Does Hinge Show Your Exact Location?

No. When you set your location by hand, Hinge shows only the neighborhood you select, and it promises never to show your exact address. If a neighborhood still feels too close to home, you can zoom out to a wider area, or type in a more general place, before you save.

Your location sits in the row of basic details near the top of your page, next to a small compass icon. It reads like the answer you would give a stranger at a party. A neighborhood, or a part of the city. There is no pin, no street name and no building number.

So nobody can walk to your front door from what Hinge shows. What a woman can do is work out roughly how far apart the two of you are, and that is the one thing she actually wants to know. A drink with a man two stops away is an easy yes. A drink with a man across the river on a Tuesday night takes more convincing.

You can let Hinge use your phone's location by tapping the compass icon, or you can search for a place yourself. Either way, you can move the pin on the map before you save, and you decide how specific the name is.

To change it later, tap your Photo Icon, tap the Pencil Icon, then tap Location under My Vitals. Search for a place, move the map, or use the compass. Press the back arrow when you are done and the change saves.

One detail catches men out. Hinge leaves your location alone as you move around. It does not track you each time the app opens. If you move house or leave town, the old place stays on your page until you change it yourself.

Hinge takes its place names from Google Maps, and how far you zoom decides the label. Close in, the map offers small neighborhoods. Pull back and the names get bigger. Hinge's own example is choosing Manhattan instead of the West Village.

A broader name makes sense in a few situations. You live in a tiny neighborhood where half the street would recognize you. You work somewhere public and would rather keep your home area vague. Or you simply prefer that a stranger knows your borough and nothing narrower. None of these cost you much. She still knows you are close enough for a drink, and that is what the field is for.

For most men the specific name is the better choice, and not only for planning.

A neighborhood is a small piece of your life she can picture. It tells her whether you live near the park she runs in or the street with the noodle place she likes. That gives her something easy to say, and easy is what gets a conversation started.

It also answers a question before she has to ask it. Women on the apps decide quickly, and how far away you are is part of that decision. A clear answer removes one small doubt. A vague one adds a small chore, and she has plenty of other men to look at who did not give her one.

The app hides your address. Do not hand it over in the first few days of talking.

There is no reason for a woman you have never seen in person to know your street, and most women relax when you do not offer it. When you suggest a first drink, pick somewhere public and easy for both of you to reach. Where you each live can come up on its own later, once you have actually sat across a table from each other.

The same rule runs the other way. Do not ask for her address or press her for the exact block she lives on. A man who is relaxed about details comes across as safe to meet. A man who wants specifics too early comes across as the opposite, however harmless his reason.

Whatever level of detail you pick, make it accurate. A location that points to a neighborhood you left months ago sets up a letdown the moment she suggests a bar near it.

If you are staying somewhere for a short trip and set your location there, mention it early. "Back home on the fourth" or "in town for work this week" lets her decide with the real facts in front of her. The whole point of the app is a drink with a real person, and that only happens when both of you know where the other one actually is.