How to Answer the "Don't Hate Me If I" Prompt on Hinge

Admit one small, harmless fault, state it plainly, and give enough detail that she can tease you for it. A good one is about this size: "Don't hate me if I fall asleep during the second act of every film." She can tease you for that in her first line.

Most prompts ask you to sound interesting. This one asks you to sound human, which is easier and rarer.

Men spend a profile trying to look bulletproof. Good photos, a respectable job, a tidy list of hobbies. A small flaw admitted with a straight face breaks that spell in a useful way. It tells her you are comfortable enough to be teased, and being teased is a reply. You want people to be able to enjoy being slightly rude to you in the first message.

The target is enough honesty to feel real, not a therapy session. A man who can admit one small fault comes across as more sure of himself than a man who admits none.

A good one is small, true and funny in its detail. Check all three.

Small means the cost lands on you, not on her. Saying the thermostat never goes above a certain number in your flat is small. Saying you never reply to anyone before noon is a hint about how an evening with you will go.

True means you actually do it. If you invent a quirk, you will be asked about it, and you will have nothing.

Funny in its detail means the specifics carry the joke. "I narrate cooking shows to the screen like they can hear me" is a picture. "I'm a bit quirky" is a label, and labels blur together.

Two kinds of faults fail, and they fail in opposite directions.

The humblebrag pretends to confess while advertising. I work too hard, I care too much, I'm too generous. She has read these, she knows what they are, and they make her trust the rest of the page a little less.

The red flag is a real problem presented as a joke: money habits, honesty or a temper. Our view: self-deprecation works when the thing you admit is small, and it fails when it tells her that an evening with you will be work. If the fault would worry her on a third date, it does not belong in a prompt.

Do not apologize in the answer. Do not explain it. Do not wrap it in three layers of jokes about being a bad dater.

State it the way you would say it across a table. "Don't hate me if I read the last page of every book first." That is the whole answer. She can reply "that is illegal" or "what do you do with mystery novels," and either reply is a chat.

Compare it with a defensive version: "Don't hate me if I'm a bit weird about my books, I know it's not for everyone, sorry." The extra words ask for permission, and permission-seeking reads as nerves. Short and calm wins.

An answer works when it leaves her something to hold: an opinion to argue with, a detail to ask about, or a small plan to say yes to. A fault is the second kind. The handle is the detail.

Two versions of the same admission. "Don't hate me if I'm competitive" gives her a label. "Don't hate me if I keep score at mini golf, including yours" gives her a scene, a question ("who is winning?") and a rough sense of what any game with you is like.

Hinge's relationship expert advises writing the answer as a hook and finishing with something open, so the other person has an easy way to respond. You can do that without a question mark. A fault with a loose end does it for you.

Our coaches' view is that one-word, lazy answers do nothing, and that answers written to be nice blend in. The goal of a profile is to stand out, not to fit in. Your prompt answers should not all do the same job. Let one show what a day with you is like, and let another state an opinion she can argue with. A fault she can tease is the answer that makes replying easy, and it works best next to a stronger answer rather than as the only personality on the page.

If it is not working, swap it. Hinge lets you change your prompts as often as you want, and its Prompt Feedback tool labels an answer as a Great Answer, a Try a Small Change or a Go a Little Deeper. If a fault answer comes back with the "Go a Little Deeper" label, add the specific scene and read it back once more.