every other area of your life. That's how you got to be successful in your career. That's how you got to be fit. That's how you developed interesting hobbies. But on the apps, the signal gets inverted, and all those high-value traits in the real world, on the digital platforms like Hinge, Bumble, Tinder, whatever app you're using, Instagram DMs, and text message of course, it just reads as overcompensating, as tryhard, as a guy who doesn't have any options, okay?
So this is the paradox you must understand if you actually wanna have success with the text communication on wherever you're communicating with women digitally. And until you make the mindset shift... And guys, I was the same way. I was making... I, I mean, I wouldn't say my messages were this bad, but they were in the ballpark, okay?
And until I made the mindset shift with the help of my co-founder and we fell ass-backwards into developing The Guy app, which is a very counterintuitive texting philosophy you've almost certainly never heard of, you will not be able to have success until then. And guys, if you're curious, the link is in the description.
Free trial. Last example. So she has a prompt on her photo, something about how she loves to go thrifting. Something about how she loves to go thrifting on the weekends, right? And then the Hinge AI example is, "Reunited with my long lost sweater at a thrift shop once." And then it's like the, um, heart thing.
All right? "What's been your best find?" Quote. So she wanted to know what your best, uh, what, like, what your best find at a thrift shop is. The guy fell right into the trap here with that one. The AI read her bio and said, "You know what would be original? Asking her the thing her bio is specifically designed to make every guy ask."
Congratulations, you are now indistinguishable from everyone else in her inbox. Exactly, guys. And if you're watching this video and you have the pleasure, the privilege of not being on the dating apps, you're probably like, "Does anyone even use this?" I looked it up. Apparently, in, like, the first month or so, 35% of Hinge users used this.
So at least a third, probably even more, are using this feature and shooting themselves directly in the foot, fumbling the match instantly. All right, so the guy continues. He invented a cute little sweater love story nobody asked for, and then stapled a heart emoji to it. He's doing whimsical. He's doing relatable.
He's doing I also enjoy the thing you enjoy, and here's a charming anecdote to prove it. He's auditioning for the role. Then he ends with a question straight from a talk show host cue card. Barbara Walters energy. This man is conducting a segment. And then, yeah, guys, she's seen this, uh, 40 times today.
Stand, it does not stand out. It blends in for all the wrong reasons
The guy says what he should send instead. She said she likes bookstores and thrift shops, so do, so did every other girl on Hinge. True. Ignore it completely. One, I'm going to be honest with you about something, and it might change how you see me. How's she not gonna respond to that? Guys, keep in mind, she already matched with you.
She swiped right too. All these texts that the Hinge AI is recommending is just auditioning when the sale is already closed. Two, something happened to me last week, and I haven't told anyone yet. Three, I don't know who else to ask about this. Now, guys, here's the big three mistakes with these Hinge AI-generated prompts.
And keep in mind, it's just trained on data that is basically the worst data to be possibly training on, okay? The cheapest ChatGPT free tier model. The guys... Now, The Guy app is built on the latest cutting-edge AI software with an insanely detailed prompt. We had to reverse engineer so much bad information online because either you're gonna go down the red pill rabbit hole, the blue pill rabbit hole, or just, like, the most generic dating advice, and AI just crawls the entire internet and mashes that all up, and you just get the worst possible combination of all the dating advice possible.
So we had to completely reverse engineer this with The Guy app, and it might be artificial general intelligence, which if we developed, we apologize for. It was an accident, we promise. So number one, you can't respond to her profile. Nothing on... Do not reference anything on her profile 'cause it just reads as a guy who thinks he deserves a response because he did the homework, quote, unquote, of reviewing her profile and asking a thoughtful question Two, they make you a fan.
So many of you guys complain about the dating apps. You say it's not fair for like every one woman on the apps, there's like eight guys. They have an abundance of options. Even an average looking woman gets like 50 matches a day. The best looking guys only get eight matches a day. It's not fair. But then the same guys turn around and put her on a pedestal instantly with some of the worst openers possible.
And three, most importantly, they give her nothing to be curious about because you just unveiled all your cards right away, all right? And she knows who you are. She's seen it all a million times. She doesn't need to investigate further. This is why she doesn't even bother to respond. This is why she might even unmatch, okay?
Right away. So guys, moral of the story, if you want to fix the text game, you know what to do. The link is in the description. Here's the best news possible. Number one, this actually presents a huge opportunity for you if you know what you're doing because you can use the guy app while everyone else is using the generic AI hinge openers and get a huge competition.
And number two, you can do this instantly. You can just get a free trial, start using the guy app and instantly improve your text game and start texting like the catch you are. And guys, guess what? A bonus point here. When you have everything else going for you, when you're well-dressed, when you have good hobbies, when you're charismatic in real life, when you have a good career, you texting like an idiot virgin toddler is actually the most attractive thing you could possibly be doing because the disconnect, the dichotomy, the paradox creates interest and mystery and intrigue.
And she's going to have to get to know you. She's not going to be able to figure you out right away. She's got every other guy figured out right away with those openers, okay? And guys, you can get it fixed literally instantly. Link in the description, free trial. See for yourself. What do you have to lose?
Absolutely nothing, especially if you're using these hinge AI openers. So that's it for me in this one, fellas. Like the video, subscribe. I'll see you in the next one. Take it easy. Bye.