How Happn Works and What Crossing Paths Means

Instead of showing you a stack of strangers from across the city, happn shows you people you have actually crossed paths with. When another user passes within a short radius of you, they appear on your Main Page, whether you noticed them at the time or not. You can Like them in secret, so they only find out if they like you back, or you can send a SuperCrush, which sends them a notification. When two people like each other, happn calls it a Crush, and the two of you can start a conversation.

Crossing paths on happn does not mean you walked past each other on the same sidewalk and made eye contact. It means the two of you were within a short radius of each other at some point in your day, close enough for the app to count it.

That might be the coffee shop you both use, the train you both take, or the block where she works and you eat lunch. You may never have seen her. The app is not reporting a moment. It is reporting that your routines overlap.

That is the whole idea behind happn, and it is why the feed looks the way it does. The people in it are not random. They are people who spend time in the same places you do.

Most dating apps hand you a queue of people in your area and ask you to decide on each one, one after another. On happn, the Main Page is built from the people you crossed paths with instead.

That changes two things. The pool is smaller and closer, because it comes from where you go rather than from a whole city. And the same faces tend to come around again, because people who share your routine usually keep sharing it.

It also means the app rewards a man who gets out of the house. A man who works from home and orders in will see the same short list for weeks. A man who walks to the gym, eats out and takes the train sees a much wider one, simply because his day covers more ground.

There are three words to learn, and they are simple once you see how they fit together.

A Like is secret. You tap it, and the person never knows unless they Like you back.

A SuperCrush is the opposite. It sends a notification, so she knows straight away that you picked her, and she can accept it or not.

A Crush is what you get when two people have liked each other. It is happn's version of a match, and it is the point where you can start writing to each other.

The best thing about happn has nothing to do with the app itself. It is geography.

A woman who crosses your path lives or works near where you spend your time. That makes a first date easy to set up, because neither of you has to cross town for it. a dating coach's rules for dates from the apps put a lot of weight on keeping the date close to home, and happn hands you that almost by default.

It also gives you an easy, genuine thing to talk about. You already share a neighborhood, a coffee shop or a commute, and that is a better starting point than a comment on a photo.

The same feature that makes happn useful also limits it.

Your options depend on your routine. If your week is home, office and home again, the Main Page will be thin, and the fix is in your week rather than in the app. It is a supplement to the other apps for many men, not a replacement.

And because a Like is secret, it is easy to Like everyone and wait. a dating coach makes a point about apps in general that is worth keeping in mind. Liking everybody tells an app you are unselective. An app then has little reason to show its most attractive women to a man who likes anyone. Being picky costs you nothing either way. Be choosy with your Likes, and save the SuperCrush for the women you would genuinely be pleased to hear from.

Once you have a Crush, the job is the same as on any app. Get from the chat to a plan without letting it drag.

a dating coach aims to have a woman's number within four to seven messages, and chats that run for days without a plan tend to fade out. On happn you have a head start, because you already know you are near each other. Open with something short and specific, keep a light back and forth going for a few messages, then suggest a place you both clearly know.

"We keep crossing paths, so we might as well get a coffee at the place on the corner" is a completely natural line on happn. On most other apps it would be a stretch.